Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell in the Wall Street Journal – No Spin Should go Unanswered

If Things are Going So Well, Why Aren’t GOP Governors

Popular?

Virginia’s Governor Robert McDonnell is a Republican and Vice Chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association, and so is expected to brag about accomplishments of Republican governors.  And there is no better place to brag about those so-called accomplishments than in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal.  Here is what Gov. McDonnell says, and here is a little bit of rebuttal.

Since February 2010, 67,400 new jobs have been created in Virginia and our unemployment rate has fallen to 6% from 7.2%. Virginia's unemployment rate is more than a full three points below the national average and the third-lowest east of the Mississippi

Remember all that Federal Stimulus money.  Let’s see, where was a bunch of it spent.  Oh yes, Virginia.  So yes Mr. McDonnell there has been job creation in your state, thanks to Federal spending which you oppose.

Mr. McDonnell goes on to praise other newly elected Republican governors.  And he uses the low popularity of Democratic governors as a measure of how the public views the President and the Democrats. 

The low popularity of Democratic governors facing re-election in 2012 tells us quite a bit about how the public regards the policies and work done by the president's party in the state capitals

 But on that standard all those Republican governors he sites fair even worse.  Here is their popularity since they were elected.

And of course, the ever popular Rick Perry of Texas, who job creating success is credited to everything except the main thing, that almost all of the oil in the United States is located in his state.

So yes Mr. McDonnell, Republican governors can do well if the Federal Government spends a bunch on money in their state, or nature endows their state with $100 a barrel oil. And if low popularity of Democrats says they are not doing a good job, then low popularity of Republicans says that they are doing a good job.

Sorry Mr. McDonnell, you pass the spin test but fail the Course in Logic 101.