Libertarians? Abortion? Lessons From Virginia’s Election, Pt 2

It’s just over two weeks since denizens of Virginia stiff-armed a palpably decent chap named Cuccinelli and ushered into their governorship, instead, a glaringly indecent scalawag named Terry McAuliffe.

How indecent?: The Daily Beast‘s Jamelle Bouie recently pulled no punches:

Democratic fundraiser Terry McAuliffe … is a sleazy, corrupt influence peddler who pushed the boundaries on fundraising and enriched himself in the process. He’s the walking embodiment of Washington’s loose relationship with ethics, and an avatar for everything unseemly about the Clinton administration. There’s no reason he should have been a viable candidate for governor in Virginia.

Even hippy-dippy Mother Jones magazine couldn’t resist excoriating him in the run-up to November 5th: “What’s different about McAuliffe is his brazen mixing of his campaign fundraising activity and attempts to enrich himself personally … [His] tangled history has linked him to a long list of unsavory characters.”

Post-election, the internet has been buxom with opinionating on the race and its results — some of it quite perceptive. (See Gary Bauer‘s and Kurt Schlichter‘s columns.)

My own (pt. one)analysis, pointed out that Terry McAuliffe’s impending ascension to Va’s corner office gloomily indicates the bane of Bill and Hillary Clinton lives on, excitedly sniffing around America. As National Review pungently summarized, McAuliffe’s victory “kept a cog in the Clinton machine from being sent to the scrapyard.”

Hewing-to the rigid codes of modern thinking, I further observed we must conclude Virginia’s voting majority is breath-catchingly racist: In the state’s down-ticket, Lt. Governor contest, African-American Republican E.W. Jackson was thumpingly defeated by white-bread Democrat Ralph Northam. The “black guy” lost? We’ve been trained by the media and the Left — although I repeat myself — such outcomes always equate to nasty bigotry. Period.

(In a related aside, that same election day brings the alarming revelation that Detroit, Michigan is also, unmistakably, hostile to candidates of duskier hue. In their most recent mayoral scrap, Motowners settled on the Caucasian — even though the ticket offered a perfectly serviceable African-American alternative. So, even more scandalizing than Virginia’s white supremacists, we obviously have this major US city, with its 80% black demographic, uncovered as racist. A municipality bulging with anti-African-American African-Americans?)

Back to Virginia: we’re additionally driven to conclude — inescapably, if evaluating things through political correctness’ unsparing lens — that anti-Christian hatred also sizzles in the Old Dominion. Jackson is an evanglical pastor? Va. citizens declined to promote him to public office? As sure as two plus two equals four, this must expose Virginia just a flaming torch away from burning-believers-at-the-stake territory.

Now:

Lesson Number Four: The much-advertised genius of Libertarians deserves to be called into question anew.

The Ayn-Rand/Reason-magazine set never tire of reminding the rest of us wretched lamebrains — particularly, for some reason, those who’d categorize themselves as more traditional, “Reagan” conservatives — how much more thoughtful and savvy they are than any other political ideologues.

In the McAuliffe/Cuccinelli square-off, “Libertarian” contender Robert Sarvis joined the fray — except, if factoring in his actual viewpoints, it seems in “Libertarian” name only. Financed crucially by a big-money Obama supporter, Sarvis, it develops, is a standard-issue, government-interventionist, socially liberal Leftist more than any kind of firebrand, Ron-Paul-wannabee. John Stuart Mill he ain’t.

He pulled in around six-and-one-half percent of the ballots — enough, many argue, to torpedo Cuccinelli’s quest and grease the way for the greasy Democrat’s state capitol slither. Others insist “Libertarian” Sarvis actually dribbled more votes away from McAuliffe. Either way, characteristically self-flattering Libertarian voters don’t come off well in the evaluation.

If they did, in fact, throw the election to McAullife, Libertarians functionally have managed to empower a man who is, bottom-line, a to-the-kidneys statist. There’s little freedom-cherishing about this tediously screeching Clinton hack. And Ken Cucinelli, however anarchy-lite activists might feel about him, is starkly more amenable than Terry McAuliffe to practical, limited-government measures.

And if Sarvis ended up costing McAuliffe potential support? What can one say? If Virginia Libertarians, absent “their guy” in the race, would have pulled the lever for McAuliffe over Cucinnelli — apparently a sizable slice of them don’t much understand their espoused creed in the first place. Again: it’s evident Cucinelli would have tracked with Libertarian preferences in most, significant policy debates.Perhaps, seventy percent of them? Eighty percent? McAuliffe, conversely, is a strident, tax-and-spend, Clintonoid Liberal; a strutting-and-breathing caricature of what it means to be an obnoxious “progressive”.

The folks of Virginia will be finding that out in fairly short order, I suspect.

Lesson number five: A Washington Post 2013 exit poll yields this eye-popper: 30% of “pro-life” Virginians went with McAulliffe on voting day. That’s no typo: feticidal extremist Terry McAuliffe garnered nearly a third of those electors professing opposition to abortion. Breitbart‘s Susan Berry unpacks it, “13 percent of Virginians who believe abortion should be ‘illegal in all cases’ voted for Terry McAuliffe, as did 17 percent of those who believe abortion should be illegal in most cases.”

If those numbers hold up, they confirm neither Democrats nor Libertarians can claim monopoly on stupidity in the “Sic Semper Tyrannis” Commnwealth. Thousands of Virginian anti-abortionists just couldn’t connect the dots between their putative baby-saving convictions and the imperative defeat of a vivaciously pro-abortion lap-dog? Seriously? Was it their personal fealty to unions, misguided pocket-book passions or worker-bee status in Democrat-dominated, nearby D.C. that duped them into throwing in with this creep? McAuliffe endorses taxpayer-funded and late-term child killing. He further opposes abortion waiting periods and parental involvement laws.

For any pro-life Virginian worthy of that noble title? Nothing complicated about that decision.

Americans who fret over the horrors of our godless culture aren’t going to make much headway with ranks populated by dimwits paying lip service to righteous views — and then pitching-in with scoundrels of neon unrighteousness.

Finally, from Virginia’s latest election go-round, lesson number six: We Judeo-Christian-affirming, Constitution-honoring conservatives have a daunting, generations-long mission ahead of us.

Image: Courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/2559080420/