Virginia Is For . . .

At this point, it's hard to tell.

The Virginia State Senate recently passed three bills that would ban guns in public spaces, limit monthly purchases of firearms, and and require background checks for transfers of firearms.  If the House of Delegates passes these bills - and both houses of the General Assembly are controlled by Democrats - Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, will most certainly sign them.  However, the House of Delegates got a big wake-up call on Monday from gun-rights activists.

About twenty-two thousand Second Amendment supporters descended on the State Capitol in Richmond to demonstrate against the new bills, with many of them coming from out of the state.  Northam declared a state of emergency in Richmond in recognition of the violence that gripped Charlottesville over racially charged demonstrations there in 2017, but the demonstration in Richmond was peaceful.  Maybe that's because many gun-control activists didn't bother to show up.

Despite widespread support for the gun-control legislation passed by the Senate, gun rights activists  in Virginia have made it clear that they are not amused and they are not going anywhere.  I wouldn't be surprised if the House of Delegates fails to pass any of these bills out of fear of reprisals. And even if they do pass, expect them to be challenged in court.

Another court challenge could come against the Virginia General Assembly for its other major vote - ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).  Virginia became the 38th state to do so, thus allowing the amendment denying restrictions to equal rights n the basis of sex to become part of the Constitution.  There's just one thing wrong - the amendment had a federal ratification deadline that came and went in 1982.  Virginia is the third state to ratify it after the deadline, but as long as the deadline is on the books, demanding that the ERA become the Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the Constitution at this point is comparable to winning a raffle and reporting to claim the prize a week later despite the ticket's printed requirement that the prize must be claimed within twenty-four hours.

The Justice Department - headed by a patriarchal Attorney General - is already planning to nullify Virginia's action, saying that the law is the law and the amendment cannot be added to the Constitution, and the Democrats lack the support in Congress and from the White House to negate the 1982 deadline.  Don't expect the ERA to be considered anything but DOA until and unless a long, drawn-out legal battle ends in its favor.  Sadly, though, a forty-year-old woman - that is, a woman born the year the ERA deadline passed - likely won't live to see this amendment be inserted into the Constitution even if she lives to be a hundred.

Virginia has been hostile to such liberal reform in the past.  But while Virginia may have changed, America, just as assuredly, cannot. :-(

Carry Me Back To Scandal

Since I last commented on the blackface/KKK robe scandal involving a picture in Virginia Democratic governor Ralph Northam's 1984 medical school yearbook entry and Northam's subsequent admission that he wore blackface when he dressed as Michael Jackson in a dance contest (but he denies having been in that yearbook photo), the state's other two top elected Democrats have gotten involved in scandals.  First came accusations of sexual assault against Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, who is black, from two different women, then Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, who volunteered without goading from the press that he word blackface in 1980 when performing rap songs in college - he was a rap fan in his youth - then apologized for it and said he wished he'd never done it.

All three Democrats have been facing pressure to resign because of the party's zero-tolerance policy against racism and sexual assault.  Herring even called for Northam's resignation before he admitted to doing the same thing Northam did, which takes a lot of gall.  And if all of them resign their posts, the Republican Speaker of the House of Delegates becomes governor.  The Republicans control both houses of the Virginia legislature.

Okay, let's take these three cases individually.  First, Fairfax.  He's in the hottest of hot water because wearing blackface is merely tasteless and stupid, but sexual assault is a crime.  He's in a no-win situation because, first of all, in the Me Too era, denying charges of sexual assault essentially means you're calling the accuser a liar - and at this point, women who bring such accusations forward are tired of being dismissed as liars.  Besides, Fairfax has two women accusing him of the same thing - how probable is it that neither one is telling the truth?  Impeachment proceedings against him were started in the Virginia House of Delegates - by a Democrat - but rescinded so as not to interfere with the state budget process. This issue is not going away.  Expect Fairfax to fall.

Mark Herring is the easiest case to call.  He's not going anywhere; despite his hypocrisy in calling for Northam's resignation over wearing blackface in light of a blackface moment of his own, he told the truth about his past and had made no effort to conceal it.  The fact that he wore blackface while imitating a rapper, of course, isn't going to be taken well, and in fact the director of a New York hip-hop museum - that's right, there's actually a museum devoted to America's greatest entertainment folly - chastened Herring for what he did and demanded that Herring make contribution to the museum as part of his penance.   

I'm not going to comment any further on Herring's case. Suffice to say that Herring will be forgiven and allowed to move on.

Not so Ralph Northam.  He has tried to turn his scandal into what is being called a "teachable moment" - he says he's learning about the hurt he caused and why "blacking up" to dress as Michael Jackson was so hurtful, and he says he is devoting the rest of his single term - Virginia governors are only limited to one term - to fighting racism in Virginia.  As usual, Northam's comments have been met with skepticism and incredulity.  Many black leaders in Virginia say he can atone for his sins by supporting historically black colleges and addressing black economic opportunity and the scholastic achievement gap all he wants, but the fact that he's revealed himself to be just another clueless cracker has led many Virginia blacks to conclude to quit the governorship and go atone in private.  Paradoxically, many black leaders still support Northam, noting the strides he's already made for black Virginians in his first year in office and pointing out that, like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning, he's not the man he was.  Also, 58 percent of black Virginia voters surveyed want him to remain in the governor's office.

None of that matters.  Northam survives because of Fairfax's scandal, as the Republican Senate pro tempore would be acting lieutenant governor if Fairfax were forced out of office and any person Northam appointed to the post would have to run in special election in November 2019 to complete the lieutenant-gubernatorial term. So it would further confuse the already muddied line of succession.  But if the lieutenant governor specially elected this November is a Democrat, then it's only a matter of time before Northam is forced out, Democrats being safe in the knowledge that a Republican wouldn't succeed him.  If the Democrats were suddenly willing to put principles over politics and sacrifice the governorship, the lieutenant governorship, and attorney general's office tomorrow, though, Northam would be out by Tuesday.  I will give Northam credit for this much; he's hung on longer than I expected him to.

The simple lesson is that, if you're a white guy who loves black music and you want to emulate your idols, don't wear blackface.  And if you want to dress like Michael Jackson . . .

. . . you'll be pleased to know that it can be done without wearing blackface.

See?

Ralph Breaks the Internet (And His Own Political Career)

Ralph Northam, the until-recently esteemed Democratic governor of Virginia, was in enough trouble last week when he backed a bill in the Virginia state legislature allowing for abortions all the way up to the third trimester of a pregnancy.  A pediatric neurologist, Northam went on the radio to explain the bill from a medical standpoint as a way of defending it, but he failed to convince abortion opponents and any pro-choice person who's squeamish over late-term procedures of his argument.  Right now, he probably wishes he were still discussing the issue, thanks to his entry in the 1984 yearbook from Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Yes, one of the pictures in his yearbook entry is a picture of two guys in what seems to be a promotional picture for a student production of a stage version of Birth Of a Nation - one guy in blackface, the other in a Ku Klux Klan outfit.  After conceding that he might be one of the guys in that photo, Northam reversed course and said he was absolutely certain that neither one of them was him.

The guy posing in front of the Corvette, on the other hand, is clearly Northam himself.

This yearbook entry raises some obvious questions.  If neither one of those two guys is Northam, why is the picture in his yearbook entry?  Why was a racist burlesque considered normal in mid-eighties Virginia?  And why do medical schools have yearbooks?

But a more important question than that is why Northam thinks anyone would buy his argument that he's not one of those masked men in the racist photo and that the photo was placed there by mistake. I'm surprised he didn't try to say that it's really a picture of a costume party in which the guy on the left is dressed as Marcel Marceau and the guy on the right is dressed as the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come . . . and what we're looking at here is actually the negative!

Northam delivered an oddly surreal statement at a press conference on Saturday in which he tried to defuse the scandal and insisted that he is not now the person he was in his youth (what sort of person was he, then?) and that he will continue to work hard against racism and strive to regain the trust of the people of Virginia.  He might as well have read a chapter of "Trout Fishing In America," or maybe the owner's manual from that old Corvette, for all of the good it did him.  And in an effort to show just how candid he is, he admitted to darkening his face when he dressed up like Michael Jackson to enter a dance contest that he ultimately won.  

Because he did such a great moonwalk.

And Northam's suggestion that the photo was someone else's, placed on his yearbook page due to a yearbook editor's mistake?  Right.  Listen, I worked on my yearbook in college (though a piece I wrote about jazz music on campus was dropped), and I know the difference between a mistake and a disaster.  In my senior yearbook from 1988, a feature looking back at the events of the time erroneously identified Democratic presidential candidate Bruce Babbitt as a U.S. Senator from Arizona; he was in fact the state's former governor.  That was a mistake.  However, I know of no picture from one student that got placed in the yearbook entry of another.  Northam's comments sound more like an excuse than an explanation, and an excuse that does not ring true at that.

I give Northam a week at best before he is forced to resign, as Virginians of both parties are calling him to do.  He is constitutionally limited to one term, and there is no higher office for him to seek in 2021 or 2022, but he still has a lot to lose by staying in office.  So do Virginia Democrats and Democrats nationwide, who would rather be talking about health care and infrastructure than this.  Instead of focusing on the Mueller investigation or the abrupt cancellation of the IMF treaty, the press is discussing a Democratic governor's racist past.  It's no surprise that Terry McAuliffe, Northam's predecessor as governor of Virginia and a possible presidential candidate for 2020, has been among the most vocal of those demanding his resignation.  In fact, a week may be too generous; Northam may have already resigned by the time you read this. 

I think there are lessons to be learned here.  First of all, blackface is offensive in any context.  Second, you shouldn't make a bad situation worse by changing your story.  Third, if you're a white male who enters a dance contest and wants to dress like a contemporary celebrity known for dancing, John Travolta is a much better choice than Michael Jackson.

And no moonwalking.

Nice Corvette, though.

Quo Vadis, Democrats?

The Democrats didn't just resist Trumpism in last week's elections; they overran it.  In Virginia, Democrat Ralph Northam not only held on to win the governorship, he won by nine percentage points - thrice the margin the polls predicted.  And if that weren't enough, Virginia Democrats held the lieutenant governorship (elected on a separate ballot, unlike in New Jersey), held the attorney general's office (New Jersey's attorney general is appointed by the governor), and possibly won enough seats in the lower chamber of the legislature, called the House of Delegates, to get a majority, though that outcome is still uncertain.  What's more certain is that the House of Delegates' new Democratic caucus will have a more diverse membership, including an Asian woman, Hispanics, a transsexual, and an anti-gun advocate who was a news anchor at a Roanoke TV station . . . and saw his fiancée, a reporter at the same station, shot to death on live television. :-(

In New Jersey, Phil Murphy was elected governor easily, despite some nervousness caused by projections of low voter turnout and some closing of the gap by Kim Guadagno, his Republican opponent.  And while Virginia will have its first black lieutenant governor - a man whose last name is (and this is so ironic who knows anything about the history of Virginia's aristocratic families) Fairfax - New Jersey will have a black woman as its lieutenant governor, our second lieutenant governor overall since the office was created in 2009.  (No one with a Y chromosome has held it yet, as Guadagno is the current lieutenant governor.)  The Democrats already have majorities in both houses of the legislature. 

All across the land, Democrats scored big in down-ballot races in 2017 (including a special-election victory for a state Senate seat in Oklahoma on November 14), demonstrating that people are ready to fight back against Trump.  However, there's one thing the party still lacks - a message.  Democratic efforts to craft a message that resonates with the voters have largely fallen flat - the "better deal" biz has been forgotten four months after that silly slogan was unveiled! - and their gains were mostly concessions from the Republicans more than they were earned victories.  That is, it wasn't so much that the Democrats won as it was that the Republicans lost.

Here's one other thing the Democrats lack - a strategy. While the Republicans are trying to keep their raucous caucus together - and stave off the stench of Roy Moore - the Democrats are going into 2018 with the wind at their backs.  Unfortunately, that wind may be their own.  Democrats are looking to win back the House and the Senate, but two factors stand in their way.  First, voter suppression is still very much a problem in many states.  Second, many House seats and most Senate seats up in 2018  - particularly the Senate seats, most of them Democratic seats being in states Trump won - are in constituencies so Republican that the voters wouldn't even elect a Democrat even if the Democrats nominated Mother Teresa for office.  The Democratic Party has so far shown no evidence of any game plan or agenda to counteract this.  And need I mention the 36 governorships up in 2018? Wisconsin's Scott Walker has all but neutralized his opposition, and Republican governors like Larry Hogan in Maryland and Charlie Baker in Massachusetts have governed so much like moderate Republicans of yore that it's hard for Democrats in either state to paint them as Trump manques . . . or even as Scott Walker manques.   And in Ohio and Florida, where Republican governors are term-limited, the Democrats don't have any obvious contenders who could win the general elections. In Ohio, Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine, a former U.S. Senator and a legend in Ohio politics, looks like the favorite, though Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray, who is stepping down from that post to run for governor of Ohio, looks like a promising Democratic candidate.

Centrist Democrats are already talking about moderation as a message - the same losing message that's been costing the party for three decades.  It's time for the party to boldly embrace a liberal - don't say "progressive," we know that's a euphemism for "liberal" like "African-American," or "urban," is a euphemism for "black" - agenda and stick with it.  The template for a liberal agenda and a liberal message can be found in New Jersey, where Phil Murphy won the  governorship running  on a staunchly liberal platform in a moderate, suburban state and won big time after eight years of Chris Christie's boneheaded conservatism.  Murphy still has to deliver as governor, but if he does, it should inspire Democrats in other states running for office in 2018 to pursue an agenda that will be more about the people than about the moneyed interests. 

If the Democrats want to know where they're going, they have to see where they've been - not just with the Clintons but with the Kennedys and with Franklin Roosevelt.  Then maybe they'll remember what they're supposed to stand for.  My reports on the Democrats going the way of the Whigs have turned out to be greatly exaggerated, but they're not out of the woods just yet.