It is because even the pro-Dem national media seems to have bought into inaccurate characterizations of Northam’s positions. Most specifically, Chris Matthews on Hardball just had a guest on and they both were repeating the false claim that Northam supports taking down all Confederate monuments in the state, although accurately noting that this is a tough issue in the Commonwealth that Gillespie has been using to effect against Northam. If Gillespie wins, this issue will be part of it.
The problem is that Northam’s position is not that they should all be taken down, although he has expressed dislike of the Confederate monuments. His position is that this is a matter of local control over locally controlled statues, which is the case. He has said he would take down those “at the state level,” but there are very few Confederate monuments put up at the state level. As a matter of fact, current state law is against local control, asserting that local municipalities do not have the right to move such monuments. This is a live and hot issue in Charlottesville, where the city council voted to move the statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson off public parks. However, they city has been blocked from doing so thanks to court rulings based on current state law. This effort to move the statues is what led to the demonstrations and rioting and death in Charlottesville in August.
Of course the latest is that a Latino activist group has been forced to withdraw an ad against Gillsepie since the terror attack in New York yesterday. That ad showed minority children running from a pickup truck with a Confederate flag flying and a pro-Gillespie sign on it. Sure, nasty, but then we did see somebody killed by a Nazi running a car over somebody. Yeah, the ad was pushing the edge, but the hard fact is that the GOP has been running nasty and false ads against Northam relentlessly, which I am sick of seeing, which may be why I am boring everybody with this whiney post.
So, the Gillespie ads have been charging Northam with supporting the MS-13 gang, with horrendous photos of prisoners in El Salvador covered with ugly tattoos, with charges that Northam supports sanctuary cities, of which there are a big fat zero in Virginia. There have also been scads of ads from the NRA against Northam, although some of these look sort of silly, at least to somebody like me who does not like the NRA. So they have one where they show Northam saying, “I have a D- rating from the NRA,” with them then shattering that with “False! He has an F!” but he was speaking to people against the NRA and he has spoken strongly against the NRA, but clearly the NRA is trying to get its people out to vote.
Another worry I have is a supposed “boredom” reported by WaPo about the race, which is why I worry that this darned New York terror attack and all these statues and NRA ads will get the Trump supporters out while the Northam people sit at home going “ho hum” like we have seen in so many off-presidential years. I admit that I shall be totally disgusted if the GOP pulls this off with their awful ads and hypocrisy, aided by stupidity on the part of the national pro-Dem media, which would be a really unpleasant reminder locally of what happened nationally a year ago.
Barkley Rosser
Barkley:
What can I say, Dems are naïve and lazy. They do not get mad over someone saying guns are healthy for people given the latest actions of a middle-aged white assassin or if someone demeans your Hispanic or culturally/racially different neighbor by comparing them to a terrorist. The problem is you take those NRA ads as silly rather than get pissed about their lies and making a public statement of disgust.
It may be a matter of stature Barkley as I have a much lower stature in Michigan, do not have much to lose, and can fend off the local yahoos. Nobody screws with me on the ACA or student loans and other topics. The Dems will not associate with me politically (even though they take my money) for other reasons; but, they do come to talk on topics they have not researched.
It is dangerous to take a position because you out yourself and are exposed to attacks. Northam has done so as has Gillespie. When Gillespie makes a BS statement, his folk crowd around him and take it up. When Northam responds or makes a countering and correcting claim, the crickets can be heard. Dems have no heart and seem to be quite capable of living in the status quo of lies, conjecture, supposition, and innuendo coming from the irrational, Republicans, and Trump.
Let the NRA give me an F rating, so what! As one of those crazy veterans (another one like ilsm who you called to the table) and a Marine one at that, what is the NRA going to say to me then? I do not see people saying BS to the NRA, I have credibility too, your stance is nonsense according to my experience and this is where we fail. More people have to stand up and it does not look like it is happening in Virginia.
Want to get more Dem voters out — especially minorities who don’t ever believe that anyone they vote for will do anything for them (rightly). Get them to vote for something of their own — their own ballot initiative: like Oregon voting for a higher minimum wage.
What happened in Oregon can start happening all around the country — it can be the coming thing (I never lack grandiosity). About 12 states have ballot initiatives that actually put laws on the books`– mostly with the legislature getting one crack to approve or disapprove; if disapproved, the voters get the last shot and it goes directly on to the law books.
California ballot initiatives go straight to the books.
Most (all?) other states have some form of “opinion-poll” initiatives at least.
Two lines around the block to sign petition. One line is the demonstration line — one line of people actually signing. Big fun! Can’t hold’em back!
* * * * * *
Dem candidates should say spending too much time on a purely symbolic, non-economic statue issue is self-defeating in the long run. Stick to actually helping underprivileged out; statues can be dealt with later.
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THESE FROM ON LABOR THIS WEEK:
Published November 2nd, 2017 – Amanda Lee
Democrats revealed a set of pro-labor policies in their “Better Deal” platform yesterday. These policies include a ban on all state right-to-work laws, passing a federal law that would allow federal employees to engage in collective bargaining with the same rights as their private counterparts, and banning the permanent replacement of striking workers. While the policies are unlikely to gain support in Congress, they may signal the party’s interest in making their support of unionizing more prominent. The Washington Post reports.
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MORE TO THE POINT OF GOING TO THE ROOT CAUSE OF MOST NATIONAL PROBLEMS:
Why Not Hold Union Representation Elections on a Regular Schedule?
Published November 1st, 2017 – Andrew Strom
When the Obama NLRB modernized the Board’s election rules and eliminated some unnecessary delays, employers characterized the result as “ambush elections,” and insisted they would no longer have enough time to wage their anti-union campaigns. Even though the NLRB found substantial evidence that employers are generally aware of union organizing drives long before an election petition is filed, here’s a solution for employers who would like more notice of an upcoming representation election. As Samuel Estreicher and Michael Oswalt have previously suggested, why not regularly schedule representation elections the same way we regularly schedule elections for political office? There’s no magic number to how often the elections should take place, but I would propose every three years. And, the elections would occur both at unionized and non-union facilities.
Polls show that many non-union workers would like to have a union at their workplace, but each year only a tiny fraction of workers get a chance to choose …
REPUBS PUSH REGULAR RE-CERTIFICATION ELECTIONS ANYWHERE THEY CAN — LET’S INVITE THEM TO EXTEND THAT EVERYWHERE — PERFECT OPENING.
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Reactivating the ability of workerS to just join a union if THEY want to — as freely as joining the library — should be the numero uno issue of our time (the true solution to “Obama’s defining issue of our time”). But it is never going to happen if someone does start not bringing it up.
R-E-P-U-L-I-C-A-N-S W-I-L-L H-A-V-E N-O P-L-A-C-E T-O H-I-D-E !!!
Sorry guys, all voting is rigged and it has been for awhile. I suspect the Virginia race is rigged………………we will see the results soon enough, though I suspect Democratic whiners heads will be scratching.
Obama did his job well, now Trump is doing his job well. Tit for tat. The Midwestern recession going on is a big clue guys and who are the bulk of Govs in those states.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02/republicans-want-to-end-muni-bond-sales-by-businesses-stadiums
Interesting small type in the tax bill.
I note that there are no ballot initiatives in VA. There have been several very close statewide races in VA, and no I do not think there is rigging at the state level, although stuff goes on at the local levels. But in the last decade there have been two races statewide that were decided by less than 1000 vote difference, the attorney general race 4 years ago when Dem Mark Herring won narrowly over my state senator, Mark Obenshain, and then 8 years ago when GOP Robert O’Donnell won over Creigh Deeds for governor.
A worrisome similarity between Deeds and Northam I observe is that they are both rural good old boys with drawls, which may put off African Americans in particular, with WaPo this morning saying they are the swing group (Gillespie actually appeared before state NAACP). There was a time when those drawls would have helped downstate, although Northam’s is an eastern shore one, but now they hurt in the Washington suburbs in NoVa, as well as among minorities, especially African Americans.
Rosser
Here I go again:
what is the point of taking down ANY confederate memorials except to stick your finger in the eye of those who think they honor the sacrifice of those who fought to defend their home (at the time it was their state)?
I think I know as much as anyone about the nastiness of the leaders of the rebellion and maybe even most of the followers. Though I was a bit surprised to hear Rob’t E Lee accused of terrible things the other day… something i had never heard about and still don’t believe.
The point here is that there are things that do matter (the statues don’t) that Democrats can get votes on. So why play into the hands of the nasties?
[oh, re the followers: i have come to believe that there is a reservoir of nastiness in most of us that waits to be released by permission from out “leaders.” but we can… did for a while… tame that nastiness. I think Martin Luther King showed us how to do that.]
It’s a narrow race in Virginia because of Virginia’s demographics, PERIOD. Metro Arlington v the rest of the State. Conservatism rules in lower density counties; Liberalism rules in metro ones.
That’s why Jefferson wanted a “nation of small farmers”. It’s not the politicians opposing one another — it’s the citizens in Virginia opposing one another. A dem could easily take the cake in Virginia if they lied about their objectives to make them appear to be more conservative.
Coberly,
Believe me, Northam is not pushing the issue, and his position has been misrepresented by Gillespie’s people, with major media agreeing and piling on. Do remember that whatever you think about it, this is an issue here as somebody was killed by a Nazi in a car in Charlottesville over this. Northam’s position is not really that much local jurisdictions should have final say, while Gillespie says they cannot touch them, even though many were erected during periods of reassertion of white supremacy long after the Civil War, including the controversial Robert E. Lee one in Charlottesville, currently covered up by a tarp.
BTW, the proposals have not been to “take them down” but to move them off public property to musuems or other locations.
Also, Robert E. Lee himself opposed such memorials and wrote two famous letters on the matter. One of those letters was to my relative,
General Thomas Lafayette Rosser, last commander of the Confederate Laurel Brigade, who is buried in Charlottesville, so I have a much closer connection to all this stuff than most people.
Longtooth,
Sigh…
Try metro Faifax County, which has over a million people, while Arlington County is barely 100,000 if that much. Yeah, sure, it is mostly an urban vs rural divide now, but the turnout question is complicated. As I essentially argued, a moderate Dem may not do as well as a more progressive one if the moderate (especially with a rural drawl) leads to low turnout in the metro areas and among minorities.
I suspect you do not know very much about Virginia, given your remark about “Metro Arlington,” but then you regularly like to comment on things that you seem not to be all that well informed about. Nothing new on that score..
Coberly,
Just a crank word from me: Robert E. Lee was one of the “Great Captains of History” (not a list of mostly nice people), right up there alongside Alexander the Great, Cesar, Hannibal, Gustav Adolphus, Fredrick the Great, Napoleon and MacArthur. What he did was use his great military talent to prolong the Civil War and slavery a couple of years (not even counting what might have happened had he fought for the Union side), for which he may currently be paying the eternal price (hope not).
Barkley, thanks for the information. You’re right that I am not well acquainted at all with Virginia’s urban & rural counties.
My statement still stands however (substitute Fairfax for Arlington)
“It’s a narrow race in Virginia because of Virginia’s demographics, PERIOD. Metro Fairfax [delete Arlington] v the rest of the State. Conservatism rules in lower density counties; Liberalism rules in metro ones.”
Virginia has increasingly become more and more urban and will continue to do so. The conservative vote will soon become a decided minority in the state. (“soon” tbd) The conservative v liberal issues won’t go away, but the voters will increasingly vote the liberal views.
What is changing and will change is the conservative candidate’s rhetoric to persuade the confused “independents” (if you want to call them that) to stick with the conservative agenda, while not alienating too many on the right. The far right will disappear into the annuls of Virginia’s history to die with the other old white men.
I’m not at all familiar with Virginia’s congressional or state legislative districts, but congressional and state legislative outcomes will depend on how gerrymandered they are.
As always though it’s the emotional heart-strings that the candidates have to tug at.. rational thought is left outside the voting booth’s curtain.
Coberly,
You asked rhetorically:
“what is the point of taking down ANY confederate memorials except to stick your finger in the eye of those who think they honor the sacrifice of those who fought to defend their home (at the time it was their state)?”
Try getting an answer to your question by asking what a black man descendant of a slave thinks about sticking a finger in their eyes with a traitorous white racist superiority slavery supporting utterly defeated general being venerated as an honorable man with publically displayed statues commemorating that view and support in the land of defeat.
Defend their home my ass.
Longtooth
you completely missed my point, but give your rhetoric i don’t think there is much hope in my trying to explain it to you.
you think like a racist.
Rosser
I don’t know anything about Notham, but take a look at Longtooth to get an idea of what ANY call for removal (or relocation) looks like to ordinary southerners who are not especially racist in their own minds.
Lee was right. so was Grant. and Lincoln pointed the way.
What we have here is the racist morons vs the inside out racist morons on the other side doing whatever they can to sow hate and keep the fire burning.
me, i’m still mad about Culloden.
I live in Fairfax County, the most important bellweather region in the state, and other than tv ads (which I rarely ever see because I don’t watch much television), you would have no idea the Dems are even running a candidate. Driving around, I have literally seen zero Northam yard signs and bumper stickers, nor has my house (been here 20 years) received any mailings or flyers–despite my wife being a reliable Dem voter.
Personally, I’ll be staying home again next Tuesday, as I will in every election that the Dems keep offering up bland, corporatist candidates who refuse to oppose the wars and support Medicare-for-all. Those are my litmus tests, and I will never again compromise them,
“as I will in every election that the Dems keep offering up bland, corporatist candidates who refuse to oppose the wars and support Medicare-for-all.”
And let the right-wing corporatist GOP candidates who refuse to oppose the wars and support Medicare-for-all win? You’d prefer to be an enabler of the radical right?
That’s an anodyne description of the TSA-level tone deafness of the ad. Going to You Tube, it seems only right wing organizations are trying to keep it out there. Here’s the ad in all its glory:
Yes, you can point to one example of somebody killed by a Nazi running a car over somebody. But for an ad to resonate, people need to believe it has some bearing with the real world. Most people are aware that recently there have been a fair number of events in the West of terrorists running down people using trucks, and that almost every single instance it has been someone claiming to act in the name of Islam. The little girl in the hijab in the ad is there to imply a situation that most viewers of the ad would, for better or worse, consider not just extremely unlikely but even the opposite of reality. The public would react the same to an ad attempting that showed, in all seriousness, an elderly 112 pound woman lifting more weight than 240 pound male body builder in his prime. It might be taken seriously in some parts of a college campus, but most people would wonder about the sanity of the makers of the ad and whether any message they endorsed could possibly make sense.
The fact that large segments of the left are now too tone deaf to see that is part of the reason the 2016 elections came out as they did.
Karl,
State governors have zero say over wars or Medicare-for-all, unless you think states should be implementing that, which has not worked out anywhere so far it has been attempted. Neuro-pediatrician Northam is for expanding Medicaid in the state.
I do worry about the lack of signs you see. Northam’s problem is that he is this nice eastern shore guy who lacks the umph of a McAuliffe, who is quite popular in the state. All these people who find him boring. But like at the fed level we have a totally GOP run legislature, which will probably be the case after the election, although everybody expects Dems to make some gains. If the whole state is run by GOP, they will go Trump crazy and do a lot of bad stuff all these bored people who stay home (or ones staying home over positions on non-state issues) will not like.
Mike,
Pro-Northam people run a questionable ad very briefly then take if off barefly after they started showing it. I never saw it. OTOH, GOP is running a large number of totally false and really horrendous ads over and over. I see three in a row at a time alleging sanctuary cities of which we have none (and Northam has come out against), support for gangs, and support for child porn, among other nonsense, really horrible ads, over and over and over and over. I must say that actually there have been some Republicans questioning some of these ads, but there has been way more uproar over that one ad about the truck, which, as far as I am concerned, had some basis, way more than this garbage Gillespie is running against Northam.
BTW, supposedly Northam raised all this money, but I do not see where it has gone. I continue to worry that this is going to look like last year, and Gillespie will pull it out with heightened turnout by Trumpist racist scumbags while full of it and bored Dems sit at home being self -rightous or just plain dumb.
Barkley,
My comment about the pickup truck ad was that it didn’t ring true. In fact, it gives an impression that is completely opposite to people’s views of reality. (I make no comment on whether the view of reality is correct or not, mind you.)
I searched for ads on sanctuary cities and gangs, and came up with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0UiqMDbpAw
Again, I make no comment on whether the ad is accurate or not. I don’t live in VA and I haven’t followed the race much, so I cannot speak authoritatively on either candidate’s position. But if you ask people whether a 2017 generic Democrat supports sanctuary cities v. whether a 2017 generic Republican supports sanctuary cities, we all know the generic Democrat gets a yes and the generic Republican gets a no.
Now ask the average person about the generic Democrat’s views about deporting MS13 members v. the generic Republican’s views.
The reason people have these impressions is because the parties have, overall, staked out positions. Those positions have pros and cons. The problem is that Democrats have become so damn tone deaf (it comes from screaming “racist” at anyone who disagrees with them) that they don’t see how their positions smell to the average person.
Mike,
If you really want to know what is going on here beyond making ignorant remarks about “tone deaf” Dems, you should check the details on this. There was a very odd resolution that went forward where a Republican voted against a bill putting Northam as Lt gov in the position of casting a deciding vote on something that the Repub then changed his vote on that was then vetoed by the gov, although there are no sanctuary cities in VA and Northam opposes them. But the GOP has been beating the drum on this staged vote ever since, not Northam. I have seen the ad you liinked to about 400 times, and there is not an MS-13 issue here, despite that scurrilous ad, one lie after another. This stuff has become nauseating, and if Gillespie wins, we shall see it all over the country next year, although maybe you think that would be just great, Mike.
I have now seen a Gillespie ad that Mike would just love, blaming Northam for this ad that so many people are talking about with the truck that was barely shown. Oh, Northam is insulting the people of Virginia.
I note that Northam had nothing to do with this ad, which was put up by by a progressive Latino group, who withdrew it quickly.
Meanwhile, nobody is saying boo about the endless and nauseating ads by the NRA about Northam. The guy reported as behind these, Chris Cos, looks like a mass murderer, and, frankly, the whole leadership of the NRA should have their guns taken away from them given that they are lunatic terrorists. But, hey, I have seen only about a thousand of their nauseating ads and can only hope that these might inspire sensible Virginians to get out and vote for Northam, even if some rotten idiots sit at home on the basis of national issues that are not under the control of the governor
I cannot tell all of you how disgusted by this race I have become. I am becoming increasingly angry about it, so if you want to defend sitting on your disgusting ass or making stupid snotty remarks about Northam being tone deaf with this ad he did not put out or positions he does not hold, I am going to get really unpleasant over the next few days.
If you live in VA, get out and vote for Northam, please. And if you do not and Gillespie wins, please do not lecture us on the faults of Northam. I shall be inclined to puke all over you.
Barkley,
In 2008, I am sure most Republican candidates were sick and tired of hearing about the state of the economy and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But they ran on under a Republican label, whose policies had generated those outcomes. Unless they specifically stated they were refuting GW’s economic policies, a reasonable assumption was that they favored the very policies that brought about the negative outcomes they didn’t want to hear about any more.
If MS-13 is a problem in VA, it isn’t because Republicans are soft on immigration, or soft on crime, or favor sanctuary cities. Northam chose the D label. If he doesn’t agree with some part of the D policy, its on him to refute it.
As to the pickup truck ad… the fact is, it was a controversial ad and it made a point that many people felt contradicted reality. If a similarly high profile ad comes out, paid for by a Republican PAC, stating that Northam supporters favor higher taxes because they think it will make the national debt explode and bring down the country so we could be subjugated by the Russians, one imagines Gillespie would be a fool not to disavow it.
Woe, Mike, you are just completely out of it.
MS-13 is not a problem in Virginia. But Giieslpie has been running ad after ad after ad over and over and over again about it that are full of crap, with even some GOPsters saying he has ovedone it, but, no, unlike your bizare presumption, he has not withdrawn any of them but is running more and more and more and more of them. It has been a massive propaganda campaign full of lies, and he is getting away with it and withdrawing nothing and even has national media leaning Dem repeating some of his garbage.