Merli Column: A microcosm of America

Let’s face it. Neither candidate in the fast-approaching Virginia gubernatorial election would win any major awards for smarts or charisma, but they are what they are, and we voters are stuck with them.

I hope I'm wrong, but neither Creigh Deeds nor Bob McDonnell seems to be destined to be a great governor — which is a pity because we could sorely use one in these odd, uncertain times, especially
as the once-promising Tim Kaine seems to be petering out as his term winds down, not helped, perhaps, by the fact that he seems to be spending unknown amounts of time in his second job as head of
the Democratic National Committee.

Regardless of the candidates, what usually fascinates me is how Virginia’s governor’s race nearly always becomes a “national” news story with dire “national” implications — and where the very future of
the Republic is (albeit briefly) solely dependent on what happens here in the Commonwealth on the first Tuesday in November of an odd-numbered year.

The fickle coast-to-coast spotlight on the race for the governor’s mansion in Richmond every four years is, of course, understandable: It’s the only political contest of any consequence for that growing
army of TV pundits who load up the cable talk shows from nearby Washington and New York; It comes only a year after a presidential contest, thereby providing an incredibly convenient (if not overly
stated) benchmark in which the media can attempt to measure the success and failure of a new administration; and although we’re told that old red state-blue state system of gauging politics pretty much
vanished for good in 2008 — either it didn’t, or it’s simply back with a vengeance in late 2009.

When you add the arguable claim that, these days, the Commonwealth is really a purple state (blue up north, mostly, and red in the middle and south), then it’s not terribly difficult for reporters and
pundits alike to see Virginia as a grand microcosm of America.

Thus, Virginians are put under this periodic national-media magnifying glass on election day — realizing, partly in jest, that the election outcome surely will be used for months to come by at least half the
politicians in the country (depending on which side the outcome better serves) in order to: 1) judge the political “pulse of the nation” (if not the entire free world); 2) determine the “health” of both the
Democratic and Republican parties going into the 2010 elections; 3) scrutinize the popularity (or lack, thereof) of the sitting president of the United States; 4) and finally, decide in which directions national
health care, Afghanistan troop strengths, taxes, and Wall Street can now look forward to going.

All this seemingly based, for the most part, on our choosing between the heavily conservative views of Bob McDonnell — in contrast to the seemingly lethargic, seriously off-message campaign of Creigh
Deeds. Should Deeds lose, it will widely (and not altogether unfairly) be viewed as a sure sign that the enormous edge the Democrats enjoyed in the November election only a year ago has vanished well
beyond the Virginia state line. Still, maybe we should enjoy the spotlight. It never lasts very long.

But if the national political landscape next month is seen as changing dramatically from one year to the next — based primarily on the Virginia outcome — we should quickly keep in mind from past
experience that we really won’t know anything at all about the “national” temperament until all 50 states and the District hold their own elections barely a year from now. And as the GOP will tell you with
a smile, a lot can change in a year.

John Merli has been a Prince William County resident since 1984, and a Potomac News columnist since 1985. E-mail him at j.merli@comcast.net.