Merli Column: An election or horrible dream

A few decades ago, newsman Chet Huntley of the pioneering “Huntley-Brinkley Report” told Johnny Carson and a national TV audience that he found it perfectly acceptable to quite consciously withhold
one’s vote at the ballot box as a way of making a political statement. In other words, not voting, in effect, was a protest “vote” of sorts against all the available options.

While I don’t agree with that enormously cynical assessment (nor did Carson, as I recall) because I think there’s little true distinction between someone merely not voting out of apathy or inconvenience
and someone who very intentionally chooses not to — I think we all know where Huntley was coming from.

While his somewhat maverick views came somewhere in the middle of the raucous climate of mass protests over Vietnam in the era of LBJ and Richard Nixon, the NBC News co-anchor easily could have
been talking about the current Virginia gubernatorial race, as well as a few local races throughout the Commonwealth. (Rich Anderson in the 51st district? Based on his political flyers, that guy should be
arrested for impersonating a real politician.)

The dispiriting contest between Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell to many political observers must seem like the foreword to “Politics for Dummies” — if anyone ever decided to write such a manual. The
massive, abusive, endless negative campaigning from both camps; those mindless “new ideas” (selling off state liquor stores? Yeah, that’s gonna happen right after we all win the Virginia Lottery); the flip-
flopping on taxes and other issues. Is this the fun part yet?

Meanwhile, adding to the confusion in this off-year election contest in Prince William may be the News & Messenger’s head-scratching endorsement of McDonnell for governor. Hello? Do you guys read
your own daily editorials? While this newspaper has always seemed to endorse candidates at all levels based on their perceived worth — and not necessarily their party affiliations — reading the daily
editorials on this page in recent years and then giving McDonnell the nod for the state’s highest office seems an oxymoronic move that almost takes my breath away.

Bob McDonnell is better equipped to end gridlock in Northern Virginia and therefore he should be elected governor? Based on what? That’s what this paper’s editorial board basically centered its
endorsement upon this month. Good thing we’re only really interested in traffic around here. Other issues will come and go, but by gum, traffic is our problem! Traffic is our life! Never mind the other few
dozen issues kicking around these days. Build us wider roads and we’ll elect you forever! (Well, except for that silly one-term limit thing.)

I did find is immensely amusing when that same McDonnell endorsement on this page conjectured that his views on females in the workplace apparently have evolved with time (how lucky for us), since
women in his own family have held jobs in the private and military sectors. And he’s to be applauded for this? Do we think he somehow “allowed” the women in his family to enter the workforce? What
choice did he have? I’m not getting this.

Make no mistake about it, Creigh Deeds is running a terrible campaign. For a Democrat campaigning in a state with two Democratic U.S. senators and a recent string of Democratic governors, and a
Democratic president whose overall popularity still rates in the 50-something range, the Bath County politician has done everything necessary to ensure he doesn’t get elected.

And while it’s tempting to conclude that neither Deeds nor McDonnell is worthy of a vote on Nov. 3, it’s all a bit too convenient and cynical to let the eventual winner in this sorry race triumph, in effect, by
default, even from one voter.

But when the dust has settled, we should maybe ask ourselves if Deeds was the best statewide candidate his party could have delivered for our consideration, recalling the recent, relatively high-caliber
talents of Mark Warner, Jim Webb and Douglas Wilder? And does McDonnell really come from the same state party as John Warner and Tom Davis? Hard to fathom.

Despite the late Chet Huntley’s advice, I’ll choose to vote in a couple of weeks along with many of you — but hope no one sees me holding my nose behind the drawn curtain.

John Merli has been a Prince William County resident since 1984, and a Potomac News columnist since 1985. He has worked in the media for more than 30 years. E-mail him at: j.merli@comcast.net.