Not every electoral victory is a mandate, but in yesterday’s Virginia governor’s race — for perhaps the first time in modern recorded democratic history — the losing candidate in an election claimed a mandate.
In what was surely one of the bitterest and ungracious concession speeches in recent memory, Republican loser Ken Cuccinelli declared that because he only lost by 2.5 percentage points instead of a much greater margin against such a well-funded opponent, that meant “you sent a message to the president of the United States . . . that Obamacare is a failure.”
Or how about this? That Cuccinelli really was destined to win by a landslide thanks to his charming personality, personal incorruptibility, and uncompromising stand in favor of inserting probes into women’s vaginas, but voters actually liked Obamacare so much, they were even willing to vote for a Democrat so widely disliked as Terry McAuliffe.See, all kinds of creative explanations are possible! Of course, it might just be simpler to note that Cuccinelli lost, which usually means something in politics.
Meanwhile, it’s interesting that in Loudoun, every one of the eastern districts went solidly for the Democrats running for statewide office. McAuliffe carried every precinct in the election districts of GOP Supervisors Shawn Williams (Broad Run), Suzanne Volpe (Algonkian), Eugene Delgaudio (Sterling), and Matt Letourneau (Dulles) and also carried an overall commanding majority in the the districts of Ralph Buona (Ashburn) and Ken Reid (Leesburg).
So if the Democrats can only come up with some viable supervisor candidates, and get the vote out two years from now as they did yesterday, they really have no excuse for not turning out this current bunch of political hacks, corrupt developer shills, and outright crooks (that would be Eugene) from the Loudoun Board of Supervisors.
realloudoun 