Here’s a letter I sent to the editor of Newsweek this past week.  For the life of me, I can’t see why it won’t be published this week.  It’s short.  It's from soneone who lives in the subject state, and it brings up a major point the article overlooks.  It even gives into that requisite touch of petulance at the end.  Go figure.

Dear Sirs/Mesdames:

If next month’s Virginia gubernatorial election is “the first big electoral test of Barack Obama’s presidency,” as Steve Tuttle’s article “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” claims, modern history suggests that Mr. Obama will fail it.  No sitting president has seen his party win Virginia’s governorship since Richard Nixon saw Republican Mills Godwin win it in 1973.

We Virginians seem to want our state and national capitals in different parties’ hands, perhaps to keep Richmond, which is only two hours south of Washington, out of Washington’s orbit. Maybe Virginians also have a smoldering desire for these nearby capitals to remain at odds as they were when Richmond, like Washington, was the capital of a union of states.  Whatever the reason, the presidential election seems to vaccinate Virginians against the winner the following year.

Virginia and New Jersey hold the only gubernatorial elections during the years presidents are inaugurated, and every four years the national press frames these elections as early referenda on the newly installed or reinstalled president.  In Virginia’s case, at least, it’s quadrennial nonsense.

 |

Posted October 24, 2009.