The Richmond Times-Dispatch (RTD) has an editorial this morning entitled, "Great Expectations." The focus is on the governor's race, and specifically on Terry McAuliffe. If you're a McAuliffe fan, you're gonna like this one. If you're a fan of another candidate, well, you might want to skip it. Check this out:Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe is not only raising the volume of the gubernatorial contest. He is also raising the bar.I'm glad the RTD brought up this topic, because it's been rattling around in the back of my mind the past couple of weeks. Essentially, this comes down to what the point of having a primary is. My views is that party primaries at least offer us the potential of debating where our party should be headed (ideologically, programatically) and who should lead it. The potential danger in primaries is that they can degenerate into nasty smear-fests and damage the party's eventual nominee, but from what I've seen, most primaries lead to the nominee being stronger than they were when they started out. Among other things, primaries allow candidates to hone their policy "chops," to explain exactly where they want to lead, and to gain a mandate for their proposed plan(s) in case they do win.
McAuliffe is rolling out a series of position papers on energy and business that go well beyond the typical two-page brochure full of bromides. This is not to say they eschew bromides; they include plenty. But they include more than mere bromides. In this day and age, that's commendable.
In the Democratic nominating contest for governor, one of the reasons I moved towards Terry McAuliffe last fall was that I saw a man who clearly knew why he was running for governor, unlike one of the other candidates. Last fall, however, McAuliffe was just getting going and his plans were fairly general. Now, with the rollout of his "Business Plan for Virginia", we're getting a great deal of detail. For instance, McAuliffe's plan for "Virginia's Energy Future" calls for a 25% mandatory Renewable Portfolio standard, for electric power "decoupling," for an emphasis on energy efficiency, for smart metering, etc. It's excellent. But whether you think it's excellent or not is almost less important than the fact that McAuliffe is providing Virginians with his detailed program DURING the campaign, so that they can make an informed decision about who to support. As the RTD says, that's "commendable."
More broadly, the RTD writes, by rolling out his detailed plan, "McAuliffe invites other contenders to focus on issues of genuine substance rather than petty personal attacks and cheap, zinger-of-the-day point-scoring." Last night, for instance, I was at a political event and ran into a friend who's a super-passionate Moran supporter. The two of us had a debate about our favorite candidates (I've strongly endorsed McAuliffe) on the ISSUES, not on trivialities. It was refreshing, and by the end we had about half a dozen people standing around listening to us and jumping in with questions and comments as well. Isn't that what primaries are supposed to be all about? (by the way, the two of us agreed that the ideological differences between Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe are miniscule compared to the differences between either of those two Democrats and PatBob McRobertson)
The RTD clearly believes the answer to that question is "yes":
.... A well-known aphorism (or perhaps a bromide) contends that small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas. Petty personal attacks and cheap zingers will appear with more frequency as November approaches. But if it is too much to call McAuliffe a great mind, then at least his substantive pitches have raised expectations and pointed the way toward a different, more high-toned campaign.From what I've seen in this campaign, I couldn't agree more with the RTD: Terry McAuliffe's campaign is about "big ideas," just as he promised me last September that it would be, while one other campaign (and its supporters) appear to be focusing far more on the "cheap zingers" (e.g., "fighter not a fundraiser"). As the last two months of this campaign approach, I urge all campaigns to lay out their detailed plans for Virginia, to avoid the "petty personal attacks," and instead to tell us - at this moment of economic crisis where so many Virginians are hurting - exactly how they plan to lead our Commonwealth to a better future.
