Virginia Tomorrow

With the “Scott heard ’round the world”, the SOTU address and our Governor’s response, January contained uncommon highs for political junkies in Virginia and far-reaching consequences for America. 

It seems to me there are several important observations that leap from these events onto our consciousness.  Claiming not the slightest thought that these are original or exhaustive, here are those that constitute the “money” nuggets for me: 

1. The message from Massachusetts, confirmed the one from Virginia, and to a lesser extent because of local factors, New Jersey: the “third political party” that most political scientists argued could never become a national force is in its infancy and it is called “Independents.”

2. Both parties must adjust to this insurgency and to do so will challenge the extremes of both. 

3. Democratic policies, most significantly Health Care legislative in its present forms, Cap and Trade and spending at unimaginable levels, while passing on the repayment burdens to future generations. This hostility moved them into the GOP column in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. 

4. This disaffection with Democratic policies does not at least on the national level translate into a nascent love affair with the GOP. Many voters who did not vote in these elections remain Obama fans, if not likely Democratic voters.

5. At the national level, Republicans suffer from a perception that they only offer opposition and not better alternatives, and while to some extent this is unfair, Independent voters recognize that there are vast inequities in the availability of medical care, and that the soaring cost threatens to swamp our collective ability to pay. 

6. Eventually, they will look to candidates who offer solutions. Scott Brown was credible with his opposition to the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Health Care packages in part because he supported Governor Romney’s program in Massachusetts. It is certainly not desirable that all answers come from Washington, but some must. 

7. Governor McDonnell’s campaign and so far his governorship have been solution oriented, and he usually couples his criticism of ideas he opposes with ideas of his own to address the problems. This in some significant measure contributes to his success. Republican problem-solving will often originate at the state level, but to the extent the problems require a national component, the GOP needs to play offense with more effectiveness. 

8. Independents might in specific instances include the Tea Party activists (though it is hard to script a scenario where Democrats can be competitive for these votes). The Independents who comprise this “third party” are overwhelmingly moderates, perhaps measurably right of center but not too far. They are pragmatic by and large and not ideological. Sloganeering against “big government” or “socialized medicine” or “greedy bankers” and such won’t appeal to them. 

9. They are Independents because they don’t like either party, and to the extent each party remains beholden to its “base”, which are motivated in large measure by issues that do not excite-and in some instances alienate-Independents, they will continue to avoid both parties. 

10. Independents went predominately for Obama and Democrats across the country just one year ago. Part of that was the most charismatic candidate in decades, but part of it was a reaction against Republicans.

11. It was also a reaction against the culture of Washington D.C. The practices the D.C. culture cultivates: earmarks, massive and unsustainable spending, corrosive partisanship, ethical outrages and more. These haunted Republicans in 2008, Democrats in 2009 and early 2010, and unless the Democrats right their ship aggressively and immediately, they will lead to a Democratic train wreck this November.

12. These Independents understand, both by reason and intuition, that a nation incurring trillion dollar deficits and embarking on more spending that will exacerbate that problem, with that debt being funded by a country like China, is a potential crisis of enormous consequence.  

13. One trick ponies, whether the magic elixir is “stimulus” or “tax cuts”, don’t resonate. Independents know that without some of the stimulus that assisted state and local governments thousand of teachers, police officers, fire fighters and others would have lost their jobs. But they also know that tax cuts, especially for business, will free capital for investment to create new jobs.  

Going into the upcoming elections, we really do have the equivalent of a three (maybe four, depending on how one characterizes the Tea Party segment of the electorate) party structure.  It will be fascinating to watch it play out in congressional districts like Virginia’s fifth. 

If my sense of the Independents is on target and if it fits the independents in the Fifth District, conservative State Senator Robert Hurt is the ideal candidate for the GOP.  But the Tea Party activists and many in the GOP “base” cannot abide his apostasy in voting for the tax increase in 2004 championed by then Governor Mark Warner and that passed only with GOP help.  

If Martha Coakley had been perceived as vulnerable and we had the Fifth District Tea Party equivalent in Massachusetts, Scott Brown would have had opposition for the nomination and maybe lost, or faced the last minute entry of a “true conservative” (remember New York’s 23^rd congressional district), and the outcome could easily have been different.  If the “Robert Hurts” cannot meet the exacting standards of Tea Party stalwarts, the “Scott Browns” don’t have a prayer of doing so.  

Democrats and Republicans now must appeal to this Independent Party, and they must do so with their respective “bases” agitating for candidates and policies that are part of the reason why these folks remain Independent.  The Party whose “base” best understands this new political paradigm and the challenge of an electorate increasingly gravitating to this new” third party” of Independents will prevail over time, regardless of which one prevails in a given election.  

Just consider their swing in one short year from Democrats and Obama to McDonnell and Brown.  What a ride and it’s just beginning!

Wyatt Durrette is a Director at DurretteBradshaw, PLC (www.durrettebradshaw.com) and co-founder of the XDL Group. He served three terms in the House of Delegates and was the Republican candidate for Governor in 1985.