Gov. Bob McDonnell is probably feeling all tingly these days — not unlike the sensation of a first kiss.
He was in New Hampshire on Monday, showing a little more leg as a Republican vice presidential prospect. On Thursday, McDonnell received a billet-doux from the National Review: an adoring profile that declared, "Yet it is his quiet success here that is drawing the attention of White House contenders."
And this morning, McDonnell returns to "Meet the Press," this time as Rick Perry's replacement as chairman of a PAC that raises and spends millions to elect Republican governors. Is McDonnell becoming the part-time governor he promised he wouldn't be?
Not halfway through his single, non-renewable term, McDonnell is flying high in Richmond and beyond, cited as the apotheosis of nice-guy conservatism essential to winning swing states such as Virginia. But the McDonnell boomlet — eclipsed by the latest Chris Christie trial balloon — is the continuation of a pattern set in 1969.
That was the year Virginia politics entered the modern era, becoming two-party competitive with the election of the state's first Republican governor, Linwood Holton, a moderate now estranged from his party. Holton was — as were many of his successors, Democratic and Republican — almost immediately viewed as presidential material.
A Republican win for governor in 2009, a year after a Democrat carried Virginia for the presidency, reinforced a speculative reflex that transforms this state's chief executive into a possible national candidate. Further, McDonnell affirmed the Virginia Rule: Since 1972, the party that has won the White House lost the Executive Mansion.
Virginia and New Jersey are the only states that pick governors immediately after a presidential election. These contests are represented by the punditocracy as referenda on the president, a possible sign of buyer's remorse. Virginia is considered a reliable barometer, given its gyrations over nearly 40 years.
Because Virginia and New Jersey are convenient to the Washington and New York headquarters of national and international news organizations, the two states' gubernatorial elections are easily covered by reporters looking for a provincial slant on a bigger political story — all the better told under an exotic dateline.
New Jersey may be home to Snooki. But Virginia has towns where she could hang out: Bumpass and Tightsqueeze.
It's been a good week for McDonnell, but it could have been better.
That's because he was upstaged by the Jersey boy in the Class of'09. McDonnell is playing for second, but Christie is again first — first in the eyes of Republicans underwhelmed by their presidential candidates. Christie is everything McDonnell isn't: brash, confrontational, smash-mouth with D's and R's.
They are, however, products of very different political cultures.
New Jersey, a blue state, is richly ethnic. Voter anger is a constant, fueled by high taxes and the lopsided influence of entrenched pressure groups, namely public-employee unions. Christie plays to this and has much to show for it: caps on property taxes and curbs on pricey public pensions.
Virginia is purple; just adding brown and yellow dimensions to tensions that for generations were black-white. Taxes are modest; labor is weak because of a ban on compulsory union membership. If there's an entrenched pressure group with lopsided influence, it's business. Our governors know for whom they work.
Ever-steady McDonnell balanced the budget without raising taxes, but used expensive gimmicks, including diverting cash from the underfinanced public pension fund. And he wants cheaper pensions, meaning state workers could pay twice for McDonnell's grab.
Now who's feeling all tingly?
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