Although Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is cordial to his “friend” (in quotes because I have no idea if they’re really friends, although they do seem to get along pretty well) Bob McDonnell, he nonetheless demolishes McDonnell’s record as governor. Key points:
*Creating jobs and expanding opportunity should be the central issue, but these “divisive wedge issues…rollback of women’s rights…rollback of voting rights, rollback of workers’ rights, all of these things that take us back are not strengthening our economy and creating jobs.”
*”People start to see a pattern emerging in states like Wisconsin…even in Virginia, where these cultural issues are crowding out the things that really should concern us most.”
*”The question is whether we’re making the right investments in jobs, education, more affordable college that will keep Virginia in that top ranking [economically] in the future; Maryland’s there — we’re making college more affordable, we’re creating jobs at twice the rate of Virginia — and these cultural battles that drive people apart are not helpful to driving us forward.”
McDonnell, of course, has no answers to any of this. Nor does he have any answers to the line of questioning you can see on the “flip,” about his support for invasive ultrasounds and other divisive, retrograde, reactionary legislation (e.g., the assault on voting rights and women’s rights more broadly), etc. Enjoy!
More on the “flip”
Note particularly when David Gregory calls out McDonnell on the issue of “mandates,” how this is supposedly something conservatives believe is heinous, yet here McDonnell is, signing into law a mandate that women and their doctors must perform a mandatory, medically unnecessary procedure because the government — Bob McDonnell’s government, that is – orders it. Not only that, but Bob McDonnell’s government refuses to even fund its unfunded health care mandate on women, making this something conservatives are supposed to hate even worse than mandates in general – the dreaded “unfunded government mandate.”
In sum, Bob McDonnell has proven himself to be a total, absolute hypocrite on what’s supposedly (these days, anyway – didn’t always used to be the case at all, back when Republicans were all for the individual health care mandate for instance) a conservative principle against government health care mandates. Along with the father of “Romneycare,” good ol’ Willard, a ticket of Romney-McDonnell would highlight, and hopefully implode, all the internal contradictions within the irrational, bizarre world view of today’s Republican’t Party. Personally, I look forward to watching that implosion with a big bucket of popcorn to munch on as I do. 🙂
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