FamilyFoundationBlog.com

Annotations & Elucidations 

Election Eve Edition

Will tomorrow be the dream come true for exiled Virginia Republicans? Or will the vaunted Democrat machine of Obama, Warner & Kaine pull a dramatic upset? The Mason-Dixon Poll, the Gold Standard of Virginia political polls, has always called the winners, usually with remarkable accuracy. In 2006, it called it for Jim Webb by one percent. Yesterday’s results, in the Times-Dispatch, have it 53-41 for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell. It also has his running mates, Lt. Governor Bill Bolling, and attorney general candidate Senator Ken Cuccinelli, up by double digits. 

What of the House of Delegates? Only months ago, Democrats were hopeful of a takeover. Now, projections run anywhere from a two to 12 seat gain for the GOP (see the Washington Times below). Expect at least one shocker. Maybe two. Today, of course, the News Stand (even the National and Commentary sections) is all about  the election.

News:

McDonnell extends advantage in Times-Dispatch poll (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

3 Points in 3 Months: VA Gov Contest Polling Ends Just About Where It Began, with GOP Sweep of VA Races (SurveyUSA.com)

McDonnell maintains large lead (PublicPolicyPolling.com)

Republicans Unleash “McBollinelli” (WTVR.com/WTVR-TV)

Virginia candidates step up efforts in waning hours (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Now it’s a sprint to Tuesday (The Daily Press)

Virginia governor candidates hold last-minute rallies (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

McDonnell, Deeds push key campaign themes as race nears end (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Welcome to work, governor. It’s time to slash the budget. (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

McDonnell and Deeds mostly mum on how to fund their ideas (Washington Post)

Virginia Republicans expect to make gains (Washington Times)

Republicans hope to gain House seats (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)

Palin records calls urging Virginians to vote (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

LU hoping for strong voter turnout on Tuesday (Lynchburg News & Advance)

National:

A few elections, a few clues about our politics (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Scorn for property taxes drives NJ governor’s race (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Third party challenges in NJ, NY are warning sign (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Limbaugh says Obama ‘in over his head’ (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Commentary:

Republican Leaders Seeing the Light and Going Conservative? (Bobby Eberle/GOPUSA.com)

Annotations & Elucidations 

The Debate/Mason-Dixon Edition

The news is almost all campaign, with several national articles (including the New York Times, which has two pieces — one specifically on Virginia, in the News section, and one on Virginia and New Jersey and their national implications, in National News) continuing to shine the national flood lights on the commonwealth. Tonight is also debate night, the first live televised one. Will Democrat Creigh Deeds apologize for his negative campaign? Will he finally explain his transportation and tax increase plans (his last attempt at explaining the latter was called “embarrassing” today by his patron, the Washington Post, and now has been turned into a new ad, which will begin running tonight).

Now the Dems, including DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, are targeting Senator Ken Cuccinelli. He began an ad they say is unfair and misrepresents Democrat attorney general candidate Steve Shannon’s position on the special session that remedied a Supreme Court decision that would ceased prosecutions on drunk drivers and drug offenders. Hmmm. How do you misrepresent Shannon’s view? Calling it a “political stunt” is pretty hard to misinterpret.

But the big news was the release of Mason-Dixon’s first poll this campaign season. Mason-Dixon is the gold standard in Virginia political polls. The last poll it conducts, the Sunday before each election day, has never predicted the wrong winner, so it is awaited with baited breath. Its 2009 debut has all three Republicans leading: Bob McDonnell up by eight for governor, Lt. Governor Bill Bollingup by 13, and Cuccinelli up by seven. Not to be outdone, however, is SurveyUSA, which conducted another poll last week for WDBJ-TV in Roanoke and WJLA-TV in Washington (its fourth consecutive weekly poll). It was mostly drowned out by the Washington Post poll results, which showed all three Republicans up by nine. SurveyUSA has the three Republicans up by 11, 17 and 10, respectively. Details on everything mentioned above, and more, are below.

News:

Mason-Dixon Poll: McDonnell up by 8 points over Deeds (Richmond Times-Dispatch/Lynchburg News & Advance) 

Mason-Dixon Shows McDonnell by 8 (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

Poll: GOP’s Bolling, Cuccinelli lead (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Virginia: 4 Weeks Until Votes Are Counted, Republicans Remain Poised to Win 3 Top Statewide Contests (SurveyUSA.com)

Results of SurveyUSA Election Poll (SurveyUSA.com)

Va. Candidates Meet Tonight in First Live TV Debate (Washington Post)

Debate a major moment in Va. governor’s race (AP/The Daily Press)

Two State Races May Put Lens on Obama (New York Times)

GOP Launches New Ad on Deeds and Taxes (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

Cuccinelli Airs New Ad; Shannon, Kaine Protest (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog) 

Kaine says Obama supporters key for Deeds (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Biden calls Virginia race winnable for Deeds…. (The Shad Plank Blog)

Debate in House race heats up over transportation question (Lynchburg News & Advance)

8th District candidates debate in Roanoke Co. (Roanoke Times)

Sexually explicit novel pulled from Roanoke school libraries (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

National News:

Democrats May Lose Two Governors Races (Reuters/New York Times)

McDonnell Holds GOP Comeback Hopes in Virginia; Dems Hope Deeds Bet Pays Off  (PoliticsDaily.com)

House Votes to Add Sexual Orientation to Law on Hate Crimes (Washington Post)

Analysis:

Republican sweep looking likely in Virginia (Josh Kraushaar/The Scorecard Blog Politico.com)

Summer isn’t over by nature’s calendar. But for all practical purposes today marks the start of a new season, because today, for a majority of Virginians, is back-to-school day. Unfortunately, it’s a day that is not without controversy: From President Obama’s speech to students to the “mandatory” HPV vaccine for sixth grade girls, to a confrontation today at the U.S. Department of Education, sending our kids out the door in the morning isn’t quite the exciting and momentous time it used to be for too many families.

In an interview last week with a reporter at the Wall Street Journal concerning President Obama’s speech, Family Foundation of Virginia President Victoria Cobb said that parents should be able to decide what their children participate in and learn, but in many cases, they are the last to know.

So what is really at the heart of the controversy surrounding back-to-school day? It is the feeling that many parents have that they are powerless and have little control over what their children are taught in government run schools. While the uproar over the president’s speech has been mostly about the potential content of his remarks, the underlying problem is the serious lack of trust many parents have not just with this president (ironic that he’s addressing students in public schools that he never attended), but with the “public” education system as a whole.

No longer can we count on teachers and schools reinforcing the values that we teach our kids at home. In fact, we are pretty much guaranteed that our values will be attacked, ridiculed and undermined nearly every day.

It is partly this mistrust in the government education system that is leading to the ever-increasing support we see for education freedom. Late last year, The Family Foundation and the Virginia Catholic Conference underwrote a Mason-Dixon poll that found a majority of Virginians support a tax credit to parents who choose to send their children to a private school. Similar polling done in predominately African-American communities found that nearly 70 percent of those polled support private education choice. The momentum is growing.

Families want to know that their children are receiving the best possible education for their children, and that their values are going to be reinforced. Today, many children are in a classroom where the opposite is true in both cases. Why should these children be forced to receive an inferior education?

Today, two education freedom leaders, Virginia Walden Ford and Kevin Chavous, stood in front of the U.S. Department of Education building in Washington, D.C., blocking its entrance, to illustrate how President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have blocked low-income D.C. students from going to the schools of their parents’ choice by gutting funding to the D.C. scholarship program. Clearly, the battle for the minds of the future generation is in full swing.

The Family Foundation is a proud member of School Choice Virginia, an organization started by Delegate Chris Saxman (R-20, Staunton) that is working to bring education freedom to parents and kids in our Commonwealth. Together with other pro-family groups and individuals that support choice, we will continue to work toward the day when parents and children can once again look forward to, and celebrate, back-to-school day because they know they are in the right school for them — the school of their choice.

One of the responsibilities we at The Family Foundation take very seriously is challenging the misinformation, distortions, or outright lies propagated by those opposed to traditional values, particularly as spread through the Mainstream Media, which shapes so much of popular culture and thought. It’s one of the reasons we started this blog and other social networking sites — to provide the truth. (Our YouTube channel, for example, provides uncut video of lawmakers in committee, where you can judge for yourself their attitude toward common sense, pro-traditional values, limited government legislation.)

Two examples of misrepresentation in the media have occurred over the last two weeks. One was the murder of Kansas abortionist George Tiller. Our own president, Victoria Cobb, was interviewed about it last week on the popular Richmond’s Morning News with Jimmy Barrett (hear it here) on WRVA-AM. In the interview, she dispelled the notion repeated by abortion extremists and some pundits that the murderer of George Tiller is representative of the pro-life movement in America.

She told listeners that, just as the pro-life movement was gaining headway(witness the recent Gallop poll that found a majority of Americans now consider themselves pro-life), pro-life advocates must expend precious time and energy to counter the notion that the murder somehow represents the overwhelming majority of thoughtful, peaceful pro-life Americans.

We know that some abortion extremists and mainstream media organs are using the murder to paint all Americans who seek to protect human life as enablers, morally equivalent to the acused murderer. That kind of rhetoric serves no positive purpose. Instead, it gives opportunities to extremists to label as dangerous law-abiding citizens who legally seek to protect unborn human life. It advances no cause and brings us no closer to resolution in this debate.

The other example was an opinion piece by Lindsay Oliver of the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project, published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch a few weeks ago. She claimed that, “Although 15 states use their own funds to cover abortions under many circumstances, Virginia is not one of them.” 

This statement is absolutely false and Victoria responded as such in a letter to the editor the Times-Dispatch subsequently printed. In fact, despite legislative efforts by The Family Foundation, other pro-life organizations and thousands of pro-family citizens, Virginia continues to fund abortion — taxpayers even fund elective abortions! As Victoria wrote:

The Federal government subsidizes abortions only when a Medicaid-eligible woman’s life is at risk or in the cases of rape or incest. In Virginia, we fund abortions beyond the Federal requirements. Incredibly, from 2006-2007, Virginia tax dollars have funded 301 elective abortions (149 in fiscal-year 2007, and 152 in fiscal 2006).

Public interest is in favor of ending this funding. The Family Foundation and the Virginia Catholic Conference co-sponsored a Mason-Dixon poll in December 2008, and when asked if they supported Virginia’s policy of using state money to pay for abortions falling outside the categories of rape, incest, and endangering the life of the mother, 46 percent of respondents were opposed to the funding with only 39 percent in support.  Furthermore, a recent Harris poll found that 63 percent of Americans oppose the taxpayer funding of abortion. Combine this with the widely publicized recent Gallup poll showing that 53 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal only in certain circumstances, and it’s clear the tide against abortion on demand is growing.

The Family Foundation is honored to serve as a voice for traditional values in the public square. Correcting the lies and distortions of the left is a full time job, but one that we are more than willing to do.

Year after year, school choice bills are introduced in the General Assembly, only to die in the Senate Finance Committee. Earlier this year, Senator Mark Obenshain (R-26, Harrisonburg) lost a Pennsylvania-style school choice bill in the committee’s typical fashion, for lack of a motion. The reason the bill never gets a motion is because, if no one makes a motion, no one is held accountable for a vote. 

This morning, Delegate Chris Saxman (R-20, Staunton) had his school choice bill, HB 1965, defeated, but the story of defeat is a bit different this year.

After much debate, for only the third time in the last decade of our educational freedom efforts, a bill of this nature received motions to report (pass)! However, Senator Dick Saslaw (D-35, Springfield), seldom one to miss a chance at killing a Family Foundation bill, offered a substitute motion to PBI the bill (pass by indefinitely/kill). The substitute motion was seconded and the bill eventually died a slow and painful death. There were 10 votes to PBI, 4 votes against the PBI, 1 abstention, and 1 no vote. 

You may ask — what’s the difference between an “abstention” and a “no” vote. A “no” vote usually applies when a legislator is not present to vote on the bill or, in the case of the Senate, does not leave a proxy (or a note on how he wishes to vote). An abstention may be used when there is a conflict of interest (for example, some legislators abstain on voting on certain issues because their spouse is a lobbyist, thus creating a conflict of interest), but is most often used when a legislator does not want to be held accountable for his or her vote. 

Most significantly, an abstention is a fabulous way of avoiding a lower rating on The Family Foundation Action’s Report Card. Knowing that school choice is a top priority for TFF, it is a reasonable guess to think that this vote might affect one’s score on that document. Since The Family Foundation Action must rate legislators objectively and strictly according to public record, it can not dock a legislator for an abstention because one’s reasons may be a legitimate conflict of interest. 

Given the inability of The Family Foundation Action’s Report Card to capture this game in print, The Family Foundation has sought new ways to hold legislators accountable. The Family Foundation has begun an initiative to get committee hearings of interest on tape.

Today for whatever reason, Senator Emmett Hanger (R-24, Augusta) didn’t feel compelled to vote for educational freedom, or vote at all for that matter.  Watch the video below and see for yourself!

I wonder how the 74 percent of people in Senator Hanger’s region who, according to a Mason Dixon poll, support this legislation, will feel about his decision to hide abstention?