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THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2009
Virginia needs
solutions, not
partisanship
Still hung over from a fruitless transportation special
session last June and defeats on Nov. 4, members of
the state Republican leadership chose to take the low road during their post-State of the Commonwealth rebuttal Jan. 14.
While Gov. Tim Kaine (D), during his last annual . address, looked to rectify the state’s nearly $3 billion shortfall and provide solutions to Virginia’s energy and environmental problems, the Republican leadership stuck with an old tactic that failed to get Sen. John McCain elected president — Thill baby, drill!’
In a partisan push, Del. David Albo (R-Springfield) and Sen. Stephen Newman (R-Lynchburg), who gave the rebuttal, mocked the governor by pointing to his December 2008 budget address, saying nowhere in his w , speech did Kaine use the words ‘streamline’ or ‘consolidate,’ ‘public-private partnership’ or ‘reform.’
Nowhere in the Republicans’ rebuttal did either Albo or Newman use the words ‘new ideas.’
This continues to be as important an election year as the last, with both the governorship and majority in the House of Delegates at stake for both parties. But for the good of the state in these difficult times, partisanship must be left at the door of the capitol rather than dragged down the aisles of the legislature.
Earlier in his campaign Attorney General Bob McDonnell, who is the forerunner in the race for the Republican nomination for governor, said Republicans in 2008 failed to connect with voters living in Northern Virginia.
To do well next November, he said, Republicans must get those votes. This will be a difficult task when more and more Virginians are identifying themselves as Democrats, according to a recent poll.
The approach shown in the Republican rebuttal, though appealing to the base, will not gain the votes of those pragmatic centrists who find themselves leaning more and more into the blue and out of the red.
With only a little more than a month for state leaders to solve Virginia’s budget crisis, now is the time to focus on common-sense solutions.
Virginians cannot afford for our legislators to play politics in the next month and a half. We need new ideas, not old ideals. We need answers for the future, not agendas for the upcoming House of Delegates election.
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