The Times-Dispatch has dredged up a perennial favorite: Does Virginia need a two-term governor? Tyler Whitley polled Virginia’s former governors and found them to be divided on the point — and not along party lines.
Former Govs. Charles Robb and George Allen prefer the status quo. Former Govs. Gerald Baliles and Linwood Holton favor a single, six-year term for governor. And former Govs. L. Douglas Wilder, Jim Gilmore and Mark R. Warner like two, four-year terms.
Here’s what would have helped the story immeasurably: Give us examples of how a six-year or two-term governorship could have helped. What policy initiatives or reforms did Jim Gilmore or Mark Warner leave undone as a result of having departed after four years? Conversely, it would have helped to cite examples of where a governor was hopeless mucking things up and people were saying, “Thank God we got rid of that idiot after only four years — it would have been a disaster if we’d been stuck with him for six.”