bigot:

1. A person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race.
2. Person extremely intolerant of others and irrespective of reasoning.
3. Ken Cuccinelli.

From the Washington Post editorial, Mr. Cuccinelli’s bigotry:

As attorney general, he would be an embarrassment to Virginia.

KENNETH CUCCINELLI, the Republican candidate for Virginia state attorney general, believes it’s “appropriate” to formulate public policy on the premise that homosexuals engage in behavior that is “intrinsically wrong” and offensive to “natural law.” His comments — which retrofit the old rhetoric of racism, bias and intolerance in a new context — were made in an interview with the Virginian-Pilot, a newspaper in Norfolk.

Homosexual acts, said Mr. Cuccinelli, currently a state senator, are “intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. . . . They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.”

Putting aside what Mr. Cuccinelli has to say about homosexuals when he’s not trying so hard to be polite, let’s call his comments what they are: bigotry.
….

I highly recommend reading this post from conservative blogger, Doug Mataconis:

I support Bob McDonnell. I think Bill Bolling has done a great job as Lieutenant Governor and deserves another term. At this point, though, I can’t in good conscience tell people to vote for Ken Cuccinelli and I can’t do it myself.

Ladies and gentlemen, your next Attorney General:

Steve Shannon for Attorney General

This endorsement of Bob McDonnell by the Free Lance-Star is all class. They decry the negative tactics of the Creigh Deeds campaign, (while simultaneously attacking Deeds with the same exact negative spin employed by McDonnell) and decide that….

Hearing nothing inspiring from either hopeful, the citizen must assay personal attributes. So:

Mr. McDonnell is articulate, certainly a virtue in leadership (recall George W. Bush’s chronic incoherence and its incurred cost in popular support). Mr. Deeds is not a confident speaker, giving the impression that he is confused by complexity or fears candor.

Says the paper that twice endorsed George W. Bush and declined to endorse Barack Obama, a man who’s constantly mocked for being an articulate speaker. Apparently, when you’re Bob McDonnell, those magically become leadership qualities!

I also like the fact that they don’t think Creigh Deeds would be able to work in a bi-partisan manner as Governor. EIGHT GOP members of the General Assembly who served with both men in Richmond have endorsed Deeds over their fellow Republican, Bob McDonnell (who the Free Lance-Star calls “a socially moderate lawmaker”). That includes former Finance Committee Chairman and State Senate President John Chichester of Fredericksburg.

Meanwhile, in the rest of Virginia….

Creigh Deeds is racking up endorsements, including…. The Virginian-Pilot! McDonnell served Virginia Beach for several years in the House of Delegates, and was endorsed by the Pilot over Deeds in the 2005 Attorney General race. Bob McDonnell refers to himself as Northern Virginia’s Own and Hampton Roads’ Own, in strategically placed signs around the commonwealth. Now both of those area’s most read papers (the Post and the Pilot) have endorsed Deeds over their “native son.”

The Pilot endorsement acknowledges that McDonnell is charismatic, BUT….

McDonnell may be a more persuasive leader, but he is asking Virginia to follow him down a dead-end road. If he is governor, he will spend four years churning out spreadsheets with fantasy forecasts and writing stern letters to the president, Congress, state legislators and city councils demanding that they do something to save him from his own inertia.

If Deeds is elected and breaks his promise to pass an adequately funded transportation plan, that failure will fall directly on his shoulders. He’s not asking that accountability be passed to future governors or postponed for more prosperous times. He’s willing to take on that responsibility here and now.

In return for that commitment, we give him our support.

Ken Cuccinelli is too far to the right for the Free Lance-Star? Ouch.

They write that Steve Shannon “can speak knowledgeably about gang violence, cropping up even in Virginia’s boonies, and his prosecutorial and legislative record glitters.”

Shannon for A.G.
…..
For most of his career, Mr. Shannon, 38, has protected children from the despicable criminals who exploit the blind spots of a mobile, techno-chaotic society. Just after finishing U.Va. Law School, Mr. Shannon and his wife brought the then-new idea of the anti-kidnapping Amber Alert to the Washington metro area and arduously sold it to skeptical authorities. As a Fairfax prosecutor, Mr. Shannon zeroed in on child molesters. Today–yes, we mean right now–he can tell you exactly how many computerized kiddie-porn transactions took place in Virginia yesterday.
…..

The Free Lance-Star blasts Cuccinelli for, among other things, “making criminals of journalists who knocked on the doors of mourners.”

Typical right-winger. Go on and on about the Constitution while wiping their a** with the Bill of Rights.

The Culpeper Star Exponent understands that nothing has fundamentally changed in Virginia since Barack Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win here in 44 years. Even though Obama won the state by 6% in 2008, a majority of those who plan on voting in 2009 are McCain voters.

Voters whose candidate lost in the previous election are often in a sour mood, and those kinds of voters apparently tend to vote more often. And what better way to “send a message” that they are not happy with the current president, than to vote for the opposing party in the next statewide election?

And that dynamic will probably come into play once again. And that plays into the hands of Republican Bob McDonnell.

And that’s too bad. Because the election for the next Virginia governor is not about national health care, stimulus spending, Afghanistan or the Nobel Peace Prize.

Oh please, we all know that the recession is Tim Kaine’s fault!

But unlike McDonnell, Republican AG candidate Ken Cuccinelli is not pretending to play the centrist card. He may be one of the most stridently conservative, no, let’s make that right-wing extremist, members of the Virginia General Assembly.

Cuccinelli has been largely focused on abortion, guns, same-sex marriage and all the favorite right-wing priorities.

OK, here’s a quote from the first paragraph of a recent fundraising letter: “I believe that life deserves protection at every stage of development, from conception to natural death, and that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman. Liberal activists, however, have laid siege on our families and our nation’s fundamental values.”

Even down at the bottom of the letter there’s nothing about jobs, transportation, education or the economy.

Cuccinelli is anxiously awaiting being able to single-handedly determine the constitutionality of state laws — read “ignore” — passed by our elected legislature.

Unabashed tea-bagger Cuccinelli likes to tell audiences that he “will protect Virginia’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment.”

If you think that Ken Cuccinelli and fellow tea bagger Catherine Crabill are the same candidate, congratulations. You’ve been paying attention.

The Washington Post also calls out Cuccinelli in a similar op-ed today titled: Cuccinelli: In your heart, you know he’s to the right of right.

As for McDonnell?

Bob McDonnell has sought to portray himself as a centrist, but his legislative record is clearly one primarily focused on social issues.

Creigh Deeds has been far more likely to have worked across the board on a wide variety of issues important to everyday Virginians.

The newspaper that Republicans quote time and time and time again  has endorsed the Democratic ticket of Deeds/Wagner/Shannon.

This endorsement of Steve Shannon, just like the other two, is a strong one – no “lesser of two evils” here. Back in 2007, The Washington Post didn’t bother endorsing Ken Cuccunelli’s opponent in his reelection to the State Senate. As close as that race was (Cuccinelli won by only 92 votes!), it could very well have been the difference between victory and defeat.

Mr. Shannon for attorney general
Two Fairfax lawmakers are vying for the job — one wonkish, one worrying.

THE RACE for attorney general in Virginia is a face-off between a pair of youngish lawyers, each from Fairfax County, each elected to the General Assembly this decade, and each now running his first statewide race. The similarities end there. While the Democratic candidate, Del. Stephen C. Shannon, is a mainstream former prosecutor — strait-laced, sober, earnest almost to a fault — his Republican opponent, state Sen. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, is a provocative hard-liner who at times has struggled vainly to attract a single vote for his more far-fetched initiatives.

A common misconception among many people is that The Washington Post is some lefty rag that always endorses Democrats. Not quite. In recent elections The Post has endorsed Tom Davis, Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, Frank Wolf, Bob Ehrlich, and declined to endorse Ken Cuccinelli’s opponent in his reelection to the State Senate in ‘07. And that’s just off the top of my head.

It’s worth noting that this year The Washington Post has endorsed the Shenandoah Valley’s Creigh Deeds over three opponents from their own backyard of Northern Virginia (Brian Moran of Alexandria, Terry McAuliffe of McLean, and Bob McDonnell of Mount Vernon).

Worth mentioning that this comes a week earlier than the Post’s endorsements from the Governor’s races in 2005 and 2001.

This op-ed is a scathing rebuke of Bob McDonnell as well. I did not expect this…

Mr. Deeds for Governor
His transportation realism and Mr. McDonnell’s bogus roads plan present Virginians with a stark choice on Nov. 3.

…..
There are plenty of reasons why Mr. Deeds is the better choice for governor in the Nov. 3 election. He has stood with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the incumbent, and his predecessor, now-Sen. Mark R. Warner, in support of the sane fiscal and budgetary choices that have made the state one of the best-governed and most business-friendly in the nation. Mr. McDonnell has generally spurned those policies, most notably by opposing Mr. Warner’s landmark tax package in 2004, which attracted bipartisan support as it boosted public safety and education and protected the state’s finances. Mr. Deeds has compiled a moderate record on divisive social issues that reflects Virginia’s status as a centrist swing state. Mr. McDonnell has staked out the intolerant terrain on his party’s right wing, fighting a culture war that seized his imagination as a law student in the Reagan era.
….

Tomorrow morning the Deeds campaign will announce another major endorsement. They say that it will come from a statewide elected official. Well, the only current statewide elected officials are Kaine, Bolling, Webb, and Warner. All four men are backing their party’s nominee for Governor. Could they be referring to a former elected official like past Governors Baliles or Holton? Interesting.

UPDATE: Yep, Virginia’s first Republican Governor, Linwood Holton, will endorse Creigh Deeds for Governor.

In the meantime:

…I’ve outline twelve f*cking funding mechanisms…

-Bob McDonnell on WTOP

h/t NLS

"The Army taught us leadership Dad!" "Shut the f*ck up Jeanine."

The top of the Northern Neck News that is.

Catherine Crabill never had the intentions of being a politician, but it was necessary.

“I’m a mom. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”

Crabill has come under attack from national media for her now infamous “Bullet box, ballot box” speech. Two weeks ago, republicans running for state office disavowed her candidacy for the office of the 99th District House of Delegates, citing her incendiary remarks.

Still in the public eye, Crabill remains on the campaign trail but has not gone unscathed.

“It’s been horrible,” she said, as she wept during a phone interview. If someone thinks the attacks are worth the seat as a delegate, “that’s just insane,” she said.

Speaking emotionally, Crabill explained why she continues to campaign throughout the Northern Neck.

“If I didn’t feel such a profound sense of duty,” Crabill said, I wouldn’t be running for office. That duty is for her children, her state and America, she said.

But, she’s found a positive angle among the “character assassination,” she said.

The “dispicable act of editing my speech,” has led to national criticism, but also national support,” Crabill said. “I believe God loves the underdogs and someone standing against odds.”

Crabill played the interviewer, Alex Berkman, like a fiddle. My hats off to her. She knows that many in the media are too lazy to fact check, so….go nuts!

A lot of what she says in the article are claims that a majority of Republicans around the country believe to be fact, no matter how many times they’ve been disproven. In fact the only thing that the Westmoreland Co. Republican Committee disagrees with her about is her focus on national, and not local, issues. On this, we agree.

Back on Aug. 4 I wrote on this blog that she should “…run for Congress. Not the Virginia General Assembly.“

According to this article, Westmoreland GOP Vice Chairman Jim Heston tells Crabill, “To me, you sound more like you’re running for Congress than the House of Delegates.”