Virginia Tomorrow

At first, it was just a partisan back and forth.

The GOP wanted to show that the Governor was spending more time on his second job as Chair of the Democratic National Committee that he had originally let on.

Taking on Kaine was a good way for Pat Mullins and Tim Murtaugh to show the GOP faithful that the RPV was no longer a sideshow.

If they could knock his approval ratings from the 50’s to the 40’s, McDonnell’s chances of winning go up dramatically.

So they sent the Governor a FOIA.

They wanted to know when and where he was traveling, how much his security was costing, and who was paying.

The Governor’s office cleverly lawyered the request.

It wasn’t tightly drawn.  It asked for too much.  If they consented to a FOIA on a fishing expedition, they’d set a horrible precedent.

Don’t Governors need to be able to protect the state’s interests by talking to people privately and meeting with them without a public advertisement?

They told the RPV to take a hike (or take us to court if you want).

But It Took a New Twist and Became a Man Bites Dog Story

The mainstream media got involved.

And the MSM adopted the GOP stance.

I’m not joking. They really did.

For higher and more principled reasons of course.  

Transparency is the essence of democratic governance they said. They maintained that it’s the obligation of the Governor to keep faith with this principle. (And to  prevent us from getting in trouble with our editors by sneaking out of town and making news in another state.)

Mark Sanford and that “sparking thing” in Argentina didn’t do the Governor any good. Our guy really does hike the Appalachian Trail and is a genuinely upstanding and committed family man.

But Sanford’s made it a lot tougher to defend a “private” travel schedule.

Now the Post’s made it a Cause.

Anita Kumar raised the issue from the get-go.

She’s not letting it go.

I spoke to a person on the Governor’s team who told me that it is really a non-issue.

Every time the Post puts a story on their blog about it, I was told, nobody comments. It gets no traction.

But it doesn’t matter how many comments are on the blogs.

Reporters who takes on  Governors over transparency are going to be winners inside their own newspaper every time.

The Post editorialized against Kaine.

And for Kumar by name.

What’s a Governor to Do?

It’s could be very difficult (politically) to hold firm.

Amost every story now quotes an “open government expert” saying that the travel schedule should be disclosed.

But there’s something even more worrisome.

When the media turn againstyou on an issue, a contagion effect often takes hold and they start to hit you on other matters.

I suspect that at some time another calculation might be made.

How much will victory on travel disclosure cost elsewhere?