• Election Results

    08Nov
    Categories: Political, VA Governor's Race Comments: 106

    Republicans have won 2 out of 3 statewide seats. McDonnell has won the position of Attorney General. (Update: McDonnell isn’t out of the woods yet. With 99.84% of precincts reporting, he is clinging to a 1,921 vote lead. I am fairly certain that he will hang on, but he might not. Many newspapers are saying too close to call.) Bill Bolling has won the position of Lieutenant Governor. Jerry Kilgore lost the race for Governor. Tim Kaine is the next governor of Virginia. Here are the preliminary results:

    Governor

    Kilgore 46.01%
    Kaine 51.72%
    Potts 2.18%

    Lieutentant Governor

    Bolling 50.65%
    Byrne 49.16%

    Attorney General

    McDonnell 50.01%
    Deeds 49.91%

    We need to select more solid conservatives in the primaries. My conservative friends that I talked to weren’t a bit excited about Kilgore. Everyone was excited about Bolling and McDonnell because they were more conservative. A couple of people told me that they wished it was Bolling running for Governor instead of Kilgore. Take a look at who won. The conservatives won. Let’s not put up with this theory that we need to nominate a centrist to attract the center. What wins elections is not the center but rather getting out the vote among the base. I know some older people that would have voted if it were a solid conservative running, but didn’t bother because it was Kilgore.

    (Update: Fedora-pundit has said that he doesn’t see how Kilgore could have been any more Conservative. I don’t have the energy to think (much less debate) about that right now, but it really isn’t relevant. He was perceived as not being a solid conservative among his base and that was all that mattered.)

    The Hitler ads were a mistake. The Hitler ads were true. The Hitler ads gave the media a plausible reason to bash Kilgore and with 80% of the media supporting Kaine, the inevitable happened. It seems it is a taboo thing to criticize anyone in relation to Hitler no matter how right you are in your criticisms.

    Hannity kept repeating over and over, “This isn’t a seat gained for the Democrats. It’s a Democrat replacing a Democrat.” Power Line has this to say:

    The Democrats will trumpet this win as evidence that they are on the comeback trail. They may very well be on that trail, but this race provides no good evidence of it. Kaine won because Democratic governor Mark Warner is extraordinarily popular (his approval rating is around 70 percent). There are no national implications here, unless the Dems are wise enough to run Warner for president in 2008, and they aren’t. Recall too that Warner was elected governor in 2001 at a time when President Bush’s popularity was at an all time high. And the Dems elected two governors in Virginia during the Reagan years. This race has never been tied to, or reflective of, national politics.

    Update: I updated the results as of 11:09 AM, November 9th.

    Update: The Daily Kos (crazy, uber-liberal blog) headline says it all: “Weird. We won. Onward to 2006!”

    Update: hillbillypundit makes some interesting points in his post-election analysis:

    VA needs to change its motto from “Virginia is for lovers” to “Virginia is for Schizophrenics”. How in the world a state that went solidly for Bush in two elections could elect Kaine, the most liberal politician elected in VA in my lifetime, is amazing. And then they elected conservatives straight down the rest of the ticket.??? I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for my analysis, so here goes:

    1. Despite the hysterical hopes of the Democratic MSM, this election wasn’t about Bush. Warner won in 01 when Bush was wildly popular; VA races are about VA politics and the people involved. Which brings me to:
    2. You can’t run a race for governor solely focused on your opponent. You ESPECIALLY can’t make the race all about that opponent’s views of an issue that most people don’t care about. And you ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY can’t win a governorship focusing on an opponent’s views on an issue that EXCITES HIS BASE. The death penalty stuff was the dumbest idea ever; Dick Morris made the point last night on FNC and I agree.
    3. You’ve got to present yourself in commercials saying who you are, what you believe, and why you want to be gov. Kilgore let everyone intimidate him about his voice/accent; he should’ve been ‘in their face’ daring people to be ignorant bigots because of his poor SW VA background!!
    4. Kaine had effective rebuttal ads to Jerry’s attacks; Jerry had no effective rebuttal ads to Kaine’s incessant negative ones, esp. those radio ads. Nothing. Zilch.

    …

    Congrats to Mr. Kaine and all my Demo friends here at CC. I’m happy to know Kaine is now a converted conservative and that there’s conservatives all around him to help keep him from backsliding!

    Dave Richardson has this to say:

    In my neighborhood of 95 houses I had the only Kilgore lawn sign, and some of my neighbors are very right wing, they just felt no connection to the candidate or that he represented their views on transportation and education.

    Update: Wow! Will Vehrs has some incredible post-election analysis over at Commonwealth Conservative! A must-read!

    Update: I’m not the only one who thinks Kilgore lost because he wasn’t conservative enough. Two Commonwealth Conservative readers:

    The election analysis missed the whole point. Kilgore lost b/c he is from the same big government mold as Kaine is. Kilgore refused to take the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Kilgore insulted gun owners by saying Philip Van Cleave (VCDL President) “has no credibility on Second Amendment issues.”

    The list just goes on and on where Kilgore alienated his base. Bolling on the other hand went out of his way to get the votes from grassroots groups.

    Kilgore deserved to lose. Hopefully the Republicans will finally purge all of the RINOs from the party and start winning elections again.

    Comment by Tom — 11/14/2005 @ 10:27 am

    –

    Tom, couldn’t agree more. When Republicans run as principled conservatives something amazing happens, THEY WIN!!! i.e. Bill Bolling

    Bob McDonnell will likely win too after the recount proving the point even more.

    Comment by Conservative Majority — 11/14/2005 @ 12:30 pm

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