Former Virginia politician Allen offers insight on energy crisis
By: Leah Scull, Proof Editor
Issue date: 10/2/08 Section: News
With Mark Warner becoming Governor of Virginia in 2002, followed by Tim Kaine in 2005, and, more recently Senator Webb's victory in 2006, it seems like more and more high offices in Virginia are being held by Democrats. So where is the demographic shift: are the people of Virginia becoming more liberal or are the Virginian Democrats moving towards the center to gain a larger appeal? Is it just frustration with the current Administration?
Good question. Every race has its own reasons. I think Mark Warner got elected because Republicans in the legislature, even with a Republican governor they couldn't adopt a budget so Mark Warner says we can do better than that. And that's how come he got elected. It wasn't anti- Bush. Kaine got elected… well, there is an influx of people coming into Virginia, particularly in Northern Virginia, a lot are coming from the Northeast and they're more Democrat, they're more liberal. And so you see Northern Virginia becoming more liberal. In 2006, my election was so close it's like losing a football game by one point. I've gone through 898 things I could have done different. And I take responsibility personally for the loss and I made mistakes and the campaign wasn't run the way I think campaigns out to be run. However, the prevailing sentiment on independent voters, the Democrats were really fired up in 2006 against the war and against Bush. Independents in Virginia, over 60% were also against President Bush and the war. Now Democrats are still fired up and I think Republicans are fired up too though and not taking things for granted. Independents are split more right now because the big issue now is the economy and energy. We're doing much better in Iraq with the surge strategy which is much better than what was going on in 2006 which was not making much progress at all and people were dissatisfied with the lack of progress. President Bush got rid of his Secretary of Defense and listened to John McCain in 2007 and went with the surge strategy. So President Bush is still unpopular, however Congress is even more unpopular. If you look at approval ratings, President Bush might be in the 20s or 30s, Congress is 11 or 18 or probably single digits now after this week's fiasco. But Virginia's growing, there's a lot of influx of folks. This is the best question I've heard on this, by the way, and that includes national media. The Democrats will promise not to raise taxes, they'll try to look like they're moderate, that they're pro-gun rights, they'll act as if they'll sponsor a Nascar car and so forth and so they do that and when they get in office they propose tax increases.
Good question. Every race has its own reasons. I think Mark Warner got elected because Republicans in the legislature, even with a Republican governor they couldn't adopt a budget so Mark Warner says we can do better than that. And that's how come he got elected. It wasn't anti- Bush. Kaine got elected… well, there is an influx of people coming into Virginia, particularly in Northern Virginia, a lot are coming from the Northeast and they're more Democrat, they're more liberal. And so you see Northern Virginia becoming more liberal. In 2006, my election was so close it's like losing a football game by one point. I've gone through 898 things I could have done different. And I take responsibility personally for the loss and I made mistakes and the campaign wasn't run the way I think campaigns out to be run. However, the prevailing sentiment on independent voters, the Democrats were really fired up in 2006 against the war and against Bush. Independents in Virginia, over 60% were also against President Bush and the war. Now Democrats are still fired up and I think Republicans are fired up too though and not taking things for granted. Independents are split more right now because the big issue now is the economy and energy. We're doing much better in Iraq with the surge strategy which is much better than what was going on in 2006 which was not making much progress at all and people were dissatisfied with the lack of progress. President Bush got rid of his Secretary of Defense and listened to John McCain in 2007 and went with the surge strategy. So President Bush is still unpopular, however Congress is even more unpopular. If you look at approval ratings, President Bush might be in the 20s or 30s, Congress is 11 or 18 or probably single digits now after this week's fiasco. But Virginia's growing, there's a lot of influx of folks. This is the best question I've heard on this, by the way, and that includes national media. The Democrats will promise not to raise taxes, they'll try to look like they're moderate, that they're pro-gun rights, they'll act as if they'll sponsor a Nascar car and so forth and so they do that and when they get in office they propose tax increases.
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