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Dr. James H. Broussard
By Dr. James H. Broussard Special to the Rappahannock News
At the most basic level, Virginia s primary election was good news for Republicans. Both parties had contests for lieutenant governor, and in that match-up far more people cast Republican than Democratic ballots. With nearly complete returns in, Republicans outpolled Democrats by about 175,000 to 115,000.
Although the overall turnout was very low - less than 10 percent of the state's registered voters - the fact that Republicans had a 3-2 edge in primary voters has got to be encouraging for the fall. In addition to the overall results, the Republican gubernatorial campaign ran a “test case” in 100 precincts of its “get out the vote” machinery. By learning what worked well and what did not, the Kilgore campaign will be better able to maximize its “base vote” in November.
Conservatives could celebrate the outcome in the hard-fought Republican battle for lieutenant governor, where Bill Bolling convincingly beat Sean Connaughton by 56 percent to 44 percent. This nearlandslide for Bolling belied pre-election estimates that the race would be very tight. Both candidates claimed to be conservative, but Bolling made a point of emphasizing his hard-line anti-tax position while Connaughton pitched himself as the more moderate choice and even made a friendly nod or two toward potential tax increases.
But in the highly-publicized effort to punish half a dozen renegade Republican house members, conservatives came up short, and that is bad news for Republicans in the long term. In a generally conservative state like Virginia, Republicans benefit when voters see a clear distinction between the parties on the tax issue. There may be states where supporting higher taxes is a net plus for a political party, but Virginia isn't one of them. When Republicans take a firm and
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