With the intense focus that the media has put on the 2008 Presidential elections, it’s easy for smaller races to get lost in the noise. But progressives would do well to remember that all politics is local, and political success starts at home.
On November 6th, Virginia voters will go to the polls to elect state legislators, including the state senate class that will determine redistricting after the 2010 census. The GOP controls the house by only a few seats, and if recent behavior is any indication, the party will do everything it can in to stay in power.
The races are already getting ugly. In the 39th Senate District, voters received homophobic mailers attacking the Democratic challenger to an entrenched Republican incumbent. The mailers claimed that:
George Barker wants to take time away from core academic subjects like math, science, and reading to teach children to accept the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Lifestyle (GLBT).
Too often, these sleazy, homophobic tactics, stay below the national radar (after all, why should a progressive fighting in Kansas worry about what’s happening in Virginia?). But when these attacks go unchallenged on the local level, they gain an enormous potency. The anti-immigrant and anti-gay memes that bedeviled progressives in 2004 and 2006 didn’t drop from the sky, or even flow from Karl Rove’s grotesque political scheming – they emerged from a Right Wing playbook that was road tested for years in state and local races before drawing national attention.
Thanks to local blogs like Raising Kaine, which first drew attention to this flyer, the blogosphere has had some success in elevating these "isolated" attacks to wider notice. But seeing the pattern is only the first step. As a progressive community, we must fight these attacks when and where they arise -- before bigger Republican fish start adopting the same language or Democrats start thinking that the best way to survive the attack is by moving to the right.
George Barker is one of People For the American Way Action Fund’s "Map Changer" Candidates. Give generously.