|
Wall
Street Journal
Taking
the Fight to the Democrats
By
Kimberley A. Strassel
In
Virginia's gubernatorial race, opponents of Terry McAuliffe may have
cracked the playbook Democrats have used to win in states that ought
to go Republican.
Democrats
used the 2012 election to fine-tune a strategy for beating
conservatives in conservative-friendly states. A handful of GOP
players are now using Virginia's off-year gubernatorial race to
trial-run a strategy for defeating that Democratic tactic.
Virginia
so far has been a carbon copy of what Democrats did so successfully
in last year's Senate and House races. The approach runs thus: A
Democratic candidate, assisted by unions and outside partisan groups,
floods the zone with attack ads, painting the GOP opponent as a
tea-party nut who is too "extreme" for the state. The left
focuses on divisive wedge issues—like abortion—that resonate with
women or other important voting constituencies.
As
the Republican's unfavorable ratings rise, the Democrat presents
himself as a reasonable moderate, in tune with the state's values. A
friendly media overlook the Democrat's reliably liberal record, and
the lies within the smears against his opponent, and ultimately
declares the Democrat unbeatable.
This
is how Sen. Heidi Heitkamp won in North Dakota (while Mitt Romney won
there by 20 points); how Sen. Joe Donnelly won in Indiana (Romney by
10 points); how Sen. Jon Tester won in Montana (Romney by 14 points).
And this is how Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe
hopes to beat his GOP rival, Virginia Attorney General Ken
Cuccinelli.
The
McAuliffe crew has for months slammed Mr. Cuccinelli as a
whackadoodle social conservative—suggesting that the respected
lawyer is against punishing rapists, against allowing divorce,
against contraception. The latest McAuliffe ad presents an
obstetrician who declares that Mr. Cuccinelli would "make all
abortion illegal." Mr. McAuliffe's advertising rarely ventures
into discussing his policy ideas.
The
media have failed to challenge most of these accusations, showing
considerably more interest in polls showing Mr. McAuliffe pulling
ahead, while unfavorability ratings for Mr. Cuccinelli have
increased—no doubt driven by the negative ads. The tenor of the
campaign coverage: Mr. Cuccinelli is finished…
Read
the rest of the article at The Wall Street Journal
|
