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Virginia's unemployment is low compared to the double-digit jobless rate in the nation at large. Times may be tough, interest rates may still be high, and the ballooning federal deficit may cause vague worry about what lies down the road. But for the moment most Virginians are comfortable. There is relatively little immediate suffering. The voters were willing to give the President the time he says he needs; to stay the course.
Thus they elected Mr. Trible over Mr. Davis, who sees great danger ahead if that course is followed.
There were, of course, many other factors in all of the races. These include personalities, the availability of advertising funds, a host of philosophical issues real and imagined, newspaper editorial broadsides and, as always, the closing barrages of that political garbage called negative advertising.
Whatever role the economy and the other factors played in their outcome, the elections of '82 cast long shadows into the future.
Up to now at least, Mr. Reagan has gambled the nation's economic health and the health of his party on his “Stay the Course” motto. It gives him very little room for maneuver if things go wrong.
If they go well the recovery actually begins next year, the President’s men in Virginia will be in tall clover.
But if the recession continues or deepens, the GOP experience in the Fourth, Sixth and Ninth Districts this year is but a small sample of what is likely to happen in 1984 when the whole Republican team comes up to bat.
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