Virginia Tomorrow

I have been following the debate about whether Virginia’s most selective universities should change admissions procedures to require admitting a larger percentage of in-state students very closely.

Three northern Virginia delegates- Dave Albo, Clay Athey, and Tim Hugo- were successful in persuading the entire House to approve legislation that would have moved the Commonwealth in this direction.

In northern Virginia, resentment has building for years about a number of state policies and delegates and senators have told me that they hear complaints about the admission policies of our most selective schools all the time. Albo, Athey and Hugo had clearly touched a nerve (in a positive way) with their constituents.

 But the measures were not passed in the Senate and ultimately did not survive the joint budget conference.

It did appear, however, that Bob McDonnell intended to make the issue a central feature of his gubernatorial campaign and use it as a way of appealing to voters in NOVA where the Republicans have run poorly in recent statewide elections. 

In conversations with Marc Fisher of The Washington Post, McDonnell noted that Virginia schools ought to serve Virginia students and that the rules ought to be changed to reflect this.

I spoke with a number of Democrats about this prospect during the past week, including some inside the gubernatorial campaigns, and they uniformly told me that the issue worried them.

It is a real sore point in northern Virginia, they said, and they weren’t very pleased about having higher ed leaders and supporters front and center in an important election, given the tendency of some to be politically tone-deaf.

But late last week McDonnell sent a letter to the higher ed community, modulating, refining, and recalibrating his position.

McDonnell noted that he was concerned about the inability of excellent students to get admitted to out best schools, but observed that simply changing the rules wasn’t an answer to the real problem. Instead, he suggested that we needed a dialogue that looked at access, cost, and state investment simultaneously.

He promised that, if elected, one of his first acts as Governor would be to create a broad-based group drawn from all segments of Virginia to examine these matters.

As I read it, the message of McDonnell’s letter was this: college admissions to selective universities is an important issue that Virginia has to address, but the ultimate answer is not going to emerge in the heat of the campaign. We’ll have to do this as part of a strategy that examines access, cost and we’re going to do so in a comprehensive manner.

What does this recalibration tell us about the McDonnell campaign and, more importantly, about McDonnell himself?

On one hand, it is easy to suggest that McDonnell is merely reacting to the prospect that the donor base associated with prestigious universities such as UVa and W&M might abandon him in droves if he decided to wage a populist assault against their policies.

But I wouldn’t be this cynical. At the end of the day, a populist message might well be politically successful, especially in reducing GOP deficits in NOVA.

It seems to me that McDonnell is really sending a larger message about the type of Governor he wants to be.

In essence, I think he is trying to tell us that he’s the type of person willing to address thorny issues head on, but that prior to doing so, he’ll involve the relevant parties and he’ll listen to all relevant  considerations.

McDonnell has certainly refined (and maybe even shifted) his position and modulated his tone on admissions policies to our most selective universities.  In any event, he is no longer speaking about simply “changing the rules.”

 But isn’t the ability to make thoughtful adjustments a trait we should be expect anyone who wants to be the Governor of Virginia to possess?