Showing posts with label Larry Sabato. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Larry Sabato. Show all posts

Monday, August 5, 2013

Bolling, Sabato hit Twitter, FB with Va gubernatorial frustrations

Virginia's gubernatorial campaign took another interesting turn on Friday as two powerful political pundits took to social media to express frustration with the candidates and the state of both campaigns.

Sinking further into the muck, the past week saw the Cuccinelli campaign accusing McAuliffe of saying something he didn't while news broke that McAuliffe's former GreenTech company has come under SEC scrutiny.

It was almost possible to hear the exasperation in University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato's voice Friday afternoon as he tweeted:
Sabato immediately followed that tweet with another referring to Virginia's Lieutenant Governor:
Friday night the Lieutenant Governor himself took to Twitter and Facebook here and here (he has two FB pages) to express frustration about the current state of Virginia's governor's race. Bill Bolling posted:
I'm very frustrated by the current direction of the gubernatorial campaign. Instead of spending millions of dollars calling each other names, I'd like to see the candidates actually talk about the important issues facing our state. The people of Virginia deserve better than they are getting, and that's a bipartisan criticism.
By Saturday morning he had received hundreds of thumbs ups from around the Commonwealth and, presumably, there were many more who did not publicly give their approval but were thinking it.

Dozens left comments, some noting that they would be writing in Bill Bolling's name on the November ballot, a recurring theme that has come up in letters to the editor and conversations on the street. This comment from a supporter named Bill echoed those sentiments:
I will be writing in Bill Bolling and I have lots of friends here in Goochland that will be doing the same.
Another supporter pleaded:
Bill, it's not too late. Give us another choice. PLEASE!!!!!
Commenter John looked at the election in a different light:
If this were a job interview for a corporation, I was the hiring manager, and I was down to the two party's respective candidates as my final applicants, I would tell my Human Resource Department to leave the job posted, as I haven't found the right hire.
That was the tone of most of the comments as voters expressed concerns, even suggesting Bolling 2017. The naysayers stopped by, too, like James who quipped:
It might be helpful if you constructively supported your party's nominee....
To which Chris responded:
Well, it would have also been nice to have gotten to vote in a primary too, but that didn't happen either.
Bottom line: there is definitely dissatisfaction among voters, something picked up on in Sunday's News & Advance editorial, Cuccinelli, McAuliffe and the Split in the GOP. With that said, we are still three months away from election day 2013.

Cross-posted at LynnRMitchell.com

Friday, June 28, 2013

Sabato: GOP can't touch Mark Warner's U.S. Senate seat

Republican Party of Virginia's central committee voted in May to hold a convention for the U.S. Senate candidate in 2014, deep-sixing chances for a viable GOP candidate to run against very popular Democratic Senator Mark Warner.

Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics wrote:
Republicans were always going to have an uphill climb against wealthy Sen. Mark Warner (D) next year, but their chances got even slimmer when they opted to select their nominee via convention next year. Having a convention rather than a primary increases the possibility of the GOP picking an unelectable far-right candidate...
Sabato moved that seat on his chart from "Likely Democratic" to "Safe Democratic." Read his entire Crystal Ball predictions here.

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