So all of you remember how Tim Kaine whipped Jerry Kilgore's ass about a month ago here in Virginia. And you probably figured that part of the reason Kilgore lost was because of his far-right positions and unwillingness to talk to moderate voters, right? Well that's not how the state GOP sees it. More after the flip...
In an editorial today, the Washington Post, sounding almost aggrivated, wonders how the Virginia GOP believes that Kilgore lost because he was (drumroll please).....
TOO MODERATE. Yep, that's right, the Virginia Republicans are now all telling themselves that if only Kilgore had been even MORE wingnutty, he'd be gov-elect today.
They conveniently ignore the fact that self-described independents and moderates both preferred Democrat Tim Kaine by huge margins, and that the only groups solidly in Kilgore's camp were GOP loyalists and self-described conservatives. They also conveniently ignore the fact that most voters said they weren't interested in the far-right social issues that Kilgore thought it would be clever to bring up in the last months of the campaign. They also ignore the fact that Kilgore lost the most votes in many normally GOP exurbs, which Kaine actively courted.
The GOP's one piece of evidence is the fact that supposedly-more right-wing Lt. Gov. candidate Bill Bolling and Atty. Gen. candidate Bob McDonnell won while Kilgore lost. But they ignore the fact that the Bolling-Byrne race was a race between two ideologues where negative votes outnumbered positive ones, and the fact that McDonnell leads Creigh Deeds by a mere 300 votes, which will almost certainly bring a recount. Bolling's 49-50 victory and the McDonnell-Deeds tie are hardly ringing endorsements of either GOP candidate.
But far be it from me to tell the GOP to stop digging itself into a hole.