Warner, Webb, Kaine, Obama – a most excellent string of triumphs. Sit back and let the good times finally roll again. The planet will be renewed, the reputation of our country will be restored, civil rights and the Constitution will be upheld. But wait …

On the horizon there is a hum, a buzz, a disturbing noise that is fundamentally disquieting: the thoroughly trounced GOP whose policies and legislation were thought to be wholly discredited with the historic election of a Democratic President for the first time in 44 years by Virginians, are clamoring to return, and you can bet with a vengeance. The pound of flesh the discredited right means to extract is none other than the Governorship of the Commonwealth and continued control of the House of Delegates.

Faux news and other conservative talking heads have campaigned virtually non-stop to pull wool over anyone and everyone within range, and attempt to employ the Rovian tactic of stating falsehoods so often by so many that a smoke so thick could only mean a fire must exist.

Consider these …

• Progressives Lack a Limbaugh-Like Voice 
  understand more about framing and why it is positively necessary to NOT use language that validates the opposition, more here
• GOP’s McDonnell Pulls Further Ahead in Virginia Governor’s Race

… and if these aren’t scary enough, how about Bob McDonnell addressing the audience at Delegate Tim Hugo’s Campaign Kickoff May 1st in Clifton:

Since the very moment the hand of bipartisanship was extended by the President and bitten by the GOP, there has been an attempt to wholesale rewrite history to lay blame for all failings of the GOP controlled White House and Virginia House of Delegates at the feet of Democrats.

Such smoke being blown about over the world economic crisis inherited by Obama has somehow become fire and a failing of Democratic policies with these tactics. If it needs to be explained to someone that this particular crisis is the handiwork of the GOP it may indeed be too late for that person’s soul.

The prescription for thwarting the continuance and even return of Republican policies is that the Democratic faithful rise up from the buoyant results of 2008 with a determination to continue Democratic successes, work to elect Democrats to office, vocally support Democratic policies, to speak the truth to people  and in this effort to work tirelessly with the same understanding and even the sense of dread if we should once again fall under the neoconservative agenda we only recently emerged from.

In 2010, when the next census is conducted, the next General Assembly of Virginia will undertake the process of redistricting. The Virginia Senate (a four-year term office) holds a slim, one-vote, Democratic margin, and will not come up for re-election until 2011. The House of Delegates (a two-year term office) are all up for re-election this year. Six seats are need to retake Democratic control of the House and return common sense to this body that has been obscenely obstinate and obstructionist under GOP control.

The danger of complacency is that in our tired jubilance from the battle for the Presidency we overlook the unequivocally critical need to retake the House of Delegates and continue the positive stewardship of Democrats for the Governorship of the Commonwealth if the quality of life we value and the future we want for our children is to improve under Democratic leadership or else devolve to the Party of No and Roadblocks if our efforts fail. That is the question.

Are you with me?

-Steve Bunn
Co-Chair Lee District Democratic Committee