VA-GOV

What Ramesh Ponnuru has written about Tuesday's wins is right in so many ways:

More important, a few Republican candidates have demonstrated that it is possible to transcend the party's conservative-moderate divide. In Virginia, Robert McDonnell won a landslide — the first Republican win in a governor's race there in 12 years — by running as a problem solver. Social conservatives know he is one of them. But independent voters strongly backed him too. Voters as a whole trusted him more than his Democratic opponent on everything from fixing the roads to strengthening the economy. Once he had that trust, Democrats were unable to get voters to see him as frighteningly conservative, although they tried to make hay out of a hard-right master's thesis McDonnell wrote in 1989.

[Disclosure: I consulted for the McDonnell campaign, and these are my personal views on why he won.]

In the wake of McDonnell's landslide, many observers have pointed to his brand of "pragmatism" to make the case that McDonnell -- and not Hoffman in NY-23 -- is the way forward for conservatives in 2010.

But to point to McDonnell as a subrosa moderate profoundly misses the point. McDonnell is a strong conservative who early in the campaign put Deeds on the defensive by running against Obama and Pelosi's policies, most notably card check and cap-and-trade. There was never any doubt as to McDonnell's conservative bona fides.

But even though McDonnell was in fact a true conservative, there was no need to make the election about those credentials. McDonnell's conservatism spoke for itself.

What the campaign keyed in on very early is that most voters aren't ideological. In a time of crisis, they first and foremost want problems solved -- and specifically, the problems created by too much government meddling and taxes to go away.

Wait, not ideological? So Ruffini's saying we need to run moderates? No. That is precisely the opposite of what I am saying.

Because very few independents care about ideological name-checks, they won't be swayed by scare tactics trying to persuade them that Candidate X is the ideological second-coming of Attila the Hun. We saw this with the thesis attacks. Candidates have wide latitude to run as who they actually are, so long as they can persuade voters they'll deal with the bread and butter issues (which was McDonnell's calling card).

In a purple state like Virginia, you can win by running as a liberal and a problem-solver (Kaine), as a moderate and a problem-solver (Warner), and as a strong conservative and a problem-solver (McDonnell).

Faced with that choice, why wouldn't we choose to run the conservative every time? A non-ideological electorate gives us more leeway to run conservatives in blueish/purple states, not less. To get a flavor of this in action, just look at the closing slide of McDonnell's ads:

The ubiquitous "Jobs Governor" branding and the spinning icons highlighting different issues is evocative of the desire for practical, clickable solutions to everyday problems shown in another recent marketing campaign.

Fixing Northern Virginia traffic? There's an app for that.

Jobs? There's an app for that.

Education? There's an app for that.

Essentially, whatever the issue was, Bob McDonnell wanted you he had the proverbial "app for that" -- a set of practical solutions not overtly branded as left, center, or right.

Considering the issue void that was the Creigh Deeds campaign, it was just what the doctor ordered.

Republicans in Virginia have struggled to make their prescriptions relevant to swing voters. Our issues in local elections have traditionally been issues like taxes and immigration that don't always lend themselves to policy heft. And a lack of policy heft has translated into an intangible sense that there's not enough "there there."

This was the central challenge facing the McDonnell campaign at its outset, and so it systematically sought to dismantle this critique by branding McDonnell as a practical problem solver without compromising his conservative principles.

Republicans can be specific, detailed, and confident in putting forward solutions relevant to the middle class, while also being more conservative than we have been in recent years (especially with the Bush era spending binge). There's not an either/or tradeoff between conservatism and a policy focus, something the McDonnell campaign proved in Virginia this year.

The lesson of the McDonnell campaign: Maintain your conservative principles, but make the election about policy. And whatever the issue, make sure you've got an app for that.

We're proud to welcome Bob McDonnell, Republican candidate for Virginia Governor, to The Next Right.

To start off, I'd like to thank The Next Right for this opportunity to talk directly to this great community of online activists. This weekend, I formally kicked off my campaign for Governor of Virginia. If you're not from our state, I hope you'll play close attention to our campaign. I believe it can be a model for the Republican and conservative comeback all across the country.

In the last few elections, Republicans have learned the hard way that when we don't apply our conservative principles to solve real, everyday problems that people face in tough times, we lose.

My campaign is built around solutions to lead a recovery in Virginia built around private-sector jobs and entrepreneurship. That's a fundamentally different approach than the kind we're seeing out of Washington, D.C. these days.

Here in Virginia, we have nearly 1,000 people whose are focused on getting your tax money, and only one to ensure taxpayers aren't overcharged. That's a ratio that will change when I am Governor. We must also make Virginia the best state in the country to start a small business and create jobs -- with a goal of cutting the red tape so that every Virginian can start a business in 48 hours.

Virginia can also help lead America towards real energy independence. We have the opportunity to become the first state on the eastern seaboard to allow for offshore exploration and drilling, an opportunity I intend to fully pursue when I am Governor to create real private-sector jobs and keep prices down at the pump.

When folks in Washington try to force programs on Virginia that are bad for our economy and our quality of life we must be firm and principled in opposition. One of the things Virginia has done right is in upholding a pro-free enterprise Right to Work law. But Right to Work is under assault in Congress with the job-killing Card Check legislation pushed by big national union bosses. As Governor, I won't be afraid to take a stand against irresponsible policies at the national level that make it harder to create jobs in Virginia. I'm the only candidate in this race who has come out strongly and squarely against Card Check.

Two days into this five-day kickoff, I can tell you that Virginia Republicans are fired up and ready to win the governorship after eight years of Democrat control. The crowds have been large and enthusiastic. People are ready for a new brand of leadership that speaks to the concerns of citizens in every corner of Virginia.

No matter where you are, I hope you'll follow our campaign at BobMcDonnell.com or by texting "VA" to GOBOB (46262). In our online campaign, we hope to set a new standard for transparency and supporting real grassroots activism that can be a model for campaigns across the nation.

The eyes on the nation will be on Virginia this year, and this race will be a key test for our Republican comeback. To succeed, we need your help and support. Please spread the word wherever you go online, and remind all your friends in Virginia that they can get involved locally. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you in the weeks and months to come.

I have to disagree with the tenor of Jon's latest post. As Republicans, we are not doomed to losing every policy battle these next four years. Who could have imagined, for instance, that we'd come so far on the stimulus? The stimulus is now officially unpopular, with 37% supporting passage in its current form, reminiscent of the plummeting support Clinton's early economic initiatives. In two weeks the GOP has been transformed from the party of Bush to the party of sensible, bipartisan opposition to fiscal insanity. It's amazing what a change in the underlying political dynamic in the form of a new President will do in so short a time.

And it's not just the stimulus. We won the first procedural battle against universal health care this week by successfully ousting Tom Daschle from HHS and more crucially, from the position of health czar. Daschle was a skilled legislative operator who could stymie Republicans as well as anyone. Though the dream Jon and I share of Howard Dean at HHS probably won't come to be, the Obama Administration will not have as skilled an advocate on health care as Daschle.

On another policy front, the new Administration is not exactly banging fanning the flames on card check, though I suspect this is a red herring for something really bad to come out of Congress. Notice how Obama initially wanted a $775 billion stimulus, Congressional Dems larded it up to over $900 billion, and the compromise position is now $700 billion -- very close to Obama's original number? I suspect that's probably the point, and something we'll see more of in the months to come.

Where we don't have a chance to win the policy battles, we must seize the chance to win electoral battles. Nothing will do more to build passion and confidence and activism at the grassroots level than winning elections again. Steele at the RNC was a big step in regaining that lost confidence. And now we have a chance to prove we can win again by taking back NY-20, and the statehouses in Virginia and New Jersey. Our 1993 wins were a precursor to our 1994 success, not just in these two Governors' races, but in obscure municipal races in places like Jersey City, New Jersey that hadn't elected a Republican in decades.

In a thumbnail way, things have already started to move in our direction. The Fairfax County, Virginia supervisor election Soren and I have written about ended in a 1-point victory for the Democrat in a county Obama won by 21 points and Mark Warner won by 37 points. There was no particular reason for it to be so close -- Gerry Connolly was just elected to Congress after all. I think mostly this is a sign that Republicans are becoming fired up about voting again, and along with GA-SEN Obama's coalition is not recreatable downticket, a problem for any Democrat on the ballot in 2010.

Not to mention the fact that we currently lead in New Jersey (!) and the Democrats will probably nominate crazy Jim Moran's brother for VA-GOV (more on that later).

Jon is right that the deck is stacked heavily against us in D.C. right now -- which is all the more reason to focus on elections and on battles in the states. But this need not mean our atttiude should be glum or defeatist. There are plenty of opportunities for morale-boosting wins if we know where to look.

Swing State Project sees tomorrow's special election to fill Rep. Gerry Connelly's seat as a proxy fight and preview of the fall Republican and Democratic gubenatorial match up:

If the Dem wins, I expect we'll see all kinds of competing claims over who deserves credit. Of course, the GOP will just say that the Dems should have won, and they'd be right - Fairfax went 60-39 for Obama. On the other hand, a loss or even a close call will lead to predictable recriminations and give Virginia Republicans a dose of momentum they certainly don't deserve. Regardless of who wins our gubernatorial primary, that's something the Dems can't afford.

There is, potentially, another interpretation. Perhaps it is a proxy fight between Tim Kaine and Michael Steele. Certainly the VA GOP is at a low point (hopefully). But the VA Democratic Party should be riding high, and Tim Kaine, both the Dem governor of Virginia and Chairman of the DNC, would suffer a huge black eye from a GOP victory, which is not out of the question.

In January, an 80-20 district, District 46, was won by the Democrats by only 16 votes. This may be found to be the beginning of the end of one of the Democratic candidates for governor:

This is a bad sign for Brian Moran and Alexandria Democrats no matter what the end result is, this is one of the most democratic districts in the state (75% for Obama, 80% for Warner, and 73% for Kaine) and the margin is razor thin!

We have a chance tomorrow to scalp another Democrat and help Pat Herrity pull this off. Michael Steele would get to go on TV and claim that "the comeback starts now" with him.

It would be a great symbolic rallying moment for the GOP and a wonderful way to start Steele's chairmanship.