Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Musings on Virginia Politics

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Dick Hall-Sizemore
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by Dick Hall-SizemoreSouthwest Virginia elections

—The folks in the Mt. Rogers region take their politics seriously. Along all those mountain roads are numerous assemblages of campaign signs like the one shown above, although this is small in comparison to some. (You gotta love a candidate nicknamed “Stingy”!) Because the General Assembly seats are, for the most part, uncontested, the action is with the campaigns for local offices.

Bellwether—The national columnist, E.J. Dionne, Jr., has picked up on David Toscano’s theme of Virginia being a bellwether state. In a recent column, he argues that both parties in Virginia are resorting to the familiar tactic of getting their voters to the polls by “scaring the daylights out of them.”

The Democrats are warning ominously that Republicans, “MAGA extremists,” if they take over both houses of the legislature, will abolish abortion. For their part, Republicans are declaring that Democrats want to defund the police and let criminals “walk easy.” As Joshua Cole, a Democrat running for a House seat in the Fredericksburg area told Dionne, “It’s either abortion or it’s crime.”

Dionne concludes, “Both parties will be intensely watching Virginia for clues about 2024’s political atmosphere…. The upshot: huge sums of money dropped on a few places are turning Virginia into a laboratory where competing theories about what moves voters are being tested.”

Local elections are the most fun–Speaking of local elections, Dwight Yancey of Cardinal News has a fascinating summary of local elections around the state, albeit mostly in the western part.  It includes a description of three indicted Republican candidates on the ballots.

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9 responses to “Musings on Virginia Politics”

  1. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    The Henrico on-line prostitute should be an indicted candidate, but isn’t for some strange reason. I guess it is true only Republicans can break the law, but never D’s?

    And using the same standards of journalistic fairness displayed by Blue Virginia, Yancey (and now you) counts among the three Matt Fariss, who was REJECTED by the GOP after the story broke and is running as an Independent. He is not running on the GOP ticket. We dump somebody and still get tagged?

    1. how_it_works Avatar
      how_it_works

      Some wiseacre once said, “If it weren’t for double standards, a certain political party wouldn’t have any standards at all.”

    2. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
      James Wyatt Whitehead

      Just learned a fun fact today. Mr. Lavarnway, wife is running for town council, showed up on my doorstep waving a list of people who have already voted and who has not. I have already done so, but not my wife. So, I checked with local elections people. Oh yes. This information is available to candidates. You have to purchase the list. I can’t buy the list, but the politicians and their cronies can. Perfectly legal by law. And here, little ole me, thought my vote was between voter and the ballot box. And people wonder why so many of us question elections? They couldn’t pull this trick when we all used to vote on this long-forgotten tradition once called Election Day.

      1. Stephen Haner Avatar
        Stephen Haner

        How you vote is secret but not whether you voted. Such info has been shared, at least through the official political parties, for a long time. It is one of their favorite data tools. And even back in the day, absentees for cause were allowed and the list of who had so voted was shared.

        When I worked at RPV, with Reagan and then Bush in the White House, we’d get calls all the time about people seeking federal appointments. Did they vote? In the R or the D primary? We had the list.

        1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
          James Wyatt Whitehead

          Wow! Never knew that. I feel so dumb. How did I miss that after voting for the past 35 years? I even taught US Government for a few years. Oh, tell me no more of this world’s vain store!

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            I think I knew that… isn’t it called GOTV?

      2. Stanwood Avatar
        Stanwood

        The logic of this comment appears to be that it would be harder to commit voter fraud if we had no idea who had voted? I don’t follow.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          When you vote, it is marked on the voter database. If you tried to vote a second time or someone else tried to vote with your name, you’d get stopped.

          GOTV – Get Out the Vote folks – find out who has voted and who has not then target the ones who have not to urge them to vote.

    3. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      To be fair to Yancey, I think he was just identifying indicted candidates on ballots around the state. I am surprised that he did not include the Gibson race among the most interesting. Perhaps because he was concentrating on local offices and ballot questions.

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