Medicaid Expansion is a Family and Moral Value

by Dan Sullivan Last night in Staunton at a vigil coordinated by Virginia Organizing for Medicaid expansion in Virginia, Reverend David Rochford made the case for expansion on the basis of faith. There is a reconciliation required because those who oppose claim to be fighting for “family values.” Someone is a hypocrite. Reverend Rochford emphasized that Virginia has been at the center of media attention for the last couple of days. This is nothing new. He pointed out that Virginia moved from the solid south into the bellwether state category some time ago. It serves as a leading indicator of trends in the country as a whole. He argued that Virginia is a pragmatic state and that explains why the electorate settles on politicians like John Warner and Mark Warner who can be out of step with their own parties so long as they represent the interest of their constituencies.

”I say we view this as a family issue and a personal issue.” – Reverend David Rochford

Making a stand for his own constituency, a constituency of faith, Rochford stated that he represents the interest of “just people.” Rochford believes that people are worth hearing from and that even people who are not part of a particular faith tradition “feel deeply and passionately about the same things that I do as a Christian.”

”Only God made you. But people make corporations, and corporations are heard from.” – Reverend David Rochford

Until recently, Rochford told the audience, we had a lawmaker in Richmond form one of the poorest constituencies in the Commonwealth. This representative from places like Smyth and Russell Counties said just a couple of weeks ago that the best chance some 400,000 Virginians had was that the expansion of Medicaid could be built into the budgetary process. Despite the implied covenant he had with his constituency, he left at the “most inopportune time possible.” That and some other unexpected bad news made it unlikely that the Virginia budget would expand health care to even one person.

“…as we are Christians, we view as family those who matter to the father that we all share. We view as family the grossly underinsured and the uninsured, who in the case of the latter, number 400,000 people. And 20,000 people in Mr. Puckett’s former district - 20,000 people he’s walking away from and has abandoned who now have no voice in the process in Richmond.” – Reverend David Rochford

Rochford told the audience that by being there, they probably have some sense of family obligation; that they care that they care about those who have been cast aside because “we are all in this together.”

“Healthcare is not an entitlement, whatever that means. Healthcare is not a perquisite of those who are insured; those who make it available. Healthcare is simply an unalienable human right because it’s a human need.”

The GOP talking heads (and select Democrats) are going to have to come to terms with the values they espouse. They must either back up the rhetoric or drop their claim to the moral high ground. On Medicaid expansion they have abandoned family and community values, not to mention fiscal responsibility.

How Accurate Were the Virginia 8th CD Democratic Polls?

Short answer: most of them were very accurate. First, here are the final results.Beyer 46%, Hope 18%, Ebbin 14%, Euille 8%, Levine 7%, Chatman 5%, Hyra 1%. Now, here's what the polls were saying. Bruce Shuttleworth "internal" (5/1-5/5): Undecided 31%; Beyer 30%; Hope and Ebbin 9% each; Euille 8%; Chatman, Herring, Shuttleworth and Levine 3% each; Hyra 0%. Blue Virginia poll - Alexandria (5/1): Beyer 37%, Undecided 23%, Euille 14%, Ebbin 13%, Herring 5%, Chatman 3%, Shuttleworth and Hope 2%, Levine 1%. Blue Virginia poll - Adam Ebbin's Senate district (5/1): Beyer 39%, Undecided 26%, Ebbin 15%, Euille 10%, Chatman 5%, Hope 2%, Levine and Shuttleworth 1.5%. Blue Virginia poll - Patrick Hope's House district (5/1): Hope 44%, Undecided 28%, Beyer 21%, Ebbin 3%, Chatman 2%, Shuttleworth 1%, Herring 1%, Levine 1%, Euille 0%. Also, internal polls from the Hope campaign had it somewhere in the range of Beyer mid 40s, Hope and Ebbin mid teens, others under 10%. And an early poll by Mark Sickles, right before he dropped out, reportedly had Beyer far ahead, with everyone else far behind. (Note: one other campaign's internals - the candidate and campaign shall remain nameless because I'm such a nice guy, lol -  were correct on Beyer, but wildly off on their own candidate, most likely because they read a positive description of their candidate and/or did other things to skew the results) In the end, Beyer won easily, in the mid-40s as just about every poll and "pundit" (with a couple of glaring exceptions, such as one who claimed nobody had any idea who was going to win - lol!!!) had predicted would happen. Hope and Ebbin were the runners up, both in the teens (although Hope slightly higher and Ebbin slightly lower) than the polls had been indicating. Keep in mind that "undecided" votes in the polls ended up going for a candidate, and generally it seems they went to Beyer, Hope, and Ebbin, in that order, with a few points going to Levine as well, probably due to his TV advertising. As for the Blue Virginia polls focusing in on specific districts, we were very close in Alexandria, where Beyer ended up at 44%, Ebbin at 21%, Euille at 17%, and everyone else far behind. Almost exactly as predicted when you apportion the "undecided" voters. As for Ebbin's district, I calculated that Beyer received 44% and Ebbin 22%, which is totally consistent with the BV poll. I haven't yet calculated Hope's district, but the VPAP map makes it clear that Hope did well in his own district (although his margins came down somewhat from what the BV poll was showing 6 weeks before Election Day), while Beyer won Arlington overall, with Hope in second place. Finally, we didn't poll all of Fairfax County, but we assumed that Beyer would do very well in Falls Church and the rest of Fairfax County, and that's exactly what happened. So, bottom line? No surprises at all, really. The polls, internal and public (e.g., Blue Virginia's) were basically spot-on accurate. All of which raises the big question: why didn't candidates who had no chance drop out, or if they did drop out why didn't they drop out a lot sooner than they did? My personal theory: campaign consultants who have a vested interest in keeping the "gravy train" flowing for themselves by persuading their candidate to stay in the race because they "can win if they just do x, y, z" (mostly spend money when and where the consultants tell them). Note to candidates: do not trust most consultants as far as you can throw them.

Hey Journalists, Don't Want to Be "Blindsided?" Read the Political Blogs!

Reading the news this morning, I happened upon this article in the Washington Post, about how "Dave Brat was mostly ignored by political reporters" and how "Perhaps not since the Chicago Daily Tribune's infamous 'Dewey Defeats Truman' headline has the political press been so badly blindsided by an election result." Well, yeah, "political reporters" - the ones who work for a salary at corporate media outlets, that is - DID overwhelmingly miss this growing story over the past few months. Why? There are a bunch of reasons, but a big one is that they apparently didn't read the Virginia political blogs, several of which did a superb job on this race and the events leading up to it. For instance, here's some coverage the "blindsided" political journalists might have wanted to peruse the past few weeks/months (note: these are just a few leading examples in Virginia; there are many others, including nationally, I'm sure): The Bull Elephant (Jamie Radtke, Steve Albertson and Alexis Rose Bank get most of the credit for this extensive coverage of the rise of Dave Brat and the fall of Eric Cantor; these folks were most certainly NOT blindsided! UPDATE: Alexis emailed me a small correction: "I really didn't do anything but add commentary and do tech support. Steve and Jamie were the real reporters here, performing rare acts of actual journalism, going on site and relaying events to the public as they were unfolding. If even a few of the folks who claim journalism as a profession did the same, we would all be working with a lot better information!") 3/24/14: Jamie Radtke Live Blog of Slating Effort at Henrico GOP Meeting (Reporting on one of the main sources of grassroots anger at Cantor and the "establishment;" also quotes Dave Brat, who declared, "I'm running on free markets, not on the chamber of commerce agenda.") 3/27/14: And then there were two: Brat vs. Cantor ("Dave Brat now has the field clear and 74 days to make this a competitive race. It is going to be tough taking on Eric Cantor - no doubt about it - but I believe the passion and interest exists to make this a competitive race.") 4/14/14: Cantor officially has no Democrat challenger, focus all on Republican Primary ("Or perhaps Cantor is simply scared to debate, knowing he doesn't have sufficient answers to tough questions.") 4/16/14: Ann Coulter endorses Dave Brat against Eric Cantor 5/10/14: Cobb Defeated in 7th; Gruber Wins 5/10/14: SEISMIC SHIFT IN THE 7th: What does Cobb's ouster mean for the GOP? ("The fact that Cantor has, for the first time really, a serious primary challenger in Dave Brat is no accident.") 5/12/14: EXCLUSIVE: Video and Audio of Eric Cantor Speech Being Booed! (Note to political press: The Bull Elephant actually, GASP!, covered this event. What a concept.) 5/12/14: Brat, Gillespie Score Wins in 7th District Straw Poll ("The Bull Elephant's Straw Poll of delegates to the 7th District GOP Convention Saturday showed a large and unexpected lead by Dave Brat over Eric Cantor") 6/1/14: Brat bringing in big name to campaign - Laura Ingraham 6/4/14: Time for a Change After 12 Years: Vote Dave Brat 6/6/14: Cantor On Verge Of Historic Primary Loss (That's right, blogger Alexis Rose Bank nailed it, while most of the political press was sleeping.)

lowkell :: Hey Journalists, Don't Want to Be "Blindsided?" Read the Political Blogs!

JH Politics (Justin Higgins) This blogger was NOT a Dave Brat fan, but he DID cover him. For instance, on April 14, he wrote Dave Brat's Absurd 'Party Unity' Attack. Three weeks ago, he wrote about Dave Brat's Idiotic D.C. Two Step. Etc.Lynn R. Mitchell Also not a fan of Brat's, but this blog was most definitely engaged in covering the race, live blogging the 7th CD convention, etc. Bearing Drift 2/21/14: Why David Brat Wants to Retire Eric Cantor 3/22/14: David Brat, On "The Score" 4/8/14: Dismissing Brat ("Eric Cantor really can't be bothered with his primary opponent.") Blue Virginia Yes, our very own blog covered this race, starting with Eric Steigleder's piece on January 8, Could Cantor's Tea Party Challenger be Good News for Democrats?. Also see: 5/10/14: "Huge loss for Eric Cantor...his top lieutenant Linwood Cobb is toppled" 5/12/14: Straw Poll at 7th CD GOP Convention Shows Cantor Losing Badly to Dave Brat  5/15/14: "Long-time top consultant" to Eric Cantor "intends to bankrupt the Republican Party of Virginia?" Bottom line: if you're not reading the political blogs, you pretty much have no idea what's going on politically. One more example which I've mentioned previously is the 8th CD Democratic primary race, where if you weren't reading Blue Virginia, you weren't getting videos of the debates and other events (e.g., straw polls), as well as extensive analysis you couldn't find anywhere else. The Washington Post? Puh-leeze! All they did was a bit of "horse-race" coverage of the primary, as well as an endorsement by a guy (Lee Hockstader) who was never seen at a debate, forum, straw poll, etc, nor did he even interview all the candidates! #FAIL on all levels. P.S. Also see the John Fredericks Show interview with Dave Brat on June 5, as well as Ryan Nobles' coverage of the race. So...no, not ALL media was oblivious to this one.

Benedict Puckett

by Kindler

Benedict Arnold. Judas Iscariot. Brutus. Quisling. Add to the names of history's traitors one Phillip Puckett. This former Democrat apparently made a deal to resign his Senate seat just to hand the majority to the GOP. In return he gets - no, not thirty pieces of silver, but a seat on the Tobacco Commission and a judgeship for his daughter. Judges, you know, those people who are supposed to administer the law fairly, honestly and dispassionately? You might think that obtaining the job through such sleazebaggery would taint the rest of her career a bit. Is this act of openly bribing a state official even legal? All I know is that if Republicans want to play such unscrupulous, hardball, no-holds-barred politics, the answer is not to respond by playing patty cake with them. If they are going to take power through dishonest means, just playing along is not the way to honor or maintain a democracy. If they want a fight, let's give them a fight.  Let's shout out our protest everywhere from social media to the streets. Democrats should boycott every institution rendered illegitimate by this dirty act, from the General Assembly to Mr. Puckett's daughter's courtroom. Virginia was born when the people in this colony could no longer brook the tyranny of King George III. From that fight we gained democratic governance. Now we need to fight to bring that principle back.

Bruce Shuttleworth's Final Poll Results of the 8th CD Democratic Primary Race (5/1-5/5)

After Bruce Shuttleworth dropped out of the 8th CD Democratic race two weeks ago, I asked him if he'd be willing to share the extensive (not to mention expensive!) polling which had informed his decision to do so. Today, we met for lunch, and Bruce shared some of the key results with me.The polling was carried out in early May (5/1-5/5) by EMC Research, and as Bruce put it, "provides an interesting snapshot in time"/"good lay of the land" regarding where the 8th CD Democratic race stood as of that time. In addition, the poll results help explain Bruce's decision to withdraw from the race. Specifically, Bruce didn't see a path to victory without "going negative," which is not at all what he wanted to do. The poll results help explain why that's the case, as you'll see in the following data. Finally, Bruce wanted to emphasize that he wishes everyone still in the the race the best of luck, stressing that he will be very supportive of whoever the nominee turns out to be on June 10 -- "may the best candidate win." He hopes and plans to stay involved in public discourse on the issues he cares about - the environment, national security, health care, etc. - going forward. With that, here are the key results from Bruce Shuttleworth's poll, which surveyed 400 likely Democratic voters in the 8th CD, and was conducted using extensive, live interviews. The overall poll has a margin of sampling error of +/- 4.9%. *How closely are likely voters following race?: 13% "not at all;" 35% "not too closely,"36% "somewhat closely;" 15% "very closely." *Vote percentage "top lines" (without reading any bios or other comments about the candidates): Undecided 31%; Beyer 30%; Hope and Ebbin 9% each; Euille 8%; Chatman, Herring, Shuttleworth and Levine 3% each; Hyra 0%. *Name ID (prior to providing any information about the candidates): Beyer 71%; Euille 48%; Levine 46%; Chatman 43%; Ebbin, Hope and Shuttleworth 42% each; Herring 41%; Hyra and Korpe 16% each. *Favorable ratings (prior to providing any information): Beyer 49% (with 7% unfavorable); Euille 29% (6% unfavorable); Ebbin 27% (note: I didn't get Ebbin's, Hope's or Herring's "unfavorable" scores, but I got the impression that they were in the same range as the others -- 6%, 7% or so); Hope 23%; Herring 21%; Chatman 18% (with 7% unfavorable); Levine and Shuttleworth 12% each (with 5% unfavorable for Levine and 4% unfavorable for Shuttleworth). *Vote percentages after positive messages read for Shuttleworth: Beyer 30%, Shuttleworth 15%, Hope 10%, Euille 9%. *Vote percentages after positive messages read for Shuttleworth and negative messages read for Beyer: Undecided 26%, Beyer 24%, Shuttleworth 17%, Hope 10%, Euille 10%, Ebbin 7%, Chatman 3%. So, the bottom line, as these numbers show, is that Bruce Shuttleworth didn't see a "path to victory" simply by staying "positive," and probably not even by going "negative." In the "best case scenario" for him, he still trailed Don Beyer by 7 points, 24%-17%, after using both "positive" (for him) and "negative" (against Beyer) messaging. Given that, I'd have to agree with Bruce that he made a smart move to withdraw from the race when he did. Whatever you think about Bruce Shuttleworth, this Naval Academy and Harvard Business School grad is no dummy, that's for sure. Finally, Bruce added that if Don Beyer does end up winning - and this poll certainly shows him to be the strong favorite as of early May - that he won't be the "quintessential freshman congressman." Instead, Shuttleworth said that given Beyer's experience, connections, etc., he could be "quite effective from day #1." Interesting.

Video: Progressive Democrats of America Debate for Virginia 8th CD Gets Fiery!

The debate last night put on by the Progressive Democrats of America turned out a lot better than I'd expected heading in, given that only 2 candidates (Mark Levine and Derek Hyra) were going to be there for the entire debate, 1 candidate (Patrick Hope) was going to be there for part of it, and the rest (other than Don Beyer) slated to send "surrogates." It turns out that the surrogates did very well - I'd argue that at Ebbin's (Justin Strekal) and Hope's (Karen Gautney) were absolutely superb, in some ways better than the candidates themselves (can I vote for Strekal or Gautney in this election? LOL) - while Euille's and Chatman's were very strong in more limited roles (e.g., they weren't authorized to respond to questions, other than ones they were 100% sure about). The debate was well organized, the questions were interesting, and there were some serious fireworks between the candidates - including Mark Levine repeatedly going after Don Beyer, who wasn't there (note that I've emailed the Beyer campaign to ask why they didn't send a surrogate to the debate, which is disappointing), as well as Patrick Hope and Don Beyer as "lobbyists" (for doctors and car dealers, respectively); and the other candidates who didn't show up. For his part, Hope went after Levine as a "passive aggressive progressive" (in response to Levine calling him a "lobbyist," which Hope said he was proud of), as well as for attacking Beyer when he wasn't there. Definitely a lively debate! Here's some video (I'll post more in the comments section of this post), starting with Mark Levine criticizing Don Beyer for "support[ing] fast track...for the Bush Administration; he felt that the Bush Administration could be completely trusted to do trade deals and he said so very clearly...when he was the lobbyist for foreign car dealers." P.S. Also note that I didn't get video of some of the exchanges at the end, as my video camera ran out of juice after 1 1/2 hours or so. On ethanol, Levine correctly called it a "sham" which could actually use more energy to produce than it produces. Ebbin's surrogate correctly called it a "big handout" to agribusiness and "money not well spent." For whatever reason, Hope and Hyra didn't answer directly about ethanol, just talked about promoting renewable energy (note: I checked with the Hope campaign this morning, and they said the ethanol subsidy should be phased out and moved into investments in renewables - good answer!). On another topic, guns, Levine was very passionate that Democrats need to run on this issue and call out Republicans for it, as the vast majority of Americans support background checks. All the candidates/surrogates who responded about the PATRIOt Act and mass surveillance felt it went too far and should be drastically scaled back or ended. P.P.S. I'm not sure if any other reporters were there, but if so I didn't see them.

Straw Poll at 7th CD GOP Convention Shows Cantor Losing Badly to Dave Brat

I'm not sure how much validity to give this straw poll of 7th CD Republican convention delegates by The Bull Elephant, but the conclusion is intriguing: "a large and unexpected lead by Dave Brat over Eric Cantor, and Shak Hill as a continuing but distant threat to frontrunner Ed Gillespie." One more conclusion that should give the Can'tor folks significant heartburn: his "opposition isn't just among fire-breathing Tea Party-types, but also among a significant portion of the GOP base in the 7th who prefer the "mainstream" candidate for Senate." Thoughts? Time for yet more popcorn? :)P.S. Click here for my original story about the stunning defeat this weekend of Eric Cantor's close ally as 7th CD GOP Chair.

"Huge loss for Eric Cantor...his top lieutenant Linwood Cobb is toppled"

Ruh roh, looks like Eric Can'tor has a little problem in his district. Such a sad, sad, sad shame. ;) For more, see The Bull Elephant blog, which had reported a bit earlier this afternoon: Eric Cantor and Dave Brat speaking. Cantor getting booed, criticizing how it's easy to throw stones from ivory towers...he's really, really hitting back at Brat. I've never seen Cantor this forceful. Angry even.IMHO, he shouldn't get in the mud...makes him look smaller. But kudos to him for engaging in the back and forth. Folks in the crowd yelling out at him. Big boos when he tries to call Brat a liberal. This speech is going to make the papers. More popcorn, please! :) In all seriousness, though, it looks like the GOP "establishment" hasn't gotten the Tea Party completely under control yet, as they've been pounding their chests about for months now. Such a shame, huh?UPDATE: Check it out from Republican blogger Lynn R. Mitchell (she's referring to Tea Partiers who "came in by the busload Saturday morning to vote at the 7th Congressional District Convention in Richmond"):

Exclusive BV Poll of the 8th CD Democratic Primary. Part 4: Patrick Hope's HoD District

I posted the first installment of our exclusive 8th CD Democratic primary poll a bit earlier today. See here for more details on the poll in general (e.g., it was telephone/automated, with calls conducted by Voice Broadcasting), as well as on results for Charniele Herring's House of Delegates district specifically. Also see herefor details on Alexandria, and here for details on Adam Ebbin's State Senate district.Now, we turn to Patrick Hope's House of Delegates District (the 47th), which covers mostly North Arlington and perhaps will constitute around 20% of the Democratic primary electorate on June 10th. Hope has represented this district since 2010. See the graph and comments for my thoughts. Also note that there were 218 respondents specifically in the 47th House of Delegates District (out of 1,152 total responses). The margin of sampling error on this section of the poll is +/- 6.1 percentage points. *It's basically a two-way race in this district, with Hope (43.6%) and Beyer (20.6%) combining with "undecided" for over 90% of the vote here, and with Hope leading Beyer by a whopping 23 points! Everyone else combined add up to under 10% of the vote in this district. *This is exactly what Patrick Hope needs to be doing in his own House of Delegates district (and what Bill Euille, Charniele Herring and Adam Ebbin aren't doing on their home turfs) -- racking up a big margin, over 40% of the vote in a 10-candidate field, 23 points ahead of Don Beyer and 40 points ahead of Adam Ebbin. That's without having done any serious paid communications yet, to my knowledge, while we've been inundated with mailers from several other candidates. *Something very interesting jumps out at me from all of this. You'd think that where voters know their Delegate, Senator, Mayor, whatever, you'd expect the voters to like and support that elected official. Yet in Ebbin's and Herring's districts, as well as in Mayor Euille's Alexandria, the elected officials trail badly to Don Beyer. In stark contrast, in Patrick Hope's district, Hope leads by a wide margin. *Apparently, as Hope told me in 2009 (I didn't believe him at the time), when voters get to know him, they come to like him. The question for the next 40 days is whether voters outside Hope's district will get to know him, like him, and consider voting for him. Right now, most of them don't really know who Hope is. Of course, it's quite possible that most voters haven't focused on this race yet, but will do so in the next few weeks. Stay tuned! *So, while this isn't a bad result for Don Beyer, but I'm thinking it increasingly is what they're most worried about over at Beyer HQ - the potential for Patrick Hope to win big in North Arlington, pick up support in Mt. Vernon and other parts of Fairfax County, and generally emerge as Beyer's most serious rival. That's pretty much what I talked about in my scenarios post.

Del. Surovell Reports: Even in Costa Rica, They're Rooting for Virginia to Expand Medicaid!

Virginia Delegate (and new Blue Virginia Costa Rica correspondent? LOL) Scott Surovell reports, "Found this on the beach in Playa Guiones, Costa Rica." Surovell adds, "Playa Guiones is a hotbed of healthcare policy." ;) In all seriousness, though, here's some information on Costa Rica's health care system. You'll notice it's a gazillion times better than ours. Fortunately for Costa Rica, they apparently don't have ALEC or ALEC tools like Virginia House Speaker Bill "ALEC" Howell in their country. Costa Rica provides universal health care to its citizens and permanent residents. Costa Rica offers some of the best health care in Latin America. Both the private and public health care systems are always being upgraded. New hospitals, new clinics, new machines, and improvement in staff and training......Statistics from the World Health Organization frequently place Costa Rica in the top country rankings in the world for long life expectancy...  ...Costs tend to be much less than doctor, hospital, and prescription costs in the U.S... ...Costa Rica is a popular destination for medical tourism because of the beautiful surroundings, low costs, and medical reputation. Anyway, maybe if Delegate Surovell can't persuade his obstinate Republican colleagues to expand Medicaid in Virginia, he could persuade them to all move to Costa Rica? On second thought, I wouldn't wish those guys on my worst enemy, let alone a beautiful, peaceful place like Costa Rica! LOL