Bob McDonnell: 2010 and Beyond
JEFF MORROW: Months ago, my colleague, Howard, and I discussed Virginia’s future as a blue state or a red state. I said then, reiterated later, and maintain now that Virginia defaults Republican. But Governor McDonnell has shown that I overestimated just how much social conservatism the Commonwealth will bear.
First, the politics. McDonnell cannot run for reelection, as Virginia restricts its governors to a single term. This does not insulate the governors from political pressure, of course. Governor Mark Warner is now Senator Mark Warner, making the transition earlier made by George Allen. Governor Tim Kaine—now the head of the DNC—was very nearly Vice President Kaine. And now Bob McDonnell, tapped to deliver the State of the Union rebuttal for the GOP, is keenly aware that he may have a political future, and that he may utilize future elections in Virginia to further it.
The two-step over sexual-orientation discrimination made this political reality apparent, highlighting how liberal the state has become and how conservative it remains.
A summary of the controversy: Governors Warner and Kaine had issued executive orders barring state agencies from engaging in discrimination along a number of classes, including sexual orientation. McDonnell issued the same order, minus sexual orientation. Although McDonnell argued that an executive order including sexual orientation was simply beyond his legislatively derived authority (a legal claim that is, at best, highly debatable), everything in his past suggested he regarded “Stonewall” primarily as a brilliant Confederate general.
From his treatise on social conservatism, prepared at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network School of Law, to his voting record in the state legislature, McDonnell clearly held social views as conservative as they come in mainstream politics.
Shortly after McDonnell’s order, elected Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli informed the Commonwealth’s public universities that their established policies of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation should not and could not be given legal effect. Ken Cuccinelli, for his part, holds social views well outside mainstream politics or even, in this author’s opinion, polite society.
Cuccinelli’s order, from the office McDonnell himself last held, garnered national attention and even intraparty criticism, which left all eyes on McDonnell to respond. Perhaps surprisingly, he did, issuing a directive (not an executive order) committing to the discipline of any state officer engaged in discrimination on sexual orientation.
McDonnell reversed course.
This reveals some amazing things about McDonnell and about Virginia’s demographics. Assuming McDonnell’s views have only evolved so much, and that his reaction was primarily political, it reveals a sense that he cannot pursue a political future relying on the kind of social conservatism that would have passed 10, 20 years ago. He sensed in this flare-up, as he did in the election itself, that Virginia doesn’t want a cultural warrior. And if he thinks so, he’s probably correct.
Whether this is a product of the growing influx to the D.C. suburbs, becoming a functional part of the Northeast, or the social evolution of the onetime Confederacy is a question for the pollsters come 2012, the Commonwealth’s next big election. But the McDonnell episode suggests that Virginia is a conservative enough place for someone like Cuccinelli to get elected when no one is looking, but not so conservative that his views can actually withstand the bright lights.
The Virginia of the future is much more socially moderate than its past. As a result, it seems, the same is becoming true of McDonnell.
HOWARD MEGDAL: Jeff makes a terrific argument, but the takeaway for me from this particular episode is to wonder whether this is yet another indicator that ostracizing the LGBT community for political sport is no longer a winning formula.
Think about what just happened in Virginia: two extremely conservative officeholders determined that making a stand that simply withheld certain political rights from gays and lesbians-in other words, a sin of omission- simply wouldn’t fly in Virginia.
Functionally, it would have led to all kinds of discrimination. But optically, this was nothing less than determining that Virginia wouldn’t stand for gays and lesbians to be treated as less than equal under the law.
This is an echo of the surprisingly one-sided debate over gays in the military. And for it to happen in the Old Confederacy, in a state not commonly associated with progressives, is particularly noteworthy to me.
Of course, perhaps I am being too hard on Virginia- after all, you can’t have Loving vs. Virginia without, well, Virginia.
Alas, we have recent indications that providing new rights to gay and lesbian couples- particularly, marriage- is still viewed as less than a winning issue. But any regression from the important rights won by the LGBT community is met with, if anything, far more uniform resistance than gay marriage, which appears to be just short of a 50-50 split in most places. And with the demographics solidly on the side of younger people supporting gay marriage, even this barrier seems to be one that requires only time to fall as well.
Even in Virginia.