Gray Column: Is Virginia changing its colors again?

Now that Virginia’s statewide elections are over, people will begin to ask the question, has Virginia returned to its red state roots? Red is, of course, referring to the color representing Republican control
on Election Day maps.

If you are a Republican, the answer would be a resounding yes. I’m sure most Democrats reading this have another point of view.

But regardless of which side you voted for, I wanted to share a couple of quick thoughts on what we saw in this election. After all hindsight is 20-20 and since most pundits see clearly about what
happened, I thought about chiming in.

First, we must consider that nothing and I do mean nothing beats a clear message. Even if you don’t agree with what a candidate is saying, if they say it clear enough and consistently you know why
they are running for office.

I never heard much of a message from Creigh Deeds. Many of his commercials talked about Bob McDonnell more than they did about himself.

While Bob McDonnell spent the majority of the summer months talking about jobs and transportation, Creigh Deeds spent much of his time talking about McDonnell’s thesis papers. Seeing as how most
people probably never read the thesis, they had little or no clue as to what Deeds was talking about, and thus the results last Tuesday.

I can’t count the number of times I saw Deed’s ads attacking some portion of that thesis, making it the most famous term paper to ever come out of Regent University.

Second, if you are a Republican, don’t get too happy about “turning the corner” on a national movement to end Democratic control of Congress. We must remember that this was an off-off year election. I
have not seen any official turnout statistics, but chances are they aren’t impressive.

This simply means we won’t know until after Election Day 2010 if America is ready to give Republicans another chance at governing nationally.

Not to mention we saw at the congressional level Republicans lose a New York seat in Congress that they had held since before the Civil War. That seat was lost because of internal squabbles over
whether the Republican nominee was conservative enough. I guess it doesn’t matter now since the Democrats won the seat.

Finally, rather than an observation of the election, it is good to consider something we heard after the election was over. I am talking about the cordial concession and acceptance speeches. After
battling for months and months, both Republican and Democratic candidates talked about working together for a better Virginia.

Now most of us have heard that song sung on Election Day before. But as soon as our new elected officials are sworn in, the same old name calling, back biting and even party infighting continues.

In fact we don’t have to wait until January for that to happen; it’s occurring one week after the elections.

That leads me to one final observation not only for this election but about politics in general.

One of the first lessons I learned in politics is that elections are snapshots in time, not lasting portraits.

Meaning, what you see today is just that, today. You could argue that last year was the year of the Democrats in Virginia. This year belongs to the Republican Party.

Next year is going to depend on what tone Governor–Elect McDonnell, Lieutenant Governor Bolling and Attorney General–Elect Cuccinelli set for state government, statewide politics, and whether it
breeds results.

If they do well, Virginia will definitely be headed back to solid red. If not, both the Republican Party and the state itself will be left with two other colors after the 2010 elections: black and blue.

Davon Gray works in Washington, D.C., and resides in Woodbridge. Contact him at davongray@verizon.net.