As the year approaches its end...

…there has been good and bad news.

For people who believe that anyone should be allowed to marry whoever they want to, it has been very good. There are now 18 states and the District of Columbia where marriage equality is the law — and who would have thought Utah would be in such a short list? — up from 10 at the start of the year. That is certainly good news.

The start of “Obamacare” is mixed news: it is certainly unfortunate that so many people are finding they can't keep the insurance they like, despite President Obama's promise, but the good thing is that even Democratic poluticians are having second thoughts about the law, and there might be enough delaying of its provisions that by the time they are ready to take effect, President Christie might be able to sign a repealing act.

Speaking of Chris Christie, more good news is that his re-election by a landslide, in a very blue state, shows that a Republican can win Democrats' votes while governing according to his own values.

The other gubernatorial race, in Virginia, has to be considered bad news, though Ken Cuccinelli is hardly the one I would have liked to see win. His nomination, of course, was really bad news, because it gave the GOP another candidate in the Todd Akin/Richard Mourdock/Christine O'Donnell mold, someone who drove away a lot of voters that a more moderate Republican could have won over. But the fact that Cuccinelli came as close as he did goes to show how poisonous “Obamacare” is. If the Republicans had nominated a Bill Bolling, they would certainly have won this election.

We will have to see what 2014 brings. I think we have to prepare for anything.

Social conservatism: the curse of the GOP

When we look at the recent elections in New Jersey and Virginia, one factor is inescapable. The embrace by many Republican politicians of a hard right social agenda is empowering Democrats. Look at what Terry McAuliffe did in Virginia. It was by calling attention to Ken Cuccinelli's policies on abortion and such that he built up a 10+ point lead in some polls — and it was only because Cuccinelli managed to shift the dialog to the Obamacare disaster that he made the final result much closer. Imagine what would have happened in Virginia if McAuliffe had not been able to attack the Republican on the social issues? If a moderate were to have had the Republican nomination, and so only the Democrats' weaknesses (especially on Obamacare) had been before the public, we'd have seen a GOP win the Governorship — this is certain to me.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, we had a Republican nominee who was conservative — but not an in-your-face sort of conservative. Chris Christie was not in favor of gay marriage, but when the court said New Jersey had it allow it, he decided not to appeal. He's worked with a Democratic legislature, yet managed to get them to approve a program that is economically (not socially) conservative. That's really the way to get Republican ideas into force — and it's why I have supported Christie for years, even before this month's big election win. He may have some trouble getting the nomination — I saw a headline on a post comparing Christie to “President Giuliani,” and it is this hurdle that worries me, because I think Giuliani would have made an excellent President, but simply could not get through the Republican primaries — but if Republican primary voters want to be able to win in November 2016, they will realize that nobody is better to getting Democrats and independents to vote for a Republican than Chris Christie. And you can't put your prograns through unless you win the election.

The lesson from yesterday's elections

Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle in 2010. Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock in 2012. And now, Ken Cuccinelli. All have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Every one of these lost to a Democrat, in an election that the Republicans could have won with a better candidate. And yet, I wonder whether the extremists of the Right have learned the lesson: A less-than-pure conservative can win (see Chris Christie) where a perfect, give-no-quarter conservative will not.

Virginia's gubernatorial election was an even sadder story than most. Ken Cuccinelli lost by only around 56,000 votes (Note: In my original post I said 30,000 votes, but later results call for a correction), out of about 2 million cast. It is almost certain that a more moderate candidate would have won. After all, even the outgoing Republican lieutenant governor, Bill Bolling, refused to endorse Cuccinelli — and some believe he actually supported Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat who will be Virginia's next governor. When your candidate for governor is opposed by one of your own top state officers, that is a sign you've done something wrong.

Meanwhile, Gov. Christie was re-elected with a fraction of the vote that appears to have topped 60%. Several Democratic office holders openly supported him. You can't implement your programs without being elected to office, and while Christie may not be as conservative as some Tea Party types might like, he will definitely be more conservative than anyone the Democrats might put up. Supporters of other GOP hopefuls ought to realize this.

New Jersey is a liberal state. In the same election, yesterday, they passed a liberal referendum question on the minimum wage. Yet Christie got more than 3 votes for every 2 that went to his Democratic opponent — a proportion of the vote that hasn't been reached by a Republican statewide candidate in New Jersey since the 1980s. It is clear that New Jersey's citizens appreciate his first term as governor. He probably will not get 60+% of the New Jersey vote in a presidential race in 2016, but he can carry some states that no other Republican is likely to. And carrying states means winning electoral votes. And electoral votes are what you need to win the Presidency.

What's happening in Virginia?

Some of the polls in Virginia seem to show the race tightening. Perhaps some Virginians are thinking the same sort of thoughts that I expressed in my Friday post, that as bad as Ken Cuccinelli is, it's more important to defeat Terry McAuliffe than to make some sort of statement about Cuccinelli's extremism.

Of course, the only poll that raally matters is the official one that will take place in two days. I can't wait to see how that turns out.

Two gubernatorial elections

In the years directly following Presidential election years, only two states choose their Governors: Virginia and New Jersey. And this year, the two could not be more different in how the races are developing.

In New Jersey, the Republicans have a perfect candidate: Chris Christie, who has run a State government with such a degree of competence that even Democratic office holders are backing his re-election. It is clear that the people of New Jersey are happy with him, and if I were in that State I would vote for his re-election with no qualms at all. I am certain that three years from now I will be supporting him for the step up to the Presidency.

In Virginia, a governor cannot succeed himself, so they are not dealing with a re-election campaign, but both major parties have selected atrocious candidates: On the one hand, the Democrats have Terry McAuliffe, whose only distinction is that he ran the DNC for a time. He's got no experience in state government, no real ties to Virginia, and had talked of bringing a business involving “green” automobiles to the State, but they ended up in Mississippi, and aren't making any cars yet, anyway. On the other hand, extremists in the Republican Party forced the Lieutenant Governor, Bill Bolling, to abandon a run for Governor by making the nominating process hostile to his chances, and the nominee is the Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, as extreme as they come in the GOP. There is a third candidate, Robert Sarvis, a Libertarian, but of course, he has no chance to win. If he had the slightest chance, I'd think Sarvis the best choice — a National Review posting that attempts to deny that Sarvis is a real libertarian only convinces me that I like him. (According to Charles C. W. Cooke in that post, Sarvis is a “social liberal” — but libertarians are socially liberal and economically conservative! Cooke tries to claim that you can be a libertarian and support the Religious Right's attempt to jam their ideas down other people's throats — hardly in conformity with what is, at least in my eyes, a libertarian stance.) Cooke cites some interviews by Sarvis that, in my mind, simply show that Sarvis is not as extreme a libertarian on economic affairs as he (Cooke) might like. But there are degrees of libertarianism, and such as Ron Paul take libertarianism to the point of caricature.

So while Robert Sarvis would be the best choice for Governor of Virginia if he really had a chance, if I were living across the river in Virginia, I'd be voting for Ken Cuccinelli. Perhaps holding my nose while doing so, but defeating Terry McAuliffe is more important than making an empty statement, which is what a vote for Sarvis would be. Get me right: I prefer Sarvis, but would vote for Cuccinelli if I lived in Virginia, and advise Virginians who read this blog to do the same.

Virginia's governorship race

Only two states elect governors in the immediate post-Presidential-election years: New Jersey and Virginia. While New Jersey is likely to be a rout (some polls put Chris Christie more than 30 points ahead of his Democratic opponent!), Virginia is going to be close, if appearances bear out. And it's a terrible dilemma for Virginia's voters.

Virginia Republicans have held their convention and picked Ken Cuccinelli, the current attorney general. The main reason they had a convention, rather than a primary, is that moderate lieutenant governor Bill Bolling might have won a primary, and diehard conservatives wanted to ensure Cuccinelli's nomination. While I applaud some things Cuccinelli has done, like fighting Obamacare, he is a strong “social conservative,” and I thing the Republicans will only be a constructive force in this country if they abandon “social conservatism.”

But then I look at the Democrats. They haven't had their primary yet, but Terry McAuliffe seems to have no serious challengers. (In fact, he has no challengers, period! Nobody else has filed for that primary.) And McAuliffe is best known for heading Bill Clinton's re-election campaign. He's strongly allied with the whole Clinton family — he was a big supporter of Hillary Clinton's bid for the 2008 Democratic nomination. That alone hurts him in my eyes.

If I were a Virginia voter, I'd be stumped. Cuccinelli is more extreme than I'd like, and McAuliffe is actually fairly moderate for a Democrat. But I'd hate to see any Democrat win in an election where it might be construed for support for the Obama Presidency — and to the extent it's not so construed, it helps set things up for Hillary in 2016.

The "individual mandate" decision

Judge Henry E. Hudson, a Federal District Court judge in Virginia, has issued an opinion that the individual mandate in the health care bill is unconstitutional, an opinion with which I heartily concur. There are, however, two other judges in other courts (one also in Virginia) who have ruled the opposite way. So it still will depend on the Supreme Court's decision for a final ruling.

While Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia Attorney General who brought this suit before the court, is further to the right than I would like, in this case, I think he is on the right side, and I'm glad to see that, so far, he has prevailed.

What will the Supreme Court do?

It looks as though there are going to be some interesting issues before the Supreme Court in the next year or so. There are the three gay marriage cases (Perry v. Schwarzenegger, challenging California's Prop. 8, and Gil v. Office of Personnel Management and Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, two Massachusetts challenges of the federal Defense of Marriage Act), Ken Cuccinelli (Virginia attorney general)'s challenge to the individual mandate in the Obama health care law, and the Obama administration's challenge to the Arizona anti-illegal-immigration law. Quite a bunch of controversial cases, and it will be interesting to see what the Supreme Court does with them!

It is hard to predict. The California gay msrriage case, for example, had a conservative lawyer on the team representing the pro-gay-rights side. And there are all sorts of issues involved in all these cases, many of which have not been before the Supreme Court before. And of course, the Court has some new justices: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, without much of a judicial history. We just have to sit and wait.