Tuesday night, at a meeting in Arlington hosted by Get Women Elected Now (GWEN), State Senator Mary Margaret Whipple (D-31) presented her post-election analysis. Lee Diamond was there taking notes, which he's provided to me to share with Blue Virginia readers. Thanks to Lee; happy reading! :)Creigh Deeds is one of her closest friends. She emphasized what an all around good person he is.
"Jody [Wagner] is a star."
Steve Shannon is a "bright young person."
The tide was against us. The national climate, recession, uncertainty about unemployment.
The Democrats will turn over to McDonnell the best managed state in the country, just as we did going from Clinton to Bush.
Whipple expressed frustration that Obama voters did not vote this year. She said it shouldn't require passion or fervor as it only takes 20 minutes to a half hour to go vote.
She said something very interesting about Shannon Valentine's loss in Lynchburg. According to Whipple, Del. Valentine would have won except for the turnout by Liberty University students. The students there were given the day off from school and bused to the polling place. According to Whipple, that made the difference.
Sen. Whipple stated that a lot of news reported around the state is not covered in the Washington Post.
Questions touched on frustration with local party organizations, messaging in general, the challenge of saying what we are for and making our points resonate, concerns about Bob McDonnell.
Sen. Whipple talked about shared Democratic values: belief in equal justice under the law, commitment to public education, and the environment.
In addition to Sen. Whipple's remarks, Lee Diamond writes:
I attended this meeting to argue for a stronger Democratic Party infrastructure and presence around the state. I am suggesting a stronger permanent infrastructure. My suggestion seemed to be taken as calling for something that they already do in terms of elected officials being out in the community before organizations, etc. I agree that every politician should do their own thing. At the same time, however, I think we need an integrated approach to managing the Democratic Party's statewide presence. The Democratic Party of Virginia needs to be reinvigorated.
We spent the previous four cycles building towards what we anticipated would be an improved result from reapportionment after the 2010 census. Instead, our intensive organizing of the last several years focused on state government was essentially wiped out.
I think Sen Whipple's point about the Washington Post coverage illustrates the problem. The Post has a Richmond bureau, but there is no way they are going to do the kind of thorough job that area newspapers do in their own locale. You have perhaps heard of the Four Virginias: NOVA, Shenandoah (Southside/Southwest VA), Capital Region (Richmond area), and Hampton Roads. There maybe other ways of breaking it down, but the point is that the state contains four distinct regions.
So, to our detriment in NOVA, we do not hear nearly enough about what is going on in different parts of the state.
Despite the success of the last two Governors, they had to work with little or even no cooperation from the General Assembly. NOVA is a transportation disaster. The state may be "well managed" but Richmond does not provide NOVA with sufficient resources to maintain the infrastructure in accordance with the expectations of citizens in an advanced democracy. This contributes to air pollution and climate change.
I say lets modernize the Democratic Party of Virginia and build power.
