Take a moment, will you, to pity the poor people of Virginia. Perhaps nowhere else in America can capture more perfectly what is wrong with our politics than the Sophie’s Choice passing for a gubernatorial election that is being presented to the residents of the Old Dominion state.
To see why, consider just how awful their options for governor happen to be.
In one corner sits the Tea Party contender and the state’s incumbent attorney general, Kenneth T. “Cooch” Cuccinelli, a man who recently came to national prominence for his stalwart defense of Virginia’s anti-sodomy laws. The Cooch, as he has become known, is upset that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, following the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v Texas, ruled that both anal and oral sex between two people is, in fact, legal.
Rightly ridiculed all over the media for his medieval, antediluvian views, Cuccinelli has nonetheless doubled down on his crusade against third base by arguing that the law as invoked was supposed to protect teenagers from encounters with sexual predators. Who, one imagines the Attorney General demanding, fists pounding in indignation, could be against something like that?
The canard is readily seen through though as the 17-year-old young woman ostensibly being protected by the Cooch’s moral grandstanding was two years past Virginia’s age of consent, and regardless, “corruption” of a minor in such a situation is a misdemeanor in Virginia, not a felony. Sure, the man in question was 47 years old and the encounter is certainly creepy, but not, under Virginia law, as fundamentally evil as Cuccinelli would apparently dream it to be.
Intrinsically wrong
More likely, Cuccinelli’s crusade against sodomy has much more to do with hating gays and lesbians than it has to do with protecting minors. In 2009, for instance, he opposed state anti-discrimination measures aimed at helping gays and lesbians by stating that, in his bigoted view, homosexual acts are “intrinsically wrong.” Even more tellingly, Cuccinelli opposed changes to the same anti-sodomy law struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals that would have allowed Virginia to stay safely on the side of the High Court’s Lawrence ruling.
Then there is the usual right-wing hypocrisy and ignorance on things like climate change and poverty, which are simply what’s expected of conservative candidates nowadays. Cuccinelli has mercifully backpedaled on his state’s draconian anti-abortion ultrasound law, and anti-immigrant statements on his website have also been scrubbed, but these are clearly obvious sops to Virginia’s purple-state voters rather than any true renunciation of the conservative faith.
The evidence, then, is overwhelming – Cuccinelli is a right-wing dinosaur little different from the more southern-fried variety to be found even deeper down in Dixie.
Easy pickings? Not so fast
Given this, one might be tempted to think the Democrats are sure to win the Virginia Governor’s mansion come Election Day. And in fact polls do point to support building up for the Democratic candidate, former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, but given the Coochinator’s laughable views, you would think he would be faring better than the mere four-to-six-point lead he currently possesses.
You would be mistaken about that.
This is largely due to two facts. The first is that, as of yet, Northern Virginia does not yet completely dominate state-level political outcomes. The upcountry hill folk, retired military types that abound in the state and the Bible-bangers in Lynchburg still vote in large numbers for rock-ribbed conservative candidates that espouse old-timey beliefs like American imperialism, hatred of gays and an actual desire to physically become a gun. Demographically speaking, the former capital state of the Confederacy has, kicking and screaming, only slowly entered the modern age.
Clinton-ist hatchet man
As a response to this reality, the second factor at work in depressing the Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s quickly comes to the fore: McAuliffe — a Clinton-era, New Democrat triangulator if there ever was one. For if there is ever a truism in politics it is that when faced with right-wing crazy, Dems will be sure to offer up a watered-down, monied-up, corporate New Democrat in response in the mistaken belief that a values-free, business-friendly centrism will somehow be more appealing to voters.
As such a candidate, McAuliffe is a profoundly disappointing choice on any number of fronts. He has no experience as an elected official and has never actually, you know, fought and won a campaign of any significance. Indeed, political spectators may in fact remember him from the good ‘ol days of the 2008 Democratic contest for the party’s Presidential nomination, when he co-ran — incompetently, by all accounts — Hillary Clinton’s close-but-no-cigar run for the White House. Prior to that, the Dem’s current pick to run Virginia served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee between 2001 and 2005.
How did McAuliffe rise to these vaunted and highly coveted political positions with no real electoral experience? Why, by being a fundraising hatchet man for the Clinton machine, of course.
During Bill Clinton’s term as president, McAuliffe raised the then-unprecedented sum of $275 million for the Clinton’s campaign war chests and has since chaired, led or served on the board of any number of Clinton-related fundraising ventures. He is, quite simply, their long-time money man and financier – the individual who greased the wheels with cash and thus made Clintonism possible.
As a result, all Washington insiders recognize that he’s extraordinarily close to the Clintons. McAuliffe has leveraged this proximity to power to not just channel money to his favorite political couple but also, with shameless abandon, to himself.
He has, for example, used these connections to launch a number of business schemes – most tinged an artificial environmental-y green – that have gone nowhere fast but have nonetheless had accusations of shadiness leveled against them. In many respects this reflects McAuliffe’s business career prior to his becoming closely aligned with the Clintons, which also exhibited a tendency to mix business and politics in an unseemly manner.
Look up with word “apparatchik”
The best pejorative that one could use to describe McAuliffe is that he is the archetypal example of the modern Beltway courtier. Like the class of parasites who long surrounded the throne in pre-revolutionary France or Russia, his claim to fame is not that he is particularly good for the country or even at his job — whatever it may actually be on a given day — but that he excels at obsequiously serving his masters and reaping the rewards that come with being close to political power. Look up the word “apparatchik” in the dictionary, and sitting beside a picture of a dour-faced Brezhnev you will no doubt find a smiling, Botoxed Terry McAuliffe.
Indeed, Mr. McAuliffe’s very career is testimony to just how despoiled our money-dominated system has become. That McAuliffe can gallop to the highest elected office in Virginia without ever having been elected before — via the overwhelming power of money and having the right connections — makes a mockery of democracy and popular sovereignty.
While he may not be technically “corrupt,” he is nonetheless corruption crystallized, made real, and now apparently dumped unceremoniously into the lap of Virginia voters.
So, to reiterate, remember to feel sorry for the good people of Virginia this November. On the one hand is a right-wing fanatic who thinks anal and oral sex should be a crime and climate change is something you can litigate away. On the other is a centrist New Democrat who is cronyism personified and who is so close to organized money as to be indistinguishable from it.
Good thing the rest of the country doesn’t face the same dilemma and actually has real choices come Election Day. Oh wait.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Mint Press News editorial policy.