virginia

The Republican National Committee has made available two lengthy voter surveys conducted in New Jersey and Virginia as Republican candidates were winning gubernatorial races there last week. There’s a lot in there, including message-testing on anti-health care reform and cap-and-trade arguments, but this part really jumped out at me. The easiest explanation for the Republican [...]

Greg Sargent points out that the 60 Plus Association, the industry-funded conservative group which tries to wedge seniors against the Democrats, hired the makers of the 1988 “Willie Horton” ad to craft a new video blasting senators over health care.
One tidbit about 60 Plus, which has a curious role in the conservative movement’s firmament: it [...]

In Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele’s statement on  the new unemployment rate of 10.2 percent, he argues that “it is time the Obama administration stop spreading their phony ‘saved or created’ talking points and start creating the dependable jobs America needs”:
President Obama promised jobs during his campaign for president, and the elections in Virginia [...]

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — On a conference call with some of the conservative leaders who’d backed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman’s upstart campaign in NY-23, I asked for a response to an uncomfortable argument about the results. Hoffman and the outside groups who backed him tried very hard to link Democrat Bill Owens to Speaker [...]

Republicans have real bragging rights to the election results in Virginia and New Jersey. But I’m still struck by how the National Republican Congressional Committee spun last night’s two congressional races by talking about the governor’s races, not NY-23 and CA-10. In California, a lot of conservatives saw an opportunity to beat a carpetbagging Democrat [...]

A buoyant Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, speaking this morning to reporters about last night’s election results, declared, “The Republican renaissance has begun.”
He praised the volunteer efforts to get Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie elected as governors in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, saying, “Our folks are fired up.” Yet he expressed some misgivings [...]

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) is out front with a statement congratulating Bob McDonnell on his big win in Virginia:
“I want to send my congratulations to Bob, Maureen and their family. Bob ran a positive campaign based on the conservative principles of fiscal responsibility and low taxes. Virginians embraced his conservative message, rejecting more taxes, card-check and [...]

SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. – Supporters are slowly trickling into Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman’s election night party at the Hotel Saranac, into a small ballroom with four flatscreen TVs tuned to election coverage. The reaction to Bob McDonnell’s long-expected victory in Virginia’s gubernatorial race was muted — no bursts of applause, no high-fives, just a [...]

The New York Times reports that Republican Bob McDonnell rode to an easy victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race Tuesday, based on exit polls.

“This is a state that Democrats said was going blue, or least purple,” said Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, on Virginia. “How do they explain it if they lose?”