Red Values in Virginia

Today's, Tom Oliphant asks the question, "Will red values still play in Virginia?"

His response doesn't make me feel good: "For all those progressives doing handstands on the Republican Party's alleged grave, Virginia is the reality check."

Oliphant continues:

Karl Rove and Scooter Libby can come or go, hurricanes can make fools of government leaders, wars can go on forever without result, and gasoline can be priced somewhere near the stratosphere, but voters are still happy to consider voting against their economic interests and to flock toward candidates who claim to represent their ''values."

They may be in possession of irrefutable evidence that the inherent contradictions of anti-tax politics and high-spending government can inflict severe injury on their present and imperil their future, but they still go ape over any pol who comes sauntering down the road promising tax cuts without any sacrifice of basic services.

The race for governor here has a few weeks to play out, but from a national perspective, the counterintuitive strength of Jerry Kilgore's candidacy headed down the stretch is the most significant development.

Currently the state's right wing-friendly attorney general, Kilgore is antitax despite the fact that the last antitax Republican left such a gigantic hole in the state budget that Republicans as well as Democrats had to unite to fix it -- in large part through higher taxes. During a year when the prospect of gay people getting married is not inciting conservatives, Kilgore has latched onto another button that he hopes will be hot -- Virginians' love of the death penalty.

You can read all about Jerry Kilgore's ads over at RaisingKaine so I won't get into them here. I've only seen one of them although I've heard about the others over at Daily Kos. Polls are now showing that the ads appear to have backfired on Kilgore and I think that sentiment was helped by the Washington Post Editorial Board coming out strongly against the ads.

I've lived in Virginia since 1988 and it's an odd state, as Oliphant notes. It votes Republican in presidential races but has gone Democratic in statewide races. In the 1980s, Chuck Robb, Gerry Baliles, and Doug Wilder all went to Richmond.

Then in a eerie foreshadowing of Bush 43 policies, there were radical tax cuts and questionable fiscal decisionmaking from Republican governors George Allen and Jim Gilmore. Allen went on a big kick to attract businesses to locate in Virginia--but spent nothing on upgrading the infrastructure to support that so now we have awful transportation problems and developers building on every square foot of undeveloped land.

Gilmore, who ran against Don Beyer, was elected on a simple promise to cut the car tax. We pay property taxes on cars and trucks and this was the largest tax cut in the state's history. Since the car tax was assessed by localities, they would have been crippled by the loss of revenue from its elimination. Gilmore's plan was to use a roundabout payment scheme: the localities would continue assessing the car tax, but car owners would pay only part of the bill, and the state would make up the rest. Eventually, the tax would be completely phased out and the state would continue to pay localities to make up for the lost revenue. The car tax cut saved Virginians billions of dollars, but came at the expense of the state budget. The plan ended up being such a drain on the state budget that the phase out of the car tax was stalled in 2001. Like Vermont, our state constitution requires a balanced budget; after Gilmore left office, the state was in its worst budget crisis due to the downturn in the late 1990s--early 2000s and the elimination of the car tax.

Of course, Tim Kaine shouldn't be in the position he's in at this date. Partially, it's due to the presence of Russ Potts who is running as a 3rd candidate but he hasn't been able to get more than 5% of voters. I wish he'd pull out and put his efforts behind Kaine. The other reason is that Kaine, like Mark Warner, isn't the most inspiring candidate to listen to. Kilgore has plenty of ethics problems but is relying on typical Republican hot button issues--like the death penalty--to gin up votes.

Alternate link to comments