The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

When Virginia Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin, The Victim Can Blame Itself

Posted on | November 6, 2013 | 79 Comments

by Smitty

UPDATE: Mis-attribution fixed. Sorry, Adjoran. Blame Robert Sarvis. 🙂

Stacy put about the best possible spin on matters last night. As with Lonegan in NJ, saying the candidate “beat the spread” is thin gruel.

I disagree with Adjoran[‘s responder]:

Nope, you can blame Robert Sarvis of the Libertarian Party for Cuccinelli’s defeat. He and Cucinelli have a combined 53% of the vote. If Sarvis has not been a spoil sport, Cucinelli could have won.

No, you can’t.

(a) Sarvis is a free moral agent. It’s his state and he can run if he wants to, run if he wants to. The results show the degree to which the Republican party must alter course to capture those votes.

(b) This was not a high-turnout election. I served in a polling station supporting adjacent precincts covering ~8k voters, with ~30% turnout. If you’re going to beat up the Democrats for nominating a no-talent rodeo clown for office, blame the lazy conservatives who were just to lazy to turn out and do something about it. Oh, my dog/car/wife/long line/leaves/traffic–SHADDUP! I put in a 17 hour day supporting this election, and earn roughly minimum wage for those hours. That is, it ain’t about the frogskins. Furthermore, I had to eat vacation time to do it. Thus, my opportunity cost was high. Which is by no means a complaint, but I know first-hand that (a) it was a clean election, and (b) voters are getting what they wanted.

Mataconis was hasn’t got a happy-dance post up yet:

Still disagree, Doug. Cuccinelli is an able public servant who articulated reasonable plans to an audience that doesn’t bother to vote, or votes for a guy whose main plan for anything seems to be ‘get liquored up’.

The GOP, at Tea Party insistence, conducted a nominating convention this year. The GOP nominee in a primary, had such occurred, might have been Bowling, who certainly showed his worth during this gubernatorial campaign. Entertaining the counterfactual: would Bowling have beaten McAuliffe? He could have just as easily done worse.

Mataconis himself supported Sarvis, nominally as a protest vote. Maybe the lesson for the GOP concerning Sarvis is that, if the party is driving matters, and winning is everything, then brass knuckle politics is fine:

A major Democratic Party benefactor and Obama campaign bundler helped pay for professional petition circulators responsible for getting Virginia Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Robert C. Sarvis on the ballot — a move that could split conservative votes in a tight race.
Campaign finance records show the Libertarian Booster PAC has made the largest independent contribution to Sarvis’ campaign, helping to pay for professional petition circulators who collected signatures necessary to get Sarvis’ name on Tuesday’s statewide ballot.
Austin, Texas, software billionaire Joe Liemandt is the Libertarian Booster PAC’s major benefactor. He’s also a top bundler for President Barack Obama.

So, a possible “conservative” strategy would be to fund some godless Commie sodomite, to rail against private property and capitalism, and pick off some Democrat votes. The word “conservative” in the previous sentence is scarequoted because people of good conscience tend not to engage in subterfuge.

No, it’s far easier to just turn out the base and win properly.

As for Virginia, well, four years of Detroitification stand to suck. Norther Virginia will do OK; this is the land of homo bureaucratus, that species which excels in regulating others. As for the rest of the state, well, if you liked Healthcare.gov, you’ll love the gubernatorial equivalent, and slather that lotion the heck on. Right now. Or else it gets the hose again.

Category: Election, Virginia

Comments

79 Responses to “When Virginia Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin, The Victim Can Blame Itself”

  1. smitty
    November 6th, 2013 @ 6:56 pm

    Plus, my boyish good looks and raw masculine charm might do better elsewhere.

  2. smitty
    November 6th, 2013 @ 6:57 pm

    Deeper into blue territory, but it’s all speculative at this point.

  3. smitty
    November 6th, 2013 @ 6:58 pm

    Whereas I’m intending to vote Libertarian in ’16 if the GOP is going to make it three squishes in a row.

  4. smitty
    November 6th, 2013 @ 6:58 pm

    Whereas I’m intending to vote Libertarian in ’16 if the GOP is going to make it three squishes in a row.

  5. smitty
    November 6th, 2013 @ 6:59 pm

    There is nothing Colorado-centric about the urban center issue.

  6. smitty
    November 6th, 2013 @ 7:00 pm

    Second, no one commenting is “blaming” Sarvis, to the extent that he certainly has a ‘right’ to run, they are “blaming” his presence on the ballot for siphoning more votes from KC than he did from TM. There is a difference.

    I don’t see that as a difference making any difference, given overall lack o’ conservative turnout.

  7. smitty
    November 6th, 2013 @ 7:06 pm

    @DMataconis is Niccolo Macciavelli meets Edmund Blackadder. The affection of which, one hopes, does not escape him.

  8. smitty_one_each
    November 6th, 2013 @ 7:06 pm

    “@DMataconis is Niccolo Macciavelli meets Edmund Blackadder. The affection of which, one hopes, does not…” — smitty http://t.co/gGuqDJMYMR

  9. smitty
    November 6th, 2013 @ 7:12 pm

    Whoops! Fixed that for me.

  10. dmataconis
    November 6th, 2013 @ 7:12 pm

    @smitty_one_each Gee thanks for the insult. Not really. I hope using my name in posts gets you traffic or something b/c I’m not gonna

  11. dmataconis
    November 6th, 2013 @ 7:13 pm

    @smitty_one_each respond otherwise.

  12. NeoWayland
    November 6th, 2013 @ 7:20 pm

    (grins) Honesty demands I tell you I’ve not trusted a Libertarian candidate since Harry Brown. I’m not a part of the LP.

    I did pencil in Sarah Palin in 2008 not because I thought she was great, but because I thought she was much better than McCain, Obama, or Biden.

    I did mention how much I can’t stand John John, didn’t I? Even if he is the senior Senator from my state.

  13. psmith867
    November 6th, 2013 @ 7:26 pm

    .@smitty_one_each @dmataconis Doug is no Macchiavelli, and he’s a hell of a lot closer to Percy than Edmund.

  14. thatMrGguy
    November 6th, 2013 @ 7:51 pm

    When Virginia Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin, The Victim Can Blame Itself http://t.co/HexuDsFIPD

  15. Mike G.
    November 6th, 2013 @ 8:02 pm

    Blaming Sarvis is a loser’s game. Exit polls showed the people who voted for Sarvis had McAuliffe as their second choice.

  16. Beeblebrocs
    November 6th, 2013 @ 9:34 pm

    So you’re saying the Obama bundler who poured tons of money into the Sarvis campaign was trying to undermine McAuliffe?

    Got it. Just checking.

  17. Mike G.
    November 6th, 2013 @ 9:40 pm

    I don’t think that’s what I said at all. I’m just saying that if Sarvis hadn’t been on the ballot, it wouldn’t have helped Cuccinelli much, if at all.

  18. Quartermaster
    November 6th, 2013 @ 10:13 pm

    Please tell me you aren’t going back to singles bars.

  19. Quartermaster
    November 6th, 2013 @ 10:15 pm

    No one with two live brain cells can stand John John.

  20. JeffWeimer
    November 6th, 2013 @ 10:20 pm

    I’m talking about how they do elections back in WA (at least in Seattle anyway) now – nominally “nonpartisan” and the top two votegetters go to the general election. It’s just a way for one party to stack the deck.

  21. Quartermaster
    November 6th, 2013 @ 10:22 pm

    No need to attribute anything to you wrongly. You’re wrong enough on your own.

  22. La Pucelle
    November 7th, 2013 @ 11:07 am

    True, I was thinking specifically of Colorado’s rapid Californication and ended up on an entirely different subject. Hoge’s take on it has been the best so far, what I call “Ugly American” syndrome (insular American travels abroad and expects the natives to be American, expectation directly proportional to how “worldly and multicultural” said American congratulates himself for being) Only in this case, the “ugly Californian” fails to properly assimilate into local culture.

    But you’re right, I skipped the “ugly Californian” and went into the urban/rural divide. Ooops.

  23. La Pucelle
    November 7th, 2013 @ 11:12 am

    I don’t trust Alex Jones and I’ve never listened to him.

    I can’t even begin to complain about how many people think they’re “libertarian” simply because they listen to Alex Jones and they’re Truthers. UGH.

  24. NeoWayland
    November 7th, 2013 @ 1:34 pm

    Wish I knew how he kept getting elected. We can’t have that many silly people here.

    Or maybe we do. We elected Napolitano governor. And even a genuine tinfoil hat wearing nutcase named Mecham who single-handedly inspired Arizona’s political vampire law.

  25. NeoWayland
    November 7th, 2013 @ 1:37 pm

    Umm, Truthers.

    You know how some families have the strange uncle that no one wants to talk about or invite around during the holidays?

    I’m not that nice.

  26. La Pucelle
    November 7th, 2013 @ 1:47 pm

    Since strictly written text doesn’t always transmit sarcasm or subtle nuances very well…

    Do you mean that towards Truthers (and we’re talking about widespread malicious conspiracy by NWO/Illuminati/Jewish bankers, not the mismanagement that was pretty obvious) or someone being called a Truther when they’re not, or something else?

  27. NeoWayland
    November 7th, 2013 @ 2:04 pm

    Depends on the circumstance. Yes, I do that a lot, use a phrase that can mean more than one thing.

    Sometimes because I say big government solutions don’t work, I’m called a Truther. Or a Tea Partier. Or whoever today’s scapegoat is.

    I’ve found that conspiracies don’t hold together well, and that puts me on the outs with the died-in-the-wool Truthers.

    I also do parties.

  28. La Pucelle
    November 7th, 2013 @ 2:16 pm

    I very much get that. It irritates me to no end when anyone on any side decides that words only mean what they want them to mean and don’t have real definitions. (I’ve understood Truther to mean someone who declares that fire doesn’t melt steel. It has a distinct serial conspiracy theorist connotation.)

    And saying big government solutions don’t work doesn’t make you a Truther. It makes you correct. /wink

  29. FMJRA 2.0: Master Of Puppets : The Other McCain
    November 9th, 2013 @ 4:29 pm

    […] When Virginia Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin, The Victim Can Blame Itself […]