Posted on 11/05/2013 10:44:22 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
TYSONS CORNER -- Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic fundraiser and confidant of Bill and Hillary Clinton, will be Virginia's next governor after defeating his conservative opponent, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, on Tuesday in a race that confirmed the state's status as an increasingly blue battleground.
The marquee contest was marked throughout by historically high spending, a relentless barrage of attacks on both sides and campaign trail cameos by some of the nation's most prominent political figures.
With more than 99 percent of precincts reporting, McAuliffe led Cuccinelli by less than 2 percent — 48 percent to 46 percent — or roughly 40,000 votes.
“This race was never a choice between Democrats or Republicans,” McAuliffe said in his victory speech to an excited crowd of supporters in a hotel ballroom. “It was a choice about whether Virginia would continue the mainstream bipartisan tradition that has served us so well over the past decade.”
Democrat Ralph Northam was elected as the state's next lieutenant governor, unofficial returns showed. He defeated Republican E.W. Jackson, a Baptist minister whose controversial past statements on hot-button issues like gay rights and abortion made him an easy target for Democrats.
Democrats did not sweep all three top statewide offices, however. Mark Obenshain, the Republican candidate for attorney general, led Democrat Mark Herring by 2 percent with 94 percent of the precincts counted.
But it was the McAuliffe-Cuccinelli showdown that captured the national attention of both Democrats and Republicans looking for early indications of voter attitudes and potential campaign strategies ahead of the 2014 congressional elections.
McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and friend and fundraiser for the Clintons, easily outspent Cuccinelli by nearly 2-to-1, allowing him to fund a barrage of attack ads that portrayed Cuccinelli as an ideological extremist.
McAuliffe also benefited from a highly effective get-out-the-vote effort that, in an election that hinged on turnout, helped push participation levels beyond that of the last gubernatorial campaign in 2009 and closer to the 2012 presidential election's levels.
One measure of the race's status as the most competitive race in the off-year elections nationwide was the parade of political celebrities who made their way to the Old Dominion's campaign trail.
President Obama and the Clintons, among others, campaigned with and raised cash for McAuliffe. A trio of Tea Party heroes — Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco Rubio of Florida — were among those standing with Cuccinelli.
The Virginia race played out against a political backdrop of a government shutdown, gridlocked Congress and internal feud between conservative and moderate Republicans. McAuliffe tried to tie Cuccinelli to Washington’s problems, including the conservative-driven shutdown. Cuccinelli, meanwhile, linked McAuliffe to the increasingly unpopular Obama and the president’s troubled health care reforms. On the eve of the election, Cuccinelli declared his race to be a referendum on Obamacare.
"This race came down to the wire because of Obamacare," Cuccinelli said Tuesday.
McAuliffe’s fundraising advantage was clearly paying dividends, particularly late in the race when it mattered most. During the week of Oct. 28, McAuliffe’s campaign ran roughly 2,500 TV ads — spending about as much as Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, did to win in 2009 — compared with 1,500 aired by Cuccinelli’s campaign.
Polls in the final days of the election showed McAuliffe leading Cuccinelli by roughly 6 to 7 percentage points.
In addition to enduring the advertising blitz, Cuccinelli was also hamstrung by a conservative record that alienated moderate and independent voters — and by more than a few of his fellow Republicans who backed McAuliffe.
The strain between Cuccinelli and much of the rest of his party was fueled by Cuccinelli’s successful effort to change the Republican nominating process from an open primary that favored a moderate candidate to a closed convention dominated by his conservative supporters.
McAuliffe faced his own obstacles, including his ties to GreenTech Automotive, a company he helped found that was the subject of a federal investigation into whether he obtained special treatment for the company from the federal government.
Some voters were left dissatisfied with both candidates and drove Robert Sarvis, a libertarian candidate whose candidacy offered voters turned off by McAuliffe and Cuccinelli a none-of-the-above option. Unofficial returns showed Sarvis winning about 7 percent of the vote.
the democrats spent 30 million combined in addition to financing a third party to convince three percent of the population in VA that a man wanted to do something he never said he wanted to do (ban abortions), wanted to ban something he can’t ban (birth control) and that a family man who is an attorney general wanted to give felons illegal guns to kill you and your children.
They only won a plurality by three percent.
I read you. I’ve been up all night in withdrawal and aftermath of this ride. As I was leaving the poll I passed a harried young woman carrying a child and herding another. Did her vote cancel mine? I can live with that but not this sleeezy nasty game they played on Virginia and the rest of US.
It's pretty clear that they simply don't want to win. Fundraising is more important to them than governing, and they can get suckers to pony up more money when they are out of power by playing on people's fears. "Help us fight all the terrible things Obama is doing" brings in more cash than "everything's great, help us keep the status quo". They pay themselves quite well out of the money people contribute.
Also; right out of the box, didn’t McAuffus refer to Cuccinelli as a “fine and decent man” in his acceptance speech? Just where did he Lie first?
This is a failure of the eGOP. We need no more proof that the Republican party has left the conservatives and went liberal. The Republican party refuses to support TEA Party supported candidates. Screw the Republican party!
“The voters put them there. We have to face the fact that with the present makeup of the electorate on a national level, we are a minority.”
That’s a completely wrong assessment.
Republicans and conservatives control 26 states, while rats control 11. In many states, rats don’t hold a single state-wide office.
What we’re seeing is a massive but slow movement of the population into states that reflect specific political and economic beliefs. For example, Michigan lost about 600,000 citizens in the period between 2000 and 2008. Most of them were the conservative working class and entrepreneurs. Those people moved to conservative leaning states and bolstered the conservative credentials of those states.
The population is dividing ideologically much as it did prior to the Civil War.
In 2011, the foreign born represented 11.1 percent of Virginia's total population. In 2011, 11.1 percent of Virginia's total population were immigrants, compared to 8.1 percent in 2000 and 5.0 percent in 1990.
Of the total immigrant population in Virginia, 26.5 percent entered during the 1990s, and 43.0 percent entered in 2000 or later. Let that one sink it.
Of the foreign-born population resident in Virginia in 2011, 14.3 percent entered the country prior to 1980, 16.2 percent between 1980 and 1989, 26.5 percent between 1990 and 1999, and 43.0 percent in 2000 or later.
In Virginia, 86.1 percent of the immigrants who entered before 1980 were citizens, compared to 17.6 percent of those who entered in 2000 or later.
There's your 3%, and then some. And guess what? It's climbing. Every year. By way of Dulles International Airport, and a policy of non-enforcement. And there is nothing we can do about it.
Welcome to Rome.
Conservatives losing these elections is not because they are poor candidates. It’s the rotted populace.
You are absolutely right. The “rotted populace” is exactly right.
The malignant cancer that is NOVA continues to spread. So do I retire to Virginia and add my vote in defense of her, or retire to a less purple state. NOVA is rapidly destroying my planned retirement state.
Exactly! It is Jeb’s “turn” and he will continue our plunge into socialism unabated.
Socialism infers we receive something in return for political quiescence.
The 1%’ers are parasites, that will kill us, eventually.
/Note: the Bushes are instruments of the parasites, not 1%’ers, themselves. For instannce, W’s net worth of 17 million is pocket change to the tens of billions controlled by the real Masters of the Universe.
//removes tinfoil hat
“..Do not ever send money to the RNC.”
Agreed, and tell them why when they call us for $$.
“..The Libertarian party did nothing to disavow him,”
The Libertarian Party obviously cares more about their party than what’s best for Virginia.
And the RNC is disgusting as well.
I received this from a CatholicVote.org email:
“The national GOP spent approximately $3 million on this race vs. $9 million spent in 2009”
SHAMEFUL!
The RNC only likes liberal or moderate Republicans.
I’ll repeat part of my last post for you:
From a CatholicVote.org email:
“The national GOP spent approximately $3 million on this race vs. $9 million spent in 2009”
I’m days late but the recount to whoever Sharp to beat Obensheim means something. I don’t even know off-hand his name correctly yet he is in this close recount.
THEY are finding all kinds of problems in the recount. They “said” that they are not partisan. The recount should have been about the Governor too.
It doesn’t make feakin sense.
Another thing which doesn’t make sense is all segments splitting apart and criticizing each other.This is WAR. The enemy is united and cement together like insects. They pick us off, one by one, like the hordes as times before. They are stupid like insects for repeating the plan of eating their hosts.
It's a recipe for never winning another national election.
From that comes another situation. I don’t think it will be eating bark before it’s ratting out your neighbor. For Anything when the squeeze starts.
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