Virginia Tomorrow

Bob McDonnell’s Executive Directive this afternoon noting that ” discrimination based on factors such as one’s sexual orientation… violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution”  is not only an effort to distance himself from the furor that has accompanied Ken Cuccinelli’s letter to state colleges and universities, but to reverse the political hemorrhaging that threatened the extraordinary gains that the GOP has so recently achieved.  

Here’s what I think that McDonnell is trying to accomplish.

1. Reasserting Gubernatorial Priorities

In a very significant way, politics  is about establishing priorities that people can understand and embrace. Bob McDonnell was elected Governor on a conservative platform that highlighted pragmatic measures such as job creation, economic development, and opposition to tax increases.

Virginia has made national news numerous times over the last three weeks, each time for reasons that have nothing to do with the major themes of the campaign. If one was simply reading these reports, you might have thought that the Virginia election was about limiting gay rights, repealing one gun a month, and suing the federal government over climate control.

In essence, Cuccinelli’s agenda seemed to be more prominent than McDonnell’s. Today’s statement is an effort by the Governor to reassert his primacy in shaping the political agenda of Virginia and the state Republican Party. 

2. Extricating Himself from the Pelosi Maneuver

Invented by the national GOP, the Pelosi Maneuver occurs whenever a political figure is attacked by linking her or him to a less popular member of their own party. In 2010, all Republicans will  be certain to label their opponent a Pelosi Democrat.

In Virginia, however, the Democrats are trying to turn the tables on the GOP and have been relentless in criticizing the GOP, linking McDonnell to Cuccinelli at every turn. Donald McEachin has reemerged as a statewide figure and go-to person for the media, claiming that “Cuccinelli is implementing the thesis.”

Today’s statement is McDonnell’s effort to extricate himself from the Democrats’ version of the Pelosi Maneuver.

3. Controlling the Virginia Model

The explosion of hot-button, Virginia-based items onto the national media scene had threatened to transform McDonnell’s “Virginia Model” (which commentators widely cited as a template for GOP candidates in 2010) into something quite different.

We already saw in the past few weeks requests that companies thinking of relocating to Virginia such as Northrop Grumman consider the lack of protection for gays and lesbians in state policy as a factor in their decision-making.

It was only a matter of time before national Democrats started pointing to a presumably “benighted Virginia” asking that “if you want to know how the GOP will govern if it regains power, look at Virginia.”

McDonnell’s Executive Order places the highest office in Virginia on record as noting that discrimination based on sexual orientation is inherently protected by the U.S. Constitution and, by implication, suggests that the Governor has reconsidered his own previous statement that “Cuccinelli’s legal reasoning” was accurate.

Even more importantly, it is a message to both the broader business and political communities that Virginia remains a forward-looking state that can be a model of where conservatism is moving.

How will this play out?

In the short term, it will surely defuse both the visibility and some of the anger that accompanied The Letter, though the Democrats will certainly try to argue that McDonnell is not blameless.

It also makes sure that McDonnell’s economic development initiatives will not have to occur in a context of a culture war  in which Virginia’s stance toward gays and lesbians is highlighted every time a major business recruitment in underway.

But it will also be fascinating to see how this plays out inside the Republican Party where Ken Cuccinelli has a large base.

In addition, I do not believe that the Attorney General will shy away from other controversial matters where his office believes that major principles are at stake.

The evolution of the McDonnell-Cuccinelli relationship will remain one of the key factors in understanding Virginia politics over the next 46 (yes 46) months.