For the Virginia GOP, 2008 has been a trying time. As Jim Gilmore girds for an Election Day beating and the commonwealth teeters on the verge of voting for a presidential Democrat for the first time since 1964, Republican hackles have been raised from Abingdon to Alexandria. But is 2008 a sign of things to come?
Jim Gilmore blinked into the bright stage lights in the Greater Richmond Convention Center. He had just taken the Republican nomination for United States Senate after a heated convention battle with Delegate Bob Marshall (R-Fredricksburg) -- but somebody forgot to turn down the lights, one participant remembered.
As Gilmore and his family stood squinting into the glare, there were not a few Republicans who thought this year's senate race had been gifted to former Democratic governor and Senate candidate Mark Warner.
"It was like the air was let out of the balloon," Marshall said.
It certainly wasn't the first time that Virginia Republicans have felt a little down and out.
As Virginia's second consecutive Democratic governor prepares his final budget, a Democrat prepares to claim a Virginia Senate seat held by Republican legend John Warner, Democrats control the state senate and aim to increase their role in, if not take, the state House of Delegates, Virginia Republicans are facing dark times, indeed.
"We have a death wish," said now-retired State Senator Russ Potts (R-Winchester).
But is the recent spate of Democratic electoral success a sign of things to come or a simple reflection of a few tough years for a party that hasn't lost a presidential election in the state since 1964? Do state Republicans have a "death wish?"
While 2008 appears to confirm Potts' thesis, 2009 may be an entirely different story.
'HE'S GOING TO GET HIS HEAD HANDED TO HIM'
Almost all analysis of this year's Senate race gave Gilmore an exceedingly slim chance of claiming a spot in the U.S. Senate.
"The problem is Jim Gilmore has no base. Conservatives don't like him because he's not very pro-life. Moderates, they think he wrecked the budget. He's lucky that convention was in Richmond and the few political friends he has are there. If it had been in Northern Virginia, if it had been in Roanoke, if it would have been in Chesapeake, he probably wouldn't have gotten the nomination," said Cordel Faulk, director of communication at the UVa Center for Politics.
More than 300 elected independents and Republicans statewide have endorsed Warner, including former head of the Virginia senate finance committee John Chichester (R-Fredricksburg) and 2005 independent gubernatorial candidate Potts.
As Jim Gilmore faces polling deficits in the range of 25 points in nearly every public poll, Marshall fears that the former Governor might drag the Republican brand, and presidential candidate John McCain, down with him.
Marshall said because Gilmore is "going to get his head handed to him," a McCain loss of 3 to 5 percentage points in the total vote across Virginia is a possibility because of Gilmore's presence on the ticket.
For Gilmore's part, he has made a point on the campaign trail of reminding voters that he has overcome large polling deficits before. While in Blacksburg last week, Gilmore hammered home the point that the "liberal media" is trying to "suppress our turnout" by distributing inflated predictions.
"There's too many pollsters and too many pundits telling the voters what they think instead of listening to what the voters think," said Gilmore's campaign manager Dick Leggitt.
Leggitt sad that Marshall's concerns about Gilmore's electoral wherewithal were "sour grapes" from the delegate's defeat at the senatorial nominating convention.
State senator and candidate for state attorney general Ken Cuccinelli (R-Burke) disputed the reasoning that Gilmore might cost McCain points, saying that local representatives would drive voters to the polls and that Gilmore would not affect up-ticket voting.
"It's congressional candidates like the Bob Goodlattes (R-6th District) and Thelma Drakes (R-2nd District) of the world that are going to bring people out. They're the local candidate that wouldn't otherwise show up at all for either of the other offices. Our incumbent Republicans probably help up the ticket," Cuccinelli said.
For Republicans representing districts in the northern part of the state, defending their seats in times of turmoil is even more difficult.
Cuccinelli, the only Republican state senator in Northern Virginia, said that when his constituents are mad at Republicans in Washington, he hears about it.
"In my elections the downdraft from Washington is pretty severe and pretty serious. It is a problem in other parts of the state as well but in Northern Virginia -- because we live and breathe what goes on in Washington -- it's even worse. There's no question that the national brand genuinely affects what happens in state and local elections," Cuccinelli said. "If you're going to run as a team, you're going to suffer when your team doesn't perform well. What Republicans in Washington are doing and suffering for are things that I would have vote against every step of the way. The bailout, the drug entitlement, a lot of things that are contrary to anything I would ever vote for."
However the electoral math shakes out, Potts said one of the largest problems with Gilmore's campaign and the state Republican infrastructure in general has been the effect on the party's enthusiasm.
"In Winchester here, a traditionally Republican community, our Republican party is totally demoralized. You can hardly get any volunteers. If you drive by the (Democratic and Republican) headquarters, and you saw the difference. you would not believe it. You would immediately know that one had energy and youth and vision and hope and the other one had a bunch of ideologues that are hung up on God, guns and gays," Potts said.
RACING FOR RICHMOND
It's the gap in enthusiasm -- and infrastructure -- that Democrats are hoping to capitalize on in statewide races in 2009.
"We have Obama offices in traditionally Republican areas -- up and down the Shenandoah Valley and in the Roanoke Valley, for example. We are identifying Democratic voters and voters who haven't been Democrat but who identify with our values. Those voters, we will communicate with them again next year," said state delegate Brian Moran (D-Alexandria), a candidate for governor.
Democratic passion "will carry over into next year. This has been building for several years. With Mark Warner's election in 2001, he rebranded the Democratic Party in Virginia so that it's acceptable for many independents and even some Republicans," Moran said.
In the race for Richmond, however, Republicans feel that they have not only a strong party structure but also history on their side.
"I think you have to look at the long-term trends of history. For 130 years Republicans had no say in Virginia until 1993 with George Allen and 1999 when they took the legislature," said Bob McDonnell, state attorney general and the front-running Republican candidate for governor in 2009. "So much of this is being funded by this enormous Barack Obama fundraising effort. Once he broke his promise to take federal funds he's been able to raise a historic and record amount of money and he's poured a lot of that into these offices. You're probably not going to have a lot of that in a governor's race."
And then there is what state delegate Dave Nutter (R-Christiansburg) called the "weird curse:" the fact that, going back eight gubernatorial elections, Virginia has elected a governor opposite the nation's choice for president.
While neither Moran nor McDonnell laughed off throwing their weight behind the presidential candidates of the opposite party, both raised the specter of Virginia's odd electoral history as a potential, if uncertain, factor.
Additionally, while Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls such as former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, State Senator Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville) and Moran, McDonnell will probably not face competition for the Republican gubernatorial nod.
"The party is more unified in 2008 than it was in 2005 ... The party is united behind Bob McDonnnell," Leggitt said.
With an unimpeded path to the Governor's mansion, McDonnell may benefit from what Cuccinelli sees as the Republicans' stepped-up grassroots effort across the state because of state Republican Party Chairman Jeff Frederick's history of grassroots excellence.
"What Jeff brings to the table is a grassroots experience that is a necessity. He's only won his district with a grassroots effort. The party has been pretty absent in building a grassroots base for a number of years and to get us into that mode as a party that would be a huge boom for all the candidates in Virginia running as Republicans. Time will tell if he's able to pull it off. That's something that will more show in 2009 than in 2008," Cuccinelli said.
Frederick did not return calls for comment.
Of course, for all of these things, McDonnell cautioned that forecasting is always a risky business.
"A year is a long time," he said.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A REPUBLICAN IN VIRGINIA?
At the junction of impending electoral trouncing in 2008 and hopeful visions of 2009 is an argument about what it means to be a Republican.
"There will be great battles should McCain lose on what it means to be a Republican. It will happen all over the country. How did we get lost? Some will argue that John McCain will argue that he wasn't conservative enough from day one, and that's why he lost, he wasn't true blue," Nutter said.
For Marshall, the current hurt of the Virginia GOP is directly tied to a hesitancy to stand up for "core" Republican principles.
"Most of them are afraid of their own issues. This is a very dangerous time to do that because the next election in the House of Delegates is going to decide who is in office for redistricting, so if you have a governor who is going to veto that stuff or a bunch of candidates who are pussyfooting around, you're going to lose," Marshall said.
For Potts, the prescription was just the opposite.
"Until these hard-headed extremists, these ideologues, understand that the only way you win is to have the big tents. The Democrats went through this at a point in time in their history with George McGovern. There is a point in time political parties go through a cleansing process -- they have this litmus test to be a Republican," Potts said. "To be a successful party you have to have all shapes and sizes, all philosophies, you can't have a bunch of ideologues who ask you to march in lockstep. I've been married to my wife for 43 years and I'm here to tell you that we agree to disagree. The strength of a party, the strength of a friendship, the strength of a relationship, is to have people who dissent."
Nutter falls somewhere in between.
"For someone to say that the Republican party has lost its bearings is not quite understanding what is going on but at the same time, if we've lost our bearing, I'm looking at some of the stuff that's coming out of Washington under President Bush," and understanding the origins of such concerns," Nutter said.
These concerns about the nature of Virginia Republican ideology are rooted deeply in how Republican politicians view the nature of the state of Virginia.
"A lot of people say Virginia is a red state. That's always been a mistake to make that assumption. Other than presidential (elections), it's always in play. In state politics, we've always swung back and forth between Republicans and Democrats ... I've always argued that Virginia is not an Alabama. Neither is its Republican party" Nutter said. "Given the right dynamics, either party can win statewide."
No matter what, adapting to a new political landscape temporarily dominated by Democrats will determine whether the previous several years were a symptom of a broken Republican brand or a sign of more to come.
"Unless we've learned those lessons, we haven't seen the bottom," Cuccinelli said.