Per the article below by The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder,
whose posts I receive via email every day, I'm posting about
this because it should have a lot of resonance for those of
you who held Obama events at your house.
Even when I disagree with what Ambinder has written,
hs writiing is always a pleasure to read.
My comments follow his:
"When Terry McAuliffe was the chairman of the DNC, his
staff used to joke at his expense that any number he
uttered -- usually a brag about some fundraising goal
or field accomplishment -- had to be reduced by about
a third in order to comport with reality. Dana Milbank,
writing in the Washington Post, suggests that the current
DNC regime is overboasting, too, about the number of
Obama budget pledges it received..."
To read the rest of the piece go to
Washington with Marc Ambinder
The DNC's Pledge Hedge?
April 2 2009
As you probably know, former DNC head Terry McAuliffe,
so beloved of Hardball's back-scratching Chris Matthews,
is running for governor of Virginia.
Most of my friends back there, even ones who are much
more liberal than DLC me, can't quite stomach the idea
of voting for someone for governor who, throughout his
career, has always been so preternaturally shallow
intellectually, so plain about his money-grubbing ways
and happy to an example of crony capitalism at its
absolute worst, with involvement in all sorts of sweetheart
business deals that most Democratic voters would never
have entree to, and to which many of my friends and I
feel were never thoroughly investigated before he became
DNC Chair.
Worst of all, though in a state that takes history very
seriously -almost to comical lengths at times- his
personal history shows him to be someone who has
zero genuine connection to the state, much less,
the "real" Virginia that's far, far away from the affluent,
comfortable and moderate Northern Virginia suburbs
I lived in for 15 years.
He's no Mark Warner, that's for sure.
Not that you'll read about any of that in the upcoming
national media stories on his campaign before next
month's Democratic primaryv, which will almost entirely
focus on his ability to convince average Virginians he
actually has -gasp!- principles and is connected to
their daily concerns.
Frankly, that's still an open question, even among folks
in D.C. who know him whom you'd naturally expect
to be favorably disposed towards him.
He is actually quite engaging according to folks I know
who are on friendly terms with him.
But he still tends to rub a lot of people the wrong way,
since he seems to be part of that political class that
imagines that talking about something is the same
thing as having actually done something about it.
It's not, of course, a distinction he has to hope
Virginia voters don't consider too strongly.
Personally, I feel that despite all the migration to
Northern Virginia from the northeast, I don't believe
he's an electable candidate, but the whole DNC
infrastructure tried to clear out the field so he can
spend some of his millions in his gubernatorial election,
so they can spend their funds elsewhere.
That didn't work, though, and I suspect and hope that
Brian Moran will emerge as the Democratic nominee
after next month's primary.
In case you didn't know, because of the way the Virginia
Constitution was written, most of the power resides with
the state legislature to a degree that's hard to imagine or
appreciate here.
The most obvious way this shows itself is the prohibition
on governors: one term and out,
Naturally, that's the way the veteran pols like it.
Besides having lived there for so long and one of my nieces
now attending Washington & Lee University in Lexington,
I have a tangible connection to the state of Virginia and
its history.
One of my ancestors was former U.S. Rep. Phillip Doddridge,
a very interesting fellow who died in 1832, though that's not at all
apparent in this short Congressional bio.
He lost his first two attempts to get into the House of
Representatives, served in both the Virgina Senate and the
Virginia House of Delegates.
Among other things, he apparently argued many cases successfully
before the U.S. Supreme Court, and SCOTUS Justices attended
his funeral, which was actually his second one.
His first funeral had to be postponed after he woke up!
He later had it written into his new Will that a certain period
of time must elapse before a death could be announced and
a funeral scheduled.
I hate when that happens!
My paternal grandmother Anna was born in the panhandle
area of West Virginia, not far from the County named for
Phillip Doddridge in 1845, which was Virgina before the
Civil War, albeit an area of the state that was economically
and socially far removed from genteel and relatively affluent
Richmond and Williamsburg, where Phillip had served in the
state legislature.
Once upon a time, back when people in the colonies really
thought that Virginia extended west until it reached the
Pacific Ocean, this particular area was known as
West Augusta.
This area had been professionally surveyed for the largest
land owners: Washingtons, Fairfaxes, Lees and many others,
who, according to some sources, had it in mind as the 14th
American Colony, before the oncoming American Revolution
made that pretty much a moot point.
Phillip and his brother, The Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge,
arrived in Wellsburg, VA -now Charleston, W.V.- in 1795,
a year before the county was formed.
The Doddridge branch of the family is the one that was,
apparently, well-educated, heavily involved in the community
and very religious.
I'm sure they'd have been bloggers!
One of Phillip's ancestors was Obadiah Holmes,
who was the second pastor of the First Baptist Church
in the American colonies, in Newport, Rhode Island,
after the first minister, John Clarke, died not long after
it'd been built.
I only became aware of this fact within the past eight
years or so, and was quite pleased to discover that
the church is still there all these years later.
As it happens, the Doddridge family once lived in Salem, MA,
long before the Witch Trials there in the 1690's, and
SouthBeachHoosier daily attended the 1997 Marv Albert
trial/media circus in Arlington, VA while living there.
Ah, sweet symmetry!
Perhaps that explains why, years ago, I always had a
warm spot in my heart for actress Melissa Joan Hart
-Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
I ask you, how can you not smile at an adorably cute
witch with a cat named Salem?
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