It's great to see Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney pick up on what most of us have known for a long time: Ken Cuccinelli is "so ardently conservative he makes gubernatorial candidate Robert F. McDonnell sound like a mealy-mouthed moderate." For instance, Cuccinelli "portrays the environmental movement as a socialist ploy and said in 2003 that homosexuality is just plain wrong." He's also a "state sovereignty" fanatic (Civil War anyone?) who essentially has said he won't enforce federal laws or regulations with which he disagrees ("Don't Tread on Me" baby!).Why hasn't Cuccinelli's extremism received more attention? Several reasons. First, as McCartney points out, Cooch "comes across as agreeable rather than angry, even while he takes evident relish in staking out combative positions." Second, voters simply aren't paying much (any?) attention to this race and to the "militant conservative" Republican nominee who could be our next AG. Third, the media has failed abysmally to publicize Cooch's craziness, despite the Shannon campaign's attempts to do so. The net result? Cooch is coasting on McDonnell's coattails, and Virginia is going to start realizing come January 2010 that it's made a HUGE mistake. Unless, of course, people start paying attention in the last 12 days of this election and vote for Steve Shannon instead of a guy who makes Bob McDonnell look like a "mealy-mouthed moderate."
P.S. McCartney's headline ("In your heart, you know he's to the right of right") harkens back to the old Barry Goldwater slogan, "In your heart, you know he's right." If I recall correctly, the retort from Lyndon Johnson's campaign was, "In your guts, you know he's nuts." The same applies to Ken Cuccinelli.
