Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus – And As Proof Positive of His Existence

He Has Gifted Everyone with the Fall Elections in Virginia

The news from Virginia about the Republican party’s radical right wing ticket for Governor, Lt. Governor and state Attorney General in the fall is really about the Democrats.  Huh? 

Yes, if the Democrats were a strong, viable national party they would be trouncing the extreme Republican ticket in the state.  But because at the state and local level the Democratic party is so weak, it may not be able to defeat what is one of the nastiest group of far right nut jobs that the Republican party has produced outside of Michele Bachmann’s district in Minnesota.

The really big news in Virginia is that the candidate for Lt. Governor, E. W. Jackson is an inflammatory person even by ultra conservative standards.  He is not intellectually challenged, he is a Harvard Law graduate (what is it at Harvard Law that produces men like Mr. Jackson and Texas Senator Ted Cruz?).  But he is, at least in the aspect of public life, flat out nuts.  Don’t think so, consider this, which is a mild representation of Mr. Jackson’s views.

Jackson has called homosexuality “perverse,” compared Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan and sharply criticized Obama over same-sex marriage and foreign policy. . . .

On Twitter, Jackson has called the federal health-care law “slavery-care,” questioned whether Obama’s Middle East policy is anti-Semitic and blasted the president’s support of gay marriage.

The candidate for Governor, Ken Cuccinelli, would like to be left out of it, but Mr. Jackson says that Mr. Cuccinelli encouraged him to run.

“He said essentially, ‘I think you’d make a good candidate for lieutenant governor. Have you thought about it?’ ” said Jackson, recalling that Cuccinelli had not yet decided to run for governor. “I do remember him suggesting that if it worked out . . . he would be proud to have me as a running mate.”

Cuccinelli doesn’t remember it quite that way,

Cuccinelli’s campaign acknowledged the men met three years ago, but spokeswoman Anna Nix challenged Jackson’s recollection.

“Ken asked why the Senate and if he ever thought to run for anything else — like maybe Lieutenant Governor? E.W. may have misconstrued that as a direct ask,” Nix wrote in an e-mail.

But Mr. Cuccinelli has all sorts of memory problems.  For example, when he bought a large amount of stock in a company that has a tax issue with the state of Virginia and did not report it, he claimed he just forgot.  And forgetting is also a problem with Mr. Jackson.

During the interview, he denied the “slavery-care” tweet. But when presented with a copy of it, he said he didn’t remember writing it.

In any normal election the Republicans would have no chance.  But the Democratic candidate will be Terry McAuliffe, a former fund raiser for the Democrats and a man who ran for the Democratic nomination last time around.  Mr. McAuliffe lost to a rural state senator, who then was swamped in the general election.  As far as anyone can tell Mr. McAuliffe has no reasons he should be Governor of Virginia except that he wants to be.  He may stand for certain policy objectives, but so far no one knows what they are.  His claim to fame, he is a friend of Bill and Hillary.

Democrats have a chance in the fall to deal a severe blow to extremism by defeating the Republican ticket.  That they might not do so says far more about the state of the Democratic party in Virginia and many other states than it does about Republicans.

Meanwhile Mr. Jackson say he is not mad at anyone and not insulting them,

the former Marine said his remarks were not meant to be offensive, and that as lieutenant governor, he would strive to represent all Virginians, including homosexuals.

Okay, in the spirit of the moment we will label Mr. Jackson a moronic ignorant bigot, but we do not mean that to be offensive.