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Annotations & Elucidations 

The Earthquake Edition

That wasn’t a landslide last night, it was a full blown eruption. Unimaginable margins for the top three elected officials in Virginia and a massive pickup in the House of Delegates, shooting the GOP number there from 55 to at least 60, is no mere landslide. It’s The World Turned Upside Down. Only four years ago, Bob McDonnell eked out the closest election in Virginia history, by 300-plus votes. Now, he’s a national figure.

In a similar way, Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli won re-election to the Senate by 92 votes in 2007. He’s always been the number one target for Democrats, liberal victimization and special rights groups, and left-wing special interests. They didn’t get him when they had the chance. Now, they must be horrified. 

It’s all election coverage and postmortems today, including a late breaking update from Lynchburg where Delegate Shannon Valentine finally conceded to Delegate-elect Scott Garrett, despite his margin of victory being within her right to call for a recount.

Our own Victoria Cobb is quoted in the Washington Post on how Governor-elect McDonnell will govern. That’s at the top. We bookend the News Stand with another social issues story: Maine, of all states, protects traditional marriage. It truly was an earth shattering night.  

News:

*Now, the hard part: Continuing to straddle the center and the right (Washington Post)

McDonnell beats Deeds, wins governor’s race; now it gets harder (The Daily Press)

McDonnell leads GOP sweep of statewide races (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

GOP reclaims Virginia (Washington Post)

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling wins second term (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Bolling defeats Wagner, holds on to No. 2 post (Washington Post)

Cuccinelli elected attorney general (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Cuccinelli’s sound win rounds out GOP sweep (Washington Post)

Republicans retaining control of House of Delegates (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Republicans boost dominance among Va. Delegates (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

UPDATED: Valentine Concedes: Barrett wins in 23rd District (Lynchburg News & Advance)

Liberty delivers votes by the busload (Lynchburg News & Advance)

Republicans keep 17th House of Delegates district on Election Day (Roanoke Times)

Newcomer Robin Abbott beats veteran incumbent Phil Hamilton (The Daily Press)

Sen. Ken Stolle to become Va. Beach’s next sheriff (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

Exit Poll: Virginia Voters Older, Energized (FoxNews.com)

Governor’s agenda flagging, but not ratings (Washington Post)

Analysis:

Analysis: GOP sweep shows policies, not parties, are paramount in Va. Politics (Jeff Schapiro/Richmond Times-Dispatch)

National:

Gay marriage vote fails in Maine (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Not surprisingly, in all the fuss over “the thesis” is the complete inattention given to Democrat gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds’ flip flops on social issues. He’s says he’s not for abortion, but calls opposition to partial-birth abortion “extreme;” he was against “special rights” for homosexuals (his words in his own campaign ad), and now says anything but special rights for homosexuals is somehow discriminatory; and he voted for the Marriage Amendment twice in the General Assembly to place it before the voters, but now wants it repealed.

We’re waiting for the Mainstream Media to pin him down on this and/or for the senator to come clean on his own. After all, to paraphrase Senator Deeds himself, he didn’t write these things when he was 34 — he wrote them, spoke them and voted them in his 40s and 50s.

Not but a few minutes after we posted the last thread, the Richmond Times-Dispatch puts out this report: Apparently, so impressed with former Delegate Brian Moran’s answer to the same-sex marriage question at Saturday’s Democrat gubernatorial debate, that an organization called Virginia Partisans Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club endorsed him.

Said the group’s president, Charley Conrad:

“Throughout his career, he’s fought alongside us — not just in his voting record, but also in the leadership positions he has taken in support of equality. And even now, during this campaign, he continues to push pro-equality positions, despite any potential political risk. The LGBT community is standing firmly with Brian because he has always stood up for us.” 

For those who don’t know, LGBT is short for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender. Some homosexual lobby groups include transvestites in their coalition.

At the debate, Moran said:

“Equality is a fundamental value that makes us Democrats. Virginians know where I will stand on this issue because they know where I have stood. Leadership isn’t easy.”

Translation: According to Moran, if you believe in equal rights — as opposed to special rights — you can’t be a Democrat.