by Paul Goldman

The Sarvis for Governor candidacy is silly, as will be clear shortly to any serious person. Yet the Virginia media, led by Bart Hinkle (the lead editorial writer and top blogger for the Richmond Times-Dispatch), is urging Virginians to give serious consideration to Libertarian Party nominee Robert Sarvis. This bizzaro obsession – and it truly IS bizzaro – symbolizes the unprecedented nature of Virginia’s 2013 Governor’s race.

Hinkle got hired originally to help write predictably conservative Republican editorial insights from the state’s largest Republican-leaning paper. But he can’t abide GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli for reasons which are not entirely clear to me. However, the RTD has never backed a Democrat for Governor in the modern age, for many of the reasons it will not support Terry McAuliffe no matter what.

Accordingly, not wanting to tell people not to vote, they turn to Sarvis. Had they been promoting Sarvis as an outlet for lodging a protest vote against Ken and Terry, perhaps arguendo it might be intellectually defensible on some level. However, they are urging serious people to consider Sarvis as a serious, qualified candidate for the job, someone who is worthy of their  affirmative vote for Governor.

This “jumps the shark” into clown school. Sarvis is not a serious GUV candidate by any reasonable definition of the term. Read his website if this isn’t – as Mr. Jefferson would say – self-evident.  Mr. Sarvis says he is “the best choice to represent the increasingly diverse population of Virginia” because he is “mixed race (half Chinese).” This makes him better, he says,than the other two non-mixed-race guys to lead a diverse state like Virginia. What is this, the view of a (non-serious) candidate for dog catcher? This alone, to serious people like myself with a serious record of bringing real positive change to a diverse state like Virginia, makes Mr. Sarvis utterly disqualified.  Once you accept Mr. Sarvis’ slippery slope to nowhere, what’s next? It is a brainless, absurd position for any serious candidate for Governor, precisely why Mr. Sarvis isn’t one.

Bottom line: Anyone in 2013 who still thinks like this is utterly unqualified to lead a diverse state, not the other way around. Moreover, Mr. Sarvis’s platform shows why he isn’t a serious candidate for Governor.

1) Claiming to be running as the “drug reform” candidate, Mr. Sarvis supports “legalizing marijuana” and “decriminalizing harder drugs.” I am not sure what he means by legalizing, or decriminalizing, but it sounds like one of those platitudes he claims to detest.  All he says is that “[r]responsible drug use that does not harm others should not be punished.” How is that determined?  As a general rule, if a product is legal, those producing, transporting and selling the product are likewise not criminally liable either. So what exactly does he mean? “Harder drugs” covers a lot of ground. Plus, as I read his platform, his idea is to have ABC stores become ABCD stores: they will sell drugs too so as to raise more revenue. Really?  

2) It would take too long to explain in full detail the total destruction of public education in Virginia that would occur if Mr. Sarvis’s ideas were implemented. Has Mr. Hinkle even bothered to read the Sarvis Educational Utterings? Sure, his list of platitudes contains sound bites that appeal to different groups of critics of the status quo. No one has written more pieces on reforming education than I have in recent years. But I lay out a specific set of concrete ideas, not sound bite criticisms that when taken together, would utterly wreck public education.  

3) Sarvis’ answer to reducing gun violence and violent crimes in our society is this: “end the drug war” whatever that means. What does that mean?

4) On the one hand, Sarvis says he is against the Governor’s transportation plan because it raised the sales tax on the poor. But when you read another part of his platform, he endorses a big new sales tax on goods and services which, by his analysis, would be even more anti-poor since he wants to use this new revenue to eliminate or largely reduce just about every other state and local tax. Who can be against lower taxes when you can get away with saying you actually want to help the poor and will pay for it with some vague consumption tax reference?  Did Bart really think no one would bother to read Sarvis’ platform?

CONCLUSION: Sarvis is a Silly candidate for Governor. His claim of being more qualified because of his heritage and that of his wife insults my intelligence. I would have thought it likewise insulted Mr. Hinkle and others. But this 2013 campaign is apparently driving sensible people to justify all kinds of things. And to think: we haven’t even hit the really nasty October silly season campaign time.

From the Mark Herring for Attorney General campaign, this makes clear whose side Mark Obenshain would be on if (god forbid) elected Attorney General of Virginia: “out-of-state energy companies, not Virginia property owners,” as Mark Herring (correctly) explains.  Remember, Mark Obenshain said that Ken Cuccinelli would be a model for him as Attorney General, and his campaign is showing that he wasn't kidding. 

Obenshain sides with company that Cuccinelli aided in swindling SW Virginians out of $30M in royalties

On Monday following the Virginia campaign finance disclosure deadline, campaign finance documents revealed that Republican candidate for Attorney General Mark Obenshain received a $15,000 campaign donation on August 26, 2013 from Consol Energy, Inc. This is the same out-of-state company that received help from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office in swindling Virginians’ out of more than $30 million in gas royalties during a class action lawsuit.

“This donation is nothing more than a down payment from Consol Energy to Mark Obenshain to continue the special treatment the company has experienced under Ken Cuccinelli,” Democratic candidate for Attorney General Mark Herring said. “This is about whose side Mark Obenshain is going to be on, and it’s clear that he would side with out-of-state energy companies, not Virginia property owners. Virginians want the next Attorney General to be a break from Ken Cuccinelli, but Obenshain is going down the same path. As Attorney General, I’ll take politics out of the office, put the law – and Virginians – first.”

Throughout the controversy involving Cuccinelli, Mark Obenshain has remained silent and has been dodging questions. Now we may know why.

In the gas royalties scandal, Ken Cuccinelli’s office was first accused of helping an out-of-state energy company, Consol Energy, Inc., in a class action lawsuit against citizens of Southwest Virginia. Cuccinelli claimed that his office’s communications with Consol pertained to constitutional issues, but a Federal judge, after reviewing email correspondence, found that Cuccinelli’s office was offering advice and opinions to the company against Virginia citizens. The judge called the correspondence “shocking.”

Below are headlines condemning Cuccinelli’s role in aiding Consol:

Since Roanoke College is out with a new “poll” (using the word EXTREMELY loosely) this morning, I thought it would be a good opportunity to review how pathetically, laughably bad these “polls” really are (note: today’s “poll” has the Dems up, but it doesn’t matter – these “polls” are garbage no matter what they show). Here are a few lowlights:

*The most hilariously, outrageously awful pollster of Virginia during the 2012 cycle was, by far, Roanoke College. Starting off in March 2011, with a poll that can’t even really be called “crap,” because that’s an insult to good fecal material everywhere, is this, this…thing, showing George Allen leading Tim Kaine by – wait for it – 13 points (!!!). Uh guys? Bwahahahahahahaha.

*Another truly abysmal Roanoke College poll came on October 31, 2012, just days before the election. In this debacle, Roanoke College had Kaine and Obama both DOWN five points in Virginia, meaning that they missed the final results a few days later by 9 and 11 points, respectively. Wow.

*Even more hilariously, that Roanoke College “poll” (using the word VERY loosely) came just a few weeks after another one of their “polls” showed Obama up 8 points and Kaine up 10 points. That’s right, according to Roanoke College, there was a 15-point swing towards Romney and Allen in Virginia during October 2012. Seriously, just shut this “pollster” down and spare us all the misery. (Note: I thought about looking at Roanoke College “polls”‘ internals, but then I thought, why even bother, these polls are so awful it doesn’t even matter what the internals are, might as well have just pulled them out of their butts for all they’re worth…)

*Nate Silver ranked all the pollsters from the 2012 presidential race, and Roanoke College finished 6th worst in the entire country (out of about 90 polls), with an “average error” and pro-GOP “bias” of 8.1 points each.

So, again, I urge all media organizations to ignore Roanoke College polls, whether they show Democrats up, down, tied, upside-down, whatever. Not that they ever listen to anyone’s advice, so screw it, just carry on fine media organizations…just like you do with the mass shooting stories and everything else you get wildly wrong all the time.

I sat down for lunch earlier today with 34th House of Delegates district (McLean, Great Falls) candidate Kathleen Murphy and her campaign manager, Raymond Rieling. Here are some highlights from our conversation.

*According to Murphy, Barbara Comstock claims she’s “an elected official, I uphold the law, but [Comstock] never finishes by saying ‘it is my goal to overturn Roe v. Wade.'”

*”The [hard-core Tea Partiers] want somebody to overturn the government; they don’t see that our government does anything good — and that’s sad.”

*”I have run into people at the doors who will say ‘I’m a Republican,’ and I’ve looked at them and I say ‘are you a Reagan Republican, or are you a Comstock/Cuccinelli Republican, because they’re very different.”

*”Comstock and Cuccinelli really have attacked the rights of women in a way that’s a new low, with mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasounds…closing these clinics where women get basic health care, cancer screening, Pap smears…and they say ‘not our problem.'”

*Comstock “wants to run for Congress, maybe Governor…Karl Rove contributes to her, he has advised her…she learned from him.”

*Comstock’s campaign is accusing Murphy’s of being “negative,” but if Comstock thinks that pointing out her own votes is “negative,” then Murphy says “don’t vote that way!”

*”Our campaign is very straightforward: the Barbara Comstock in McLean and Great Falls and Loudoun is not the Barbara Comstock that you get voting down in Richmond.”

*”A lot of people are very discouraged on the Republican side by the Cuccinelli/Comstock/Obenshain [ticket], especially with the attack on women’s rights. Even Republican women are coming around and saying, ‘You know, I really like Barbara, but man alive, I don’t like the way she has voted on these issues…Some of [those voters] are coming my way.”

*”This is going to be a very tough race, but I don’t back away from it, and I’m not afraid of her. I think she’s going to have a really hard time defending her voting record.” (note: there will be four “forums” – not debates, god forbid – in this race)

*”I am not running against Barbara Comstock because I don’t like her, I am running against her because of her voting record – she votes against us…in a way that is totally unacceptable for women…education…transportation…she votes with the gun lobby.”

*”I lost my brother to gun violence, and I can tell you that’s a big issue for me. Preventing gun violence should be huge for us…Barbara’s people have said to me, ‘if your brother had been armed, he wouldn’t be dead.’ I told the guy, thank you very much, but he was a licensed gun owner, he knew how to use a gun, and it didn’t save his life.”

*Murphy related a scary story on guns: “When my son was a 5th grader, he went and stayed with a friend. When they came back to our house, they went into his room and closed the door…I went in and they had brought a gun home from the other kid’s house…a loaded gun…so I took the gun, and he was saying ‘oh gosh mom, this is going to make so-and-so really mad at us, and I said, ‘well you’ve already got this so-and-so really mad at you.'”

*We talked for a while about the importance of solid-blue areas like Arlington and Alexandria helping candidates like Kathleen Murphy in swing districts. That one should be a no-brainer, IMHO.

*According to Murphy, when people find out what Comstock’s voting record is, some “gasp,” while others stand there and “just shake their head and say, ‘this can’t be true.‘”

*This is a race where “one candidate is totally pro-gun, doesn’t want to talk about gun safety or gun violence prevention, running against a woman who’s experienced two tragedies from gun violence…It’s an important part of who I am. I had a brother, his name was Steven. And he was murdered, for no reason at all…”

*What happened Monday in the Navy Yard should not be politicized, in Murphy’s view. “This is a…tragedy that our country and this area has experience…and we are human beings and our hearts are broken along with those families, and what we need to do is turn around and say we care enough to continue to fight so that we get some sensible ways to reduce gun violence. You can’t let them talk you out of that.”

*I asked Murphy about the Jewish “joke” by Republican 10th CD Chair John Whitbeck. She asked, “I just want to know how it’s possible for the Republican Party to allow someone with those kind of really hateful attitudes and values and beliefs to represent their party?” In Murphy’s view, Barbara Comstock “should absolutely condemn [those remarks], but you’ll never see her do it.” Murphy added, “You can quote me on this: Barbara Comstock agrees with Cuccinelli about 90%-95% of the time. I can only assume that she completely supports his association with this man, who I think is disgraceful.”

*Murphy provided a synopsis of her personal and political narrative. At the doors, she emphasizes “real…workable solutions to congestion, getting more people onto transit…making our schools even better…paying our teaches a livable wage in this area…It is important that we stand up for the rights of women, because I am running against a crew that wants to legislate discrimination, ignorance and intolerance…and we should say no. And then I say, I lost my brother, and I know what tragedy feels like…and I will work very hard to come together to have a conversation about how we can address gun violence…and make our families and our communities safer.”

*Murphy added that she grew up a “military brat,” the 3rd of 7 kids. She said her family was not wealthy, so she worked to put herself through school…it took years and years, but she finally got her degree, graduated magna cum laude, and she was proud that all her children were there to see that.

*What can Democrats and progressive activists in deep “blue” areas in places like Arlington and Alexandria do to help Murphy? She says, “knock on doors and donate…so we can continue to pay for grip cards and the [salaries of staffers]…and so that I can stop trying to raise money and go out and knock on more doors…every door I knock is a vote I can get, and I promise you I’m picking up votes…”

The bottom line is that Kathleen Murphy is an impressive Democratic candidate, running in a winnable district (IF she has the resources to get her message out) against a truly deplorable Republican (for more on Comstock, see here and here). If you want to volunteer for Kathleen Murphy in these closing weeks, please click here. If you want to donate, Please click here. Thanks, and go Kathleen Murphy!