There have been, in the history of this column, a grand total of three all-timers. The first was U.S. Representative Virgil Goode—a genial doofus with a white-cloud coiffure and career-long propensity for grandly offensive pronouncements. The second was good ol’ George “Macaca” Allen, former governor, one-term U.S. senator and presidential aspirant, whose awesome display of career-ending cowboy boot-in-mouth disease still ranks as one of the top political fumbles of the current century. The third, of course, was Eric Cantor—our favorite congressional ambition machine, and a man so inscrutable and intriguing that his downfall actually made us a little sad. Oh Eric, we hardly knew ye!
And now we have Joe Morrissey. While there are no guarantees in life, it sure feels like we’re witnessing the birth of our next certified all-timer. Perhaps you are familiar with the man, but we cannot help but offer a quick overview, as these are the sentences we live to write.
Joseph D. Morrissey is a former delegate and current candidate for Virginia’s senate. Preceding his stint in the House of Delegates, he was a lawyer with a penchant for courtroom drama, notorious for engaging in a fistfight with a prosecutor during a drug trial. Besides brandishing a firearm on the floor of the House, Morrissey is best known for being convicted on a misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The minor in question has since been revealed to be a lovely young woman named Myrna Pride, who served under Delegate Morrissey in a variety of positions, and subsequently became pregnant. Following this scandal, Morrissey resigned, and then was immediately voted back into office, which allowed him to serve in the House whilst wearing a tracking bracelet and spending his nights in jail.
But what really elevates Morrissey to the pantheon of Odd Dominion immortals is his most recent revelation. After months of obfuscating about his relationship with Myrna Pride, Morrissey has finally come clean: Yes, Virginia, he is the father of that baby. And we love how he didn’t just mumble this fact into a corner; he released a hilariously cheesy set of photos of himself and Myrna with their baby, Chase, dressed up in old-timey garb, and then proudly declared to The Washington Post that he was “changing poopy diapers, giving him milk… I love it!”
Now, there is definitely a cynical way to look at this. Morrissey is a transparently political fellow, and one whose brand is so damaged that it’s nearly beyond rescue. By finally fessing up to his transgressions, and embracing his new family, he is obviously pursuing his only possible path to redemption. An even more cynical person might note that Myrna is black, and that the 16th District—in which Morrissey is planning to run as an independent candidate for senate—is both overwhelmingly Democratic and majority African-American.
If this ploy works, and Morrissey goes on to win a Virginia senate seat (a very long shot indeed, as he hasn’t even filed his paperwork yet), this will be a political story of unprecedented hilarity. But still, even if that doesn’t happen, Joe Morrissey has already earned his place on our rarified list of all-time greats. His complete lack of shame, indomitable ambition and incredible chutzpah are truly amazing to behold, and we can only hope that he continues his outrageous political journey for as long as we continue to draw breath.
Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, twice-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.