RTD Denounces McDonnell Wingnuttery

Here's some fun in the vein of Jeff Foxworthy

You know you're a wingnut when...

Anne Coulter calls you a right-wing radical.

When...

Rush Limbaugh denounces your free-market zealotry.

When

The Richmond Times Dispatch calls you "Right of Center".

Well, the first two may be made up, but the #3 is as real as today's RTD Op-Ed page.

Here are a few choice tidbits as Richmond's favority right-leaning rag chafes under Bob McDonnells's "conservative-sating", record driven by "internal Republican politics":

McDonnell's stances appear driven by internal Republican politics; specifically, sating conservatives who control the nominating process. The opinions were written before Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, now seeking re-election, conceded the gubernatorial nomination to McDonnell.

In another perceived sop to conservatives, McDonnell intervened on behalf of Episcopal parishes in Northern Virginia that broke with the diocese to protest the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire.

McDonnell has to answer for more: his opposition to controls on smoking in public, the non-solution for roads, industry friendly re-regulation of utilities, and federal court rulings spotlighting his hostility to abortion.

Has McDonnell taken positions that allow him to reach the middle, where elections are decided?

To paraphrase his answer to a stickier question -- one best avoided in a family-oriented publication: not that he can recall.

That last dig is a wave towards the drama which earned McDonnell the monniker "Taliban Bob". Read the ugly details here.

A few thoughts on tonight's debate

First, the polls are pointing towards a McAuliffe surge.

Second, tonight's debate went very well, so credit to Ben Tribbett for a huge achievement. That said, what terrible programming to put it directly opposite the Obama press conference.

Third, Moran really did himself no favors tonight coming across as a pugilistic and all around knobby-kneed attack dog. pretty sad.

Fourth, Creigh is a great guy, but half the time he comes across as less than gubernatorial. He's very energetic and has a very strong moral compass, but just looking at him and listening to him, makes you question. When you consider his positions on marriage equality, he loses the progressive vote.

Finally, McAuliffe is definitely the one to beat in this race. He is in the best position to take on McDonnell, has very strong and well-considered positions, and is really running by far the best campaign in Virginia politics this year. His common sense solutions will draw a stark contrast against McDonnell's radical ideologica in the fall.

McDonnell's $125M Bow to Gilmore

Virginians are rightly outraged that Richmond Republicans stopped the influx of over $125 Million in unemployment benefits from the Obama Recovery package.

In the midst of the Bush Depression and spiraling unemployment, Virginia Republicans have once again stepped on the necks of struggling working families in the name of ideology and political gain. Nationwide, Republicans have proceeded without ideas, and without focus, opposing every progressive legislative initiative in the blind hope of regaining power. Here in Virginia, Republicans just cost Virginians a critically-needed life raft so that they can build a talking point.

Bob Holsworth reviews the issue, and determines that Gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, will likely try to use the controversy to gin up a divisive "big issue" to run on. Maybe something along the lines of Jim Gilmore's "No Car Tax" platform, and we all know how that turned out:

And I have been hearing that McDonnell is at least considering a “Big Idea” such as major tax cut proposal, a Virginia-based stimulus package that would embody a very different model than the one taken by the federal government.

As with everything we've seen recently from Virginia Republicans, we've seen it all before.

alankrishnan lived through Gilmore's idiotic approach

McDonnell is likely to take us back to the approach of Jim Gilmore, who turned his back on Virginians experiencing hardship when he repeatedly failed to claim federal matching funds for children's health insurance and refused to extend emergency unemployment aid to workers laid off from the Tultex textile plant in Martinsville. I used to live in Roanoke Virginia at that time, working for a manufacturing company and we could feel the pain suffered by the Tultex textile plant workforce.

The reason why people are sick and tired of Republicans, and why they think Republicans are heartless, is because they consistently prove that they are heartless. They don't understand the problems facing real Americans, and they prove it time and time again.

Good luck with all that, Mr. Gilmore, um.. McDonnell.