Apologies to Dr. Freud, but that's what I call the jealous feeling I get when I look at what our neighbors to the North are achieving.Tuesday's Washington Post had an eye-popping chart of all that the Maryland legislature managed to pass and send to the governor in their latest session. The chart becomes even more interesting - and either depressing or motivating for those of us in the Commonwealth - if you add a column for what Virginia did or didn't do this year on the same issues.
For example:
Smoking ban:
MD - passed legislation banning smoking in restaurants and bars.
VA - refused to pass Gov. Kaine's proposed ban
Climate change and air pollution:
MD - passed Clean Cars bill.
VA - passed bill to give Dominion an almost unregulated monopoly with no renewables or efficiency requirements
Worker's rights:
MD - passed a bill requiring the state to pay a "living wage" to contractors
VA - you're joking, right?
We can go on and on about the Chesapeake Bay, voters' rights, stem cell research, etc. So why the enormous gap between neighboring states? Governors Kaine and O'Malley are both committed to moving their states forward, but O'Malley has a cooperative, progressive Democratic legislature to work with. And Kaine, meanwhile, is stuck trying to cajole some of the most backwards right-wing Republicans in the entire country.
Just imagine what we could do here with a Democratic governor and legislature working together. We could move Virginia politics from the 19th century into the 21st. And I could find at least a little Richmond relief to assuage my Annapolis envy.
There is a reason I moved to Virginia from Maryland
Don't buy into the Purple Virginia theory. Virginia is only Purple when you run a moderate Democrat. Purple means liberal is equal conservative in terms of ideological representation. Clearly, in VA, that is not that case.
Dude, you make MD sound like something out of Blade Runner. During the time I've spent in Maryland, I don't recall it looking like a civilization on the verge of collapse. Some people there even seem (gasp!) happy.
I see that y'all on the right side of the fence haven't updated your "love or leave it" rhetoric since the '60s. No need to waste a perfectly good bumper sticker, eh? ;-) By this logic, all the conservatives who say how what a wonderful place Iraq has become ought to move there immediately.
There are certainly many differences between Virginia and Maryland, but it's not the finest political science to attribute all of the differences to conservative vs. progressive government. The two states also have dramatically different demographics -- to start with, MD has a density of 541.9 people per square mile vs. VA has a density of 178.9 people per square mile. Do you think that might have any influence on crime rates, etc.?
I admire that MD is trying to solve real problems, like conducting stem cell research, protecting restaurant workers from carcinogenic second-hand smoke, and preventing the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem from collapsing. And by the way, the living wage, by my calculations, only equals between $17,680 and $23,504 per worker -- is that such a fortune that the state can't afford it?
But more importantly why are Marylanders so different than Virginians: why are Marylanders mostly Democrats and Virginians mostly Republicans? Although we are a commonwealth of highly-educated people living in a thriving economy, the message of the Democratic Party in Virginia, I believe, has yet to be known to the voters and therefore yet to succeed. I really believe that until we define and make known what the Democratic Party of VA is and stands for, then we'll be left to the whims of each candidate to represent us. And until we do the work of getting to the voters and discussing what the Democratic Party has done for them in the past and what the Democratic Party will do for them in the future, then I'm afraid the burden of turning us blue will rely on the candidates...and that's giving them a heavy burden and risking seats in the General Assembly.
I know it's been unpopular here at RK to look at ourselves honestly, admit that we could do better in some areas, and then figure out ways to do it. But last fall, after the election, several lively debates began on RK about the election results, how effective the DPVA, the committees, and the blogs were, and more importantly bloggers/posters were offering ideas on new things that we could be doing and things we could be doing better. But I haven't seen a discussion since and the RPV (our competitor....look at it like a business if you might) is already claiming a Republican stregnth in November via an editorial in the Washington Times on April 9: http://www.washingto...
With all of the gloom and doom about the future of Republicans and conservatives since November, prognosticators have overlooked one of the most surprising political stories of 2007: the surprising strength of Republican right in Virginia, where all 140 General Assembly seats are on the ballot in November.During the session that ended Wednesday, conservatives and Republicans won a number of significant victories, including passage of a transportation package that did not include statewide tax increases and eminent domain reforms that will make it much harder for the government to condemn private property. Lawmakers passed over Gov. Tim Kaine's veto legislation making people convicted of killing judges or witnesses eligible for capital punishment, and thwarted the governor's effort to enact a ban on smoking in restaurants.
I understand that the Virginia populace supported the smoking ban bill....then why wasn't there a message sent out to Democrats to support the bill?
We need to look beyond ourselves here in the blogosphere. We are well-informed, politically motivated, etc. But the vast majority of Virginians don't have the time nor inclination to seek out "the right answers". We, the DPVA, the district committees, the local committees need to reach out and talk to Virginians about what the Democratic Party stands for and is about.
Thanks for making this important point. Maybe this is a good time to go over those areas for improvement and start implementing these changes. And implementing changes now can be very beneficial for us in the next two years.
What do you have in mind? So what actions do you think are necessary to strengthen the party?
Here are my thoughts:
1. Put a blog on the website. Since we are talking about Maryland, they have a Blog Network (http://www.mddems.or...) that they describe: "The purpose of this network is to improve communication between Democratic bloggers and the State Party. We realize that citizen journalists such as you are influential opinion leaders in our state."
2. Start sending out State Party level e-mails (old Demo Memo). So many committees have newsletters that they send out (I'm on three committee's newsletters list now...) so wouldn't a State level newsletter be helpful.
3. Fix the letter to the editor function on the website. My local newspaper (The Free Lance Star) isn't listed on the list of papers you can choose from. Take a look at what Maryland is doing for that function: http://www.mddems.or... "Many of you have written the Party to raise an issue or just to have your voice heard. It's always important to know what our voters are saying, and with that in mind we have now created a Letters to the Editor Campaign. We strongly believe that contributing your opinions is an effective means to not only speak on behalf of our party, but to also become more involved. Writing a letter to your editor is also one of the best ways to influence public opinion."
5. Put some sort of Precinct Operations Manual on the DPVA website that committees or individuals wanting to organize local Democrats could use. Tools, tools, tools.....
6. Give us Talking Points for the Virginia Democratic Party. At the last local committee meeting I attended, one of the members vented his frustration that he has no talking points to use for speaking about Virginia issues to others.
7. Put a longer-range events calendar on the DPVA site so that we could see beyond the next few days.
8. It would be nice if the DPVA could send out monthly e-mails letting people know of an upcoming local committee meeting. I no longer receive notices by e-mail from my county committee. The more participants the better.
9. Encourage Democratic community outreach projects so that our fellow citizens can see that we do what we say! Spending some time in the community can only help us at the ballot box. If the DPVA could promote that on their website and with the committees, I think it would pay off.
Well, this is a start. These may or may not be good ideas but I think we need to face the writing on the wall... We won't do better at the polls unless we do better ourselves.
Most of the technological problems can be solved easily. It is just a matter of creating a channel of communications to the site admins to let them know when something is outdated or not working correctly.
The e-newsletters should be easy to fix as well. It is just a matter of setting up some kind of a procedure to make sure that it happens.
And I personally think that having precinct manuals, talking points, and outreach events are very good ideas.
It seems that you have noticed that other people are also feeling frustration over these communication issues. Are there any others at RK that feel the same way?
Sigh ...
Oh, and don't forget that a hate amendment hasn't passed in North Carolina either.
And do you know why those two states haven't written off equal rights for gay citizens? Do you think it might have something to do with the fact the Democrats control the legislatures?