Va. GOP looks for causes of its smashing defeat

BY JEFF E. SCHAPIRO
Media General News Service

Published: November 10, 2008

Stunned by their first presidential defeat in Virginia in 44 years and the loss of perhaps three House seats, state Republicans are teetering on a return to the minority and struggling to regroup ahead of what could be make-or-break elections for governor and the legislature in 2009.

“What state party?“ said J. Kenneth Klinge, a veteran Republican operative and statehouse lobbyist. “You think that what’s down there now is a state party? It’s laughable. There is no state party.“

Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick of Prince William County, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, said the latest setbacks, including former Gov. Jim Gilmore’s lopsided loss to former Gov. Mark R. Warner for a U.S. Senate seat, are a sign to the GOP that “we need to get back to basics . . . conservative values and to address people’s quality-of-life issues.“

Frederick says the Republicans’ problem is not their ideas but how the party presents its stances.

“Republicans have to find a better way to communicate our message to the growing population who consider themselves independent on the key issues that matter most to our families,“ he says.

Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, seeking his party’s No. 2 job in the U.S. House of Representatives, blamed the losses on “our failure to live up to expectations” for Republican-controlled government, including fiscal discipline.

The party’s presumed nominees for governor and lieutenant governor said that Republicans were hobbled by the economic downturn and President Bush’s unpopularity. Next year, the two candidates said, Virginians will focus on Republican proposals for education, transportation, taxes and spending.

Without offering specifics, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, running for re-election, told reporters in a conference call Friday, “Our ideas are going to be better than the other side’s.“

President-elect Barack Obama carried Virginia — the first Democrat for the White House to do so since 1964 — by about the same margin he won nationally, 52 percent to 47 percent.

Two of the GOP losses, for the open Senate seat and for a vacant House slot in Northern Virginia, were widely anticipated, even by Republicans.

Two other defeats were unexpected: a House seat in Hampton Roads and a Southside-anchored seat that likely is headed for a recount. Should the recount affirm a Democratic victory, Republicans would be reduced to five seats in the 11-member House delegation from an 8-3 majority.

The results are sending another shudder through a state GOP in retreat since 2001. Expanded Democratic dominance of Northern Virginia is a warning, Republicans said, that elections for governor and House of Delegates — the last redoubt of GOP power —will be hard-fought and high-stakes.

Mark J. Rozell, a political analyst at George Mason University who follows Virginia political trends, said the state GOP must fashion themes that appeal to an increasingly diverse electorate.

Rozell said the party’s tough line against taxes, its advocacy of restrictions on immigration and its alignment with anti-abortion and gun-rights advocates have stranded Republicans on a shrinking voter base.

“The anti-government rhetoric doesn’t sell well in the current environment,“ said Rozell. “Fiscal discipline and investing responsibly is the right message — that’s the Mark Warner message.“

In a symbolic bow to the political power of the Washington suburbs, Attorney General Bob McDonnell said he will launch his Republican bid for governor with a walk through the Fairfax County subdivision where he grew up.

“On recent election days, my old neighborhood hasn’t been voting for my political party,“ McDonnell said in an e-mail to supporters.

McDonnell said Republicans must reach out to all communities in Virginia, carrying a message of limited and well-run government.

Democrats have won successive gubernatorial elections, reclaimed the state’s other U.S. Senate seat in 2006, and last year took back the Virginia Senate. They need six seats to topple the Republican majority in the House of Delegates and likely will target GOP incumbents in the suburbs where Obama ran strongly.

This could include Republicans in Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties, all of which fell to Obama. One seat is now held by Frederick, but it will be open.

Frederick has said he will not serve simultaneously as party leader and as a legislator. His wife, Amy, may seek to succeed him.

Next year’s elections are crucial because the winners for governor and the House of Delegates will draw legislative boundaries in 2011 that would lock in partisan control of the House, Senate and congressional delegation for the succeeding decade.

Bolling, as McDonnell’s running mate, tried to put the best face on the defeats, citing lyrics from a 1960s hit by The Shirelles: “Mama said there’d be days like this.“

In a statement, he said Republicans must reach beyond the party’s base, though he did not say how or which issues they must emphasize.

“In the final analysis, I think this election merely confirms what we have known for some time — Virginians are no longer persuaded by political labels,“ Bolling said.

Klinge, who broke into Republican politics as a volunteer for conservative icon Barry Goldwater, said, “The Republican Party of Virginia is trying to sell the wrong message to the people. We have become a party of exclusion, not inclusion.“

George Miller, a former Republican chairman in Middlesex County, suggests his party may be whistling past the graveyard.

Annoyed by Bolling’s statement, Miller wrote in an e-mail two days after the election, “So are these guys standing on the bow of the Titanic and are they willing to go down for principles the electorate just will not accept?‘

The latest losses could lead to recriminations, including calls for the removal of Frederick as party chairman. He won the post in May, defeating incumbent John H. Hager, a former lieutenant governor and a Bush in-law.

The contest again exposed tensions within the GOP between its fading centrist wing and conservatives who dominate the party apparatus.

Frederick said he intends to remain as chairman, though he may come under fire from the rank-and-file during the GOP’s annual post-election conference next month. This year, it will be held at The Homestead.

Jeff E. Schapiro is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.