Election Endorsements 2013

This blog's election endorsements for this year are no-brainers, largely because the Republicans have no brains.   So here we go:

For governor of Virginia: This blog endorses Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who is a disciple of the Clintons, which would suggest that he would bring Clinton-style governance to Richmond. This would mean a lot of co-opting of Republican initiatives and cynical partisan triangulation, but when Bill Clinton did it on a national scale, we had the biggest economic boom in years.  Also, Ken Cuccinelli is a horrible candidate who would take Virginia back a hundred years with his Neanderthal views on women and minorities.  The choice here is just so damn easy.   

For mayor of New York City: This blog wholeheartedly endorses Democrat Bill de Blasio.  This country has no realistic way of getting more progressives into state and national executive offices, but on a more local level - especially in America's largest municipality, which has as many people as some states - that's a good place to start.  And no progressive is more qualified and more ready to provide a catalyst for moving the country to the left than de Blasio, who has vowed to end racial profiling by New York police, raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for more middle-class programs, and restore a general since of fairness to the Big Apple.  Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg were right mayors for their times, but those times are gone.  Time to move in a new direction, New York City.

I also need to correct something.  I said that de Blasio's real first name was Warren in an earlier post. Well, it was.  But he legally changed his first name to Bill back in 2001.   

For governor of New Jersey: Although she's not going to win, this blog endorses Democrat Barbara Buono over Chris Christie, everybody's favorite Garden State blowhard.  Christie has left a record of high unemployment in New Jersey, a canceled mass transit project, vetoes of gun control legislation, and a tax system that enriches the wealthy and impoverishes the poor.  The Newark Star-Ledger said as much in an editorial endorsing - yes, endorsing - the governor's re-election bid after deciding that Buono could not make the case for herself.  This blog is of the opinion that if the "newspaper for New Jersey" found Buono too flawed to endorse for the governorship despite Christie's abysmal record, then it should have done what the Richmond Times-Dispatch did regarding the question of whom to endorse for governor of Virginia after deciding that both canndidates for that office were deeplly flawed - endorse no one.     

The following endorsement is not for a candidate but for a New Jersey ballot question.  On the subject of whether to endorse an increase in the state minimum wage . . . uh, yes? Because, adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage goes less far than it did in 1968, and there are more people earning it today.  Talk about your no-brainers . . .

That's it.  Remember to vote next Tuesday.