A Rallying Cry For Virginia, And For Decency
In less than a week, Virginians will go to the polls to elect a new governor.
On the ticket are two contenders: Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s current Attorney General — a pro-life, pro-business, small-government, constitutionalist Catholic father of seven children; and Terry McAuliffe, former head of the DNC — a pro-abortion, tax-and-spend, pro-Obamacare, progressive, anti-Catholic…”Catholic. ”
The polls are not promising. Some show McAuliffe with a double-digit lead. The Real Clear Politics average gives McAuliffe a 9-point advantage, almost exactly the same margin of votes that libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis is draining from Cuccinelli’s likely voters, despite Cuccinelli’s endorsements from libertarian luminaries Ron and Rand Paul.
This vote will forever alter the future course of Virginia, a once conservative-stronghold, one of only five states to opt-out of Common Core standards. The same Virginia which was one of the first to adopt strict new regulations on abortion clinics and recently voted (narrowly) on a measure to block abortion coverage through the new health care exchanges. The same Virginia which was among the first to file a 10th Amendment lawsuit against the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Something that all of those issues have in common? Cuccinelli’s involvement, whether he was leading the charge, as he did against Obamacare, or working behind the scenes, as with Virginia’s rejection of Common Core.
Cuccinelli is also the reason Virginia has “Choose Life” license plates that help fund crisis pregnancy centers, a victory he won while still in the state senate. My wife was very involved in that effort, and the letter she received from then-Senator Cuccinelli is indicative of his true concern for the dignity of human life (click to enlarge):
This is a man that Terry McAuliffe, with big out-of-state donors and being campaigned for by heavy-hitters like President Obama and former President Bill Clinton, is calling an “extremist.” (Demonizing rhetoric like “extremist”, “jihadist”, and “terrorist” are being increasingly utilized by the Left to describe decent Americans.) That McAuliffe has no problem lying about Cuccinelli’s stand on issues to discredit him should speak volumes about his character. Columnist Brent Bozell writes:
McAuliffe is running a transparently, viciously anti-Catholic campaign all over television, trashing Ken Cuccinelli as a woman-hating extremist for backing proposals that line up with Catholic-church teachings on abortion, contraception and divorce. Any reporter with 15 minutes to kill can discover that.
In the D.C. area, TV viewers are inundated with McAuliffe ads that claim, “Cuccinelli tried to ban common forms of birth control.” Women echo: “Even the pill! Even the pill!” Then four people echo, one after the other, he’s “way too extreme for Virginia.” McAuliffe supporters in the “NextGen PAC” even accused Cuccinelli of “wanting to eliminate all forms of birth control.”
Cuccinelli has never supported a bill or taken a campaign stand for banning contraceptive pills, and McAuliffe knows it. In 2007, then-state Sen. Cuccinelli supported a “personhood” bill that simply stated, “life begins at the moment of fertilization.” Abortion advocates have twisted that simple sentence into some kind of church invasion of the state.
This sort of hyperbolic mischaracterization is contagious. On a local online forum where Virginians have been discussing gubernatorial candidates, one poster refers derogatorily to Cuccinelli as “The Kooch”:
THe Kooch era:
Return to blue laws — ABC stores will only be open for three hours per day.
Return to back room abortions — get the clothes hangers ready.
Return to Creationism study — throw out the science textbooks.
Return to dress hems below the knee — mandatory dress code at state government jobs.
Return to vice and grift — free summer rentals and wedding gifts for everyone.
There’s so much more out there on the Internet if you feel like wading through the muck. The popular blog Wonkette describes Cuccinelli as (forgive me for repeating it here, but I’m not going to link to it) the “Butt-Sex Banning Virginia AG” — this because of Cuccinelli’s support of an anti-sodomy law that would have shielded a 17-year-old girl from a 47-year-old sexual predator. This is the so-called tolerance of the left. This is the level of political discourse we are dealing with. It’s not about facts or information, it’s about ignorant, reflexive, party-affiliated marching orders.
Decency is dying. We’re seeing it all the time. Those of us who care to do the heavy lifting are fighting for every inch of ground against a government that is out of control, not just at the federal level but increasingly in our states as well.
I am not a native Virginian. I am from New York. I love both states for various reasons, but all the things I left New York to escape are coming to Virginia. We have to stop it.
If you are a Virginian, YOUR VOTE MATTERS. Get out there and vote. If you’re considering voting libertarian in this election, please reconsider. I consider myself a libertarian who supports the third party option, but there is nothing that Robert Sarvis will bring to the table that’s worth losing this election to Terry McAuliffe, a dishonest, crass candidate who has benefited from voter ignorance and fabricated class-warfare — as well as an often-complicit media — not substance or character.
If you are not a Virginian, please pray for us on November 5th. We may just need a miracle.
Ken Cuccinelli is a good and decent man. He has a plan for jobs, and for fiscal responsibility. He is unequivocally pro-life, a constitutionalist, and wants the government to stay in its place. Many will be voting against him not because they know what he stands for, but simply because of the overwhelming number of attack ads that have been run almost ceaselessly by the better-funded McAuliffe, smearing his character and painting him as some draconian, Victorian figure hell-bent on destroying people’s rights.
He is being characterized as an extremist for merely living his Catholic faith.
If that’s extreme, then the soul of this country is in mortal danger. Please rally for Virginia, and for decency. I fear this election is a bellwether of what is to come in the American political landscape.
