Posted on 11/06/2013 5:50:04 AM PST by Timber Rattler
When the facts are considered in the slim victory that terribly flawed Democrat Terry McAuliffe had against Ken Cuccinelli, it’s hard to deny the conclusion that the Republican party decided it was better to abandon Virginia to the Democrat party than to allow the Tea Party and social conservatives to win.
Here they are:
The Republican National Committee spent three times as much in 2009 on the same race as they did this year. The Chamber of Commerce spent one million dollars in the last Governor’s race, and not one dime on Cuccinelli. While its often claimed that Tea Party candidates do poorly among independents, Cuccinelli actually won independents by 9 points, 47 percent to 38 percent. “McAuliffe outraised Cuccinelli by almost $15 million,” and in the last weeks of the campaign, this left Cuccinelli with nearly no media exposure. Even Politico wonders if Cuccinelli was beginning to turn the tide against the “War on Women” narrative, as he drove down McAuliffe’s lead among women from 24% in polling to 9%.
In the last month, Cuccinelli’s claim that the election was a referendum on Obamacare started closing the gap for him – the continuing debacle of Obama’s signature legislation was taking its toll on his opponent. But ultimately, he couldn’t close the gap without help.
Help that disappeared in the last weeks of the campaign, and could have pushed him over the top.
Finally, a libertarian third party candidate served as a spoiler, stealing a fair percentage of votes away from Cuccinelli, and diluting the conservative message.
To be sure, there were some missteps in the Cuccinelli camp, but the final results show that this could have been a win for Republicans, and the loss was due in no small part to the reticence of the national Republican party to support a social conservative.
If the Republican establishment had thought it important enough to carry Virginia into the “R” column instead of using the loss as a cudgel to beat the grassroots Tea Party insurgent movement, perhaps it would have devoted more resources towards winning this crucial election.
Instead, we’ll continue to hear how “extremist” conservatives can’t win elections, while they praise the Obama-hugging moderates like Chris Christie.
The image of Chris Christie, NJ Gove smooching BO for NOTHING for NJ, and viewers knew he would never do anything of significance for Sandy victims, days before the reelection burns in the memory of those who dreaded the outcome, probably caused a lot to remember how they knew Romney would behave.
Biggest loser last night? Chris Christie. He just saw the remainder of Conservative voters who chose to hold their nose and pull the handle for the RINO go bye bye.
He can thank the GOPe for that one.
Biggest winner last night? America’s Tea Parties. Despite no money and no support from the squish, they still almost beat the establishment candidate in Virginia. That gives them new energy to kick butt in 2014.
Again, thanks GOPe.
I want to know why people think this so called libertarian got votes that "belonged" to the republican. The guy did not have a libertarian bone in his body. He wanted to put GPS trackers in everybody's cars.
Is there any exit polling showing republicans voting LP?
It's a little soon to draw final conclusions about this race. I have a couple of questions for Virginians, since I only got the national media coverage for this one.
1) Was Cuccinelli a real social conservative?
2) Was he a real tax cutter?
3) Did he ever say anything, of any sort, about birth control or insurance coverage of same?
4) Did he ever say anything about illegal drugs, especially about Federal laws about same?
I am a hard-core fusionist, and I believe, maybe wrongly, that most of those Sarvis votes should have been GOP votes. However, we do have a real intra-party disagreement over this question.
Just as there are some voters who absolutely, positively cannot vote for a pro-abortion candidate (and who won't vote if there's no choice) there is also a block of voters who will preferentially vote Libertarian but who will vote for the Democrat over the Republican given certain circumstances.
If we don't abandon the GOP and form an outright pro-liberty party, we have to solve the puzzle of how many "Sarvis voters" we can get. We also, as CNN keeps pointing out, need to recapture Perot voters (a/k/a the white working class) if we have any hope of beating the communists.
The problem with both "Sarvis voters" and "Perot voters" is that they are not voting at all, most of the time. This is entirely a GOP problem to solve.
VA Freepers, please break Cuccinelli down for me by answering the questions above.
Let's say you have two guys that are boxing. The guy we're rooting for says the right things he needs to say to get in the ring. But once he's in the ring he's a terrible fighter. He even throws the fights once in a while.
The other guy is a true believer. He's got our guy convinced that he's a good guy and that it doesn't matter which one of them wins...yet he will fight tooth and nail to actually win.
Our guy is going to lose every single time. Every time.
Now let's throw a third guy in there. Now the true believer actually has someone fighting against him. But the 3rd guy also has to put up with his own guy punching him in the face. "Our" guy STILL is a loser. He's still not going to win.
The point is that we're idiots if we keep rooting for a guy that we KNOW is going to lose.
The Republican party is DONE with conservatism. Done. I'm beginning to think that they've always been against conservatism. Reagan was a throwback. An embarrassment. They only keep us around because we'll cheer for their guy when it matters.
So much analysis this AM by people wondering how to get this many few independent voters, not recognizing that Hillary and McBagman can make that up and then how Christie, a conservative, won in a liberal state, not considering that he won because he's a liberal. They, GOP, is simply not being honest about losses. They can't win without that.
Might be more accurate...
We've all seen how the GOPe cuts deals with Democrats. McConnell, Boehner...etc.
I believe that the GOPe cut a deal with the Dems. The Dems put most of their money and effort in VA. The GOPe put most of their money and effort in NJ.
The Dems take VA, the GOPe take NJ and the patriots in both states get shut out.
Does the GOP have to, or want to, concede the fix? That’s what it’s up against. Why must it accept that as insurmountable?
Good analysis, except for this. The "libertarian" was a liberal, funded by Liberals, intended to make a difficult situation even more so.
What if the fight is guaranteed by the official?
Agree. The GOP is what it is and will never change.
The only thing the GOP is willing to stand up to is the conservative “threat”. The Tea Party will never be embraced.
Defund the GOP.
Don't get me wrong, if a new conservative 3rd party is created, I'm on board. I'm not voting for an establishment Rep again.
Libertarian, liberal....same thing. It's just a freakin ruse.
I’m with you, Skeeter.
Do conservative voters that stayed home share at least part of the responsibility?
Go see the list of 53 "third parties"...how many do you really want?
I agree with the “take back the party” concept. I didn’t think about having to take the Libertarian party back. That make the row to hoe twice as hard
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