
State Senate Democrats talk state budget
On Thursday, Democratic state senators heard from the expert staff of the Senate Finance Committee on the fiscal issues facing Virginia.

On Thursday, Democratic state senators heard from the expert staff of the Senate Finance Committee on the fiscal issues facing Virginia.

“Oh, no!” many may exclaim at the idea of hearing any more about the elections. But I believe it is instructive for the future to consider what happened and why.

I wanted to share with you my thoughts on how the 2012 elections have affected the 2013 campaign for Governor of Virginia. There are many lessons to be learned from the 2012 campaign, and we have a lot of work to do to ensure that we win the Governor’s race in 2013.

With President Obama being re-elected, now is the time for the President and Congress to get back to work. The 2012 campaigns have ended and now it is time to stop the name calling, bickering and double talk and instead to work together to solve problems that our country faces.

More than 150 Evangelical leaders today called on President Obama and Congress to begin working on broad immigration reform legislation that reflects American values, including human dignity, family unity and respects the rule of law. The evangelical leaders represent congregants from various denominations including the Assemblies of God and the Southern Baptist Convention which are increasingly Latino. Of the nation’s 52 million Latino population, almost 7 million belong to Evangelical churches, according to Pew Hispanic Center.

The conventional wisdom has had Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli as the favorite heading into the 2013 Republican gubernatorial-nomination season for some time now.

It must really suck to be Dick Morris right now. Last week, it was a Mitt Romney landslide. Now in addition to the egg on the Fox News contributor’s face in the event of what was in effect a Barack Obama landslide, we’ve got Morris questioning everything he knows about America.

More than a year of buildup to what had seemed to be an inevitable Barack Obama re-election was washed away in 90 minutes in Denver on Oct. 3. If not for that one night of lethargy from the president, we’d never have come across the term “Ro-mentum,” likely not had to endure 90 minutes of guffaws from Joe Biden a few nights later – and few would have cared that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie decided to focus on his job instead of presidential politiics at the worst of Hurricane Sandy.

It’s an uphill battle, to be sure, for Andy Schmookler, the Democratic Party congressional candidate in the bright-red Sixth District. There’s little that Schmookler, a Shenandoah County writer and political commentator, can do on Election Eve to change the state of the race. So he’s thinking ahead to the postgame.

For those who will go to bed early tomorrow night (except for W&L Professor Mark Rush in Dubai), or those who would rather watch an old movie on the tele, I have decided as a public service to provide results of tomorrow’s election, the most important presidential election this country will conduct – until the next one.