Bolling over Connaughton: Bad Sign for Republican NoVA
I’ve got a few quick thoughts on the Virginia Republican primary for Lieutenant Governor, where state Sen. Bill Bolling from Hanover (suburban Richmond) put a significant hurting on the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, Sean Connaughton.
Despite significant endorsements on Connaughton’s side from downstate politicians, Bolling absolutely slaughtered him in every Congressional district outside the Northern Virginia commuting zone. Bolling ran an effective negative campaign, capitalizing on the traditional downstate image of Northern Virginia as a liberal haven.
The reason this race was important is that if the Republicans retake the top two spots in the state (which seems likely, with the Dems running liberal LtGov and former Richmond mayor Tim Kaine), the sitting LtGov will be the prohibitive frontrunner for the 2009 gubernatorial nomination. Meanwhile, Connaughton’s defeat leaves no one with Northern Virginia ties on the state-level party escalator, at a time when Fairfax County has begun trending majority-blue for the first time.
Transportation makes this area lean toward slightly higher spending across the board; Republican or Democrat, you simply can’t get elected up here without trying to address traffic concerns, whether it be by road or rail. Anti-spending conservative ideologues may give the statewide party warm fuzzies, but they need our votes to win. Those votes get less and less likely to go Republican the longer the state party avoids realistically addressing NoVA issues, and running a moderate with regional credibility out of the party lineup is a bad sign.
15 June 2005 / 0 Comments / Tags: politics, nova