Tag: hillary clinton

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News

This week in brief: Snuffing out tiki torches, ‘really dank bud’ and too cute puppies

Close up of a burning tiki torch on a blurred colored background.

Candles in, tiki torches out

Just ahead of Jason Kessler’s March 6 lawsuit against the city complaining that City Manager Maurice Jones unconstitutionally denied his permit for a two-day August 12 anniversary rally—Jones also denied five other applicants’ permit requests for the weekend—City Council updated its event permit regulations February 20.

  • 45-day notice if street closure requested, 30 days if not
  • Prohibited: Open flames, except for hand-held candles for ceremonial events
  • Prohibited (partial list): Pellet guns, air rifles, nunchucks, tasers, heavy gauge metal chains, poles, bricks, rocks, metal beverage or food cans or containers, glass bottles, axes, skateboards, swords, knives, metal pipes, pepper or bear spray, mace, bats, sticks, clubs, drones and explosives
  • Prohibited: Dressing like cops, military or emergency personnel
  • Small group exception: Up to 50 citizens may spontaneously demonstrate without a permit

Highlights from Kessler’s complaint:

  • The city couldn’t guarantee a clear path to enter Emancipation Park for his fellow Lee statue-loving protesters.
  • The permit denial is based on crowd size, but there’s plenty of room in the one-acre park, which could hold as many as 20,000 people “cheek to jowl.”
  • Because of the city’s “misconduct,” fewer people will attend and a “reduced crowd will dilute” Kessler’s message.
  • The city’s denial was based on Kessler’s viewpoint and violates his First and 14th Amendment rights.

 

Quote of the Week: “You’re more likely to be killed by @timkaine running mate @HillaryClinton than you are by an AR-15.” —A March 8 tweet by failed gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, who stopped by Charlottesville March 10 during his campaign for Senate.

 

How much is that puppy in the browsing window?

Attorney General Mark Herring says his consumer protection team continues to receive complaints from people “who thought they were buying an incredibly cute puppy from an online breeder, only to find out it was a scam and the dog didn’t exist.” Red flags for this scam include stock photos, exotic or designer breeds for cheap, and poorly made websites that include misspellings and grammatical errors, he says.

Life and then some

Cathy Rothgeb

A jury recommended a 184-year sentence for Cathy S. Rothgeb, the former Orange County youth softball coach found guilty on March 12 on 30 of 34 charges, which include forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery and object sexual penetration of two former athletes. The alleged molestations began in the ’90s, when one victim testified that she was 9 years old.

Assault and battery

A Western Albemarle High School teacher has been placed on administrative leave after he was arrested for a physical altercation with a student on February 16. Oluwole Adesina, a 53-year-old Crozet resident, faces up to a year in jail or a $2,500 fine for the misdemeanor assault and battery charge.

Green acres

Hogwaller Farm, a nine-acre development with 30 apartments and an urban farm, has been proposed near Moores Creek along Nassau Street, according to the Daily Progress, which reported March 11 that developer Justin Shimp submitted a zoning amendment pre-application last summer to ask Albemarle officials to change the light-industrial designation to rural so he could plant seven acres of “really dank bud.”

New hire

Roger Johnson. Courtesy of Albemarle County

Albemarle County announced its hiring of economic development director Roger Johnson from Greenville, North Carolina on March 7, for a job that’s been open for over a year. The last person to hold it lasted for 19 months.

Guilty plea

Joshua Lamar Carter, 27, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on March 12 for firing a gun at city police officers in 2016. In a plea agreement, he entered an Alford plea to one charge of attempted second-degree murder and pleaded guilty to shooting a gun in a public place and illegally possessing a firearm as a felon.

A headline we’re starting to get used to: Another August 12 lawsuit

Georgetown Law’s Civil Rights Clinic filed a federal defamation lawsuit March 13 on behalf of a Unite the Right rally counterprotester who claims to be a victim of fake news conspiracies.

Brennan Gilmore’s cell phone footage of the deadly car attack on Fourth Street went viral on August 12, and “Gilmore was contacted by media outlets to discuss his experience and soon became the target of elaborate online conspiracies that placed him at the center of a ‘deep-state’ plot to stage the attack and destabilize the Trump administration,” says a press release from the law group.

Now he’s suing defendants Alex Jones, Infowars, former Congressman Allen West and others for “intentional infliction of emotional distress” and “mobilizing an army of followers to pursue a campaign of harassment and threats against him.” The lawsuit seeks punitive damages and compensation for Gilmore’s alleged reputational injuries and emotional distress.

“From Sandy Hook to Pizzagate to Charlottesville, Las Vegas and now Parkland, the defendants thrive by inciting devastating real-world consequences with the propaganda and lies they publish as news,” says Gilmore. “Today, I’m asking a court to hold them responsible for the personal and professional damage their lies have caused me, and, more importantly, to deter them from repeating this dangerous pattern of defamation and intimidation.”

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Opinion

Germ of an idea: How to disinfect dirty politics

John Adams and Mark Herring. Courtesy photos

False equivalence makes me sick. Likely it does the same to you, too, even if you don’t recognize the symptoms. It’s rhetorical MRSA, an indestructible super-bug that infects the mind and body politic. And as has been widely reported, a new strain of contagion took hold on August 15 when the 2016 Electoral College Winner declared that yes, Virginia, Nazi-resisters are as bad as Nazis. With his toxic words about the “very fine people” standing up for white supremacy, Trump attacked civic decency, democratic values and American history.

Sadly, it was a familiar pain. Last time I felt it this bad was when members down at the Church of Privileged Self-Righteousness declared there was “no difference” between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Way back then, such folks had the media to lean on for some of their claims.

Plenty of so-called liberal-leaning pundits equated the computing issues and defensive personality of one candidate with the vulgarities and incompetence of the other, a known sexual predator, racist, liar and cheat who was entirely unqualified to run a local street cleaning crew, let alone the United States. Chanting “they’re all the same,” a critical number of true believers sat out the election, leaving the rest of us, but especially the nation’s most vulnerable, with a raging staph infection.

If, after all that has happened since, you still think skipping out on Election Day is inconsequential, you’re not paying attention. And yet, a recent study from the Washington, D.C.-based research firm Lake Research Partners, released by the Voter Participation Center, predicts that about 40 million fewer people will vote in 2018 compared to 2016. The biggest drop-off is projected to be among millennials and unmarried women, crucial members of what’s called the “rising American electorate,” which also includes blacks and Latinos.

In Virginia, the center projects, roughly 1.1 million of those voters will stay away from the polls next year. The study, based on census data, does not sample why non-voters and non-registered voters would choose to stay home. We can only guess.

But you had to travel only as far as the MLK Performing Arts Center for the August 27 “recovery” town hall and the August 21 Charlottesville City Council meeting before that to understand how little trust Virginians have in government these days—and why.

And yet, local voting is the best way to throw the bums out, if that’s your goal.

Leading up the federal elections in 2018, here’s another reason to get in practice and vote on November 7: the race for state attorney general. Democratic incumbent Mark Herring is running against Republican John Adams, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who opposes reproductive choice and marriage equality and vows to roll back Obama-era environmental regulations. Herring, among other things, supports Obama’s Clean Power Plan and has the endorsement of gay rights groups. Perhaps even more crucially at this moment, Herring is inclined to let localities manage their own statuary and Adams is not.

No doubt, false equivalence is toxic. The same can be true for malaise. Maybe you can’t do anything about the sputum coming out of Trump’s mouth. But you can beat back the spread of malaise. The center that commissioned the voting study noted it’s likely more effective to register new voters than to try to persuade disaffected registered voters to give a damn. When left unchecked, no difference-ism can be as harmful as false equivalence.

So get your rest, Virginia, and then take your medicine: Register two voters and call me in the morning.

Yes, Virginia is a monthly op-ed column.

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News

Girl power: Locals proud to stand with her

Nancy Damon took her mother-in-law, 102- year-old Grace Damon, to vote early. The registrar brought her ballot out to the car. Photo courtesy of Nancy Damon

Born in 1914, Grace Damon was 6 years old when women were given the right to vote.

And while few can say they’ve been politically active for nearly a century, this 102-year-old Democrat was chauffeured to the polls October 12 to cast her ballot early for the person she hopes will become the first female president of the United States. 

“Usually, she canceled out her husband, who was a very conservative Republican,” says Nancy Damon about her mother-in-law. She says the elderly voter has had her doubts that a woman would run the White House in her lifetime.

“She wasn’t opposed to Hillary [Clinton],” her daughter-in-law says, recalling a conversation the two shared before Grace recently became ill. “She just didn’t think a woman could become president because of the barriers.”

But, reminded that Clinton’s opponent is Donald Trump, Nancy says her mother-in-law “made a very bad face” and indicated there could be hope for Clinton, after all.

Though the elder Damon leans left, she’s no stranger to The Donald—a year ago, she dressed as the yellow-haired, orange-hued presidential hopeful for a Halloween party at her retirement community.

Nancy has been politically active since the 1972 presidential election, in which she cast her first-ever vote for Democratic nominee George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign and was eventually defeated by Richard Nixon.

Nowadays, you can find this former director of the Virginia Festival of the Book canvassing for Clinton.

“I’m impressed with her record,” she says. “Because she’s been a senator, [lived] in the White House and Secretary of State, she’s probably had a wider range of experience than just about anybody who’s ever run for office.”

She adds, “I would say the opposite is true of Mr. Trump.”

The Damon political spirit runs in the family—Kate Damon, Nancy’s daughter, lives in Washington, D.C., and created the Democratic National Convention’s logo this year.

A legion of other local female voters share the same spirit.

Nancy O’Brien, Charlottesville’s first female mayor, elected in 1976, has long organized women’s groups—most recently helping to form Women For Perriello during the 2008 election, in which Democrat Tom Perriello won the 5th District congressional race, though the gerrymandered district has voted to elect Republican nominees for most of this century.

Not only is O’Brien surprised a woman could soon become president, she says she is amazed that one is even running.

“Our last hope had been Geraldine Ferraro,” she says about the 1984 vice presidential candidate. “I never really envisioned this possibility. …I’m delighted as a woman. I think [Clinton is] a woman of accomplishment and she can get things done when she’s elected.”

“I do think she’s had to prove a lot by being a woman and I think that’s what a lot of us feel,” says Kay Slaughter, a former mayor, city councilor and political activist who attended the 1984 Democratic Convention as a delegate. Ferraro and other women in the political arena became role models to her, she says.

She adds that the three most important issues to many women voters are pay equity, pro-choice advocacy and adequate child care, “and Hillary Clinton gets it.”

Though this election is one for the books, she’s no longer shocked that a woman’s name is appearing at the top of the ticket.

“Behind every election that I’ve worked in since the ’60s,” Slaughter says, “women have been the backbone.”

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Opinion

Faraway, so close: What does the future hold?

Will Tom Garrett’s support of Donald Trump help him in his 5th District race against Jane Dittmar?

Although it seems almost impossible to believe, this is the final column we will publish before the awesomely epic election of 2016. Yes, we will pen one more before the last votes are cast and counted, but it will not see the light of day until the polling places have closed, and the new president and Congress of the United States have emerged from the bitter clouds of dust kicked up during this acrimonious election season.

This, of course, has put us in a contemplative state of mind. Not so much about the eventual outcome, which—at least at the top of the ticket—seems clear. No, we’ve been thinking more about what comes after, and whether or not this magnificent republic of ours can somehow find its way back to normalcy. Much of this depends on the actions and reactions of a small minority of politicians and voters—mostly elephants, but also amongst die-hard donkeys, as well.

First, a quick look at the state of play. As election day nears, it is increasingly obvious that Republican standard-bearer Donald J. Trump is courting a catastrophic landslide defeat. Will it be Goldwater ’64, McGovern ’72, Mondale ’84 territory? Perhaps not quite that bad, but definitely close. And this historic drubbing is certain to have a huge down-ballot effect, which is why Republican strategists are currently in such a panic.

The problem is that there’s no real solution to a problem like Trump. In Virginia, which the Trump campaign has essentially abandoned, Republican congress-critters have tried a variety of tactics, none of them particularly effective. Delegate Scott Taylor, who is running to replace the 2nd District’s retiring Representative Scott Rigell, has been a loyal Trump surrogate, and thus lashed himself to an immensely unpopular  candidate who, according to recent polls, is trailing Hillary Clinton by 12 points in the commonwealth. Conversely, in the more moderate 10th District, Representative Barbara Comstock has been harshly critical of Trump, and yet is still in real danger of losing her reelection bid due to disaffected Republican voters punishing her for her apostasy.

And here in the 5th District, state Republican Senator Tom Garrett—who has condemned Trump’s behavior but still supports him—has been caught flat-footed by Democrat Jane Dittmar, who has consistently out-fundraised him and was recently endorsed by President Obama.

It’s also here where some of the more malevolent forces at work in this election have unexpectedly erupted. The most prominent incident involved two Trump supporters who parked outside of Dittmar’s Palmyra office for 12 hours, openly brandishing guns and holding up Trump signs. When this threatening maneuver got national press, Dittmar’s Facebook page was so overwhelmed with abusive rhetoric that she had to temporarily shut it down.

Things got so nasty, in fact, that—in the wake of conservative bloggers posting documents purporting to show that Dittmar was convicted of a DUI in 1999 (she was not)—Garrett actually showed up at a Dittmar event on the Downtown Mall to join in her calls for greater civility (see page 12).

Unfortunately, it’s not at all clear that civility is what we’re going to get in the wake of this unprecedented, frequently stomach-churning election. As long as Trump persists with his idiotic claims of a “rigged election,” and continues to encourage an army of poll-watching partisans to show up (armed, if possible) and confront non-white citizens as they arrive to vote, then the aftermath of this presidential pie fight could be even worse than the main event.

And in that case, we all lose.

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, twice-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.

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Opinion

Fighting the tide: Can Virginia’s Republicans overcome a Clinton victory?

And here in the 5th District, which many thought to be a lock for the elephants, there are increasingly strong signs that Jane Dittmar has a real shot at reclaiming the seat for the donkeys. Photo by Eze Amos

Here’s one case study showing just how difficult it’s becoming for Virginia Republicans running local races: A recent internal poll conducted for the campaign of Democrat LuAnn Bennett, who is running to unseat Republican Barbara Comstock in Virginia’s 10th congressional district, showed Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump in the race for president by a dizzying 14 percent.

Yes, this is an internal poll, and as such is inherently biased toward Bennett, but with Clinton’s substantial lead in Virginia (the two most recent polls, by CBS News and Christopher Newport University, have her up 8 and 10 points statewide, respectively), this sort of margin is not outside the realm of possibility. So, even though Comstock still has a narrow lead in the polls, she will almost certainly have to outperform Trump in the district by double digits in order to win.

And while Trump was surely hoping to make up ground with a knockout performance in the first presidential debate, the gale force winds created by his wild swings and missed punches only made things worse. While his pugilistic browbeating of Clinton on trade was effective (if migraine-inducing) early on, by night’s end it was Clinton who stood smiling, not a hair out of place, as Trump dug himself deeper and deeper on a raft of issues, including his unreleased taxes, his shady business practice, his promise that Iranian sailors who taunt U.S. warships “will be shot out of the water” and the blatant racism of his years-long claim that President Obama was not born in the U.S.

Of course, gerrymandering at the state level means that certain Republicans have absolutely nothing to worry about, no matter how ridiculous and extreme they may be. Take the case of Dave Brat, the bespectacled first-term congressman who unexpectedly knocked off House Minority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014. Although he boasts zero accomplishments as a U.S Representative, and has made a cottage industry of issuing crackpot statements (just last week, for instance, he told conservative talk radio host John Fredericks that the Black Lives Matter protesters in Charlotte were “radical groups that are funded out of George Soros’ pot of money,” while also insisting that the real “institutional racism” is perpetuated by Democrats who refuse to “get the Bible back in the classroom and religion back in the classroom”), Brat will almost certainly win his reelection race handily.

Still, there’s no telling what havoc the lead weight of Trump’s campaign might wreak across the commonwealth. Which is why endangered incumbents like Comstock (who supported Marco Rubio in the Republican primary) are running as far from him as they can. When asked by the Washington Post if she was planning on endorsing Trump, she replied, “If I change my mind, I’ll let you know,” and when pressed on whether she would even vote for him, she answered, cryptically, “I’m watching.”

And here in the 5th District, which many thought to be a lock for the elephants, there are increasingly strong signs that Jane Dittmar has a real shot at reclaiming the seat for the donkeys. Her fundraising has been unexpectedly robust (at last count, she had raised more than triple the amount of her opponent Tom Garrett), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee designated her race “Red-to-Blue” September 23 and, while UVA professor Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball website still rates the race “Likely Republican,” one of the site’s editors recently conceded to the Daily Progress that “problems at the top of the ticket could hurt down-ballot Republicans such as Tom Garrett.”

Ah, Donald Trump—you truly are the gift that keeps on giving.

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, twice-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.

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Opinion

Trump is toast: Will the House and Senate follow?

And here in the 5th District, which many thought to be a lock for the elephants, there are increasingly strong signs that Jane Dittmar has a real shot at reclaiming the seat for the donkeys. Photo by Eze Amos

If there’s one thing we love about penning this column, it’s making ridiculously premature predictions. And though we’ve whiffed a few (like that time we opined that Bernie Sanders would “be out of the [primary] race by May at the very latest”), all in all our batting average is enviably high. And so, as we look down the final stretch of this year’s presidential and congressional elections, we have an overwhelming urge to predict exactly what will happen.

First, the easy stuff. Donald J. Trump, that pompous, orange-hued huckster, will be defeated in a landslide, and Hillary Clinton will become the 45th president of the United States. This, of course, means that Virginia Senator Tim Kaine will become vice president, and his vacant Senate seat will be filled by Governor Terry McAuliffe, who will almost certainly elevate U.S. Representative Bobby Scott to the chamber (Scott’s district, the 3rd, is the most reliably Democratic in the commonwealth, and so McAuliffe will be able to reward Scott for his years of public service while ensuring that his House seat doesn’t end up in Republican hands).

The donkeys will also flip the U.S. Senate, most likely by unseating one or all of the following elephants: Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, Rob Portman in Ohio and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania.

And that, of course, brings us to the House of Representatives, which is still a very tough nut to crack for team blue. As of now, we just don’t see the GOP losing control, as the Dems would need to flip a nearly impossible 30 seats to retake control of the chamber. Still, with a racist demagogue at the top of the Republican ticket, anything can (and probably will) happen.

As it has been for many years, Virginia will be an excellent bellwether for how the Democrats do nationally. Both because the radical House-district gerrymander imposed following the 2010 census has been replaced by a court-ordered, less GOP-friendly map, and because a number of retirements has lessened the Republicans’ incumbent advantage.

There are basically four districts to watch on election night: If the Dems grab one it’s business as usual, two and it’s a decent night, three and it’s a high-fiving donkey celebration, all four and the Republicans may well have lost the House.

The first district to watch is the 4th, home of ex-U.S. Representative Randy Forbes (after his district’s Democratic makeup was increased during the latest redistricting, he ran and lost in the 2nd District Republican primary). Democrat Donald McEachin is expected to win this seat easily.

The second district to keep an eye on is the 10th, where Tea Party darling Barbara Comstock is up against LuAnn Bennett, a well-financed Dem. The 10th went for Mitt Romney in 2012 by a single point, and also voted for Marco Rubio over Trump in the recent Republican primary. Definitely a prime pickup opportunity.

The third key district is Charlottesville’s own, the 5th, where the unexpected retirement of Representative Robert Hurt created an open seat. It’s still favored to go to Republican Tom Garrett, but his far-right-of-center views, coupled with a strong win for the Clinton/Kaine ticket in the commonwealth, could put Democrat Jane Dittmar over the top.

Finally there’s the 2nd District, another open seat created by the retirement of a Republican—Scott Rigell. Nominally a “purple” district (Tim Kaine carried it with 52 percent of the vote in 2012), it will likely go to Republican Scott Taylor who is heavily favored to win over the underfunded Democratic nominee, economist (and Bernie Sanders delegate) Shaun Brown. But if Brown does pull this one off, she could very well be joining the House as a member of the majority.

Exciting times, people!

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, twice-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.

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Opinion

Trumped: Whoops! There goes the election

The man with a local winery bearing his name likely will be the Republican candidate for president. Photo by Amanda Maglione

Greetings, dear readers. Before we dive mirthfully into the fact that Donald John Trump is now the de facto Republican presidential nominee, we’d like to hop into the wayback machine and take a quick trip to the evening of Saturday, April 30, when Republican Party of Virginia state convention attendees gathered to approve a slate of delegates for the national GOP convention in July. Now remember: Trump won the Virginia primary, and thus whichever slate was chosen would be obligated to vote for him on the first ballot. But back then, in those halcyon days when the #NeverTrump movement had yet to realize it was a complete joke, the fight to elect anti-Trump delegates (who would theoretically abandon him on the second ballot) was fully engaged.

Leading this fight was former attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, who was there to make sure his preferred candidate, Ted Cruz, dominated the delegate race. Opposing him was Trump’s Virginia campaign chairman Corey Stewart, a Prince William county supervisor and candidate for governor who is, if possible, even more of a nut job than Cuccinelli (to be clear, this may not actually be possible).

As these two tactical geniuses girded themselves for battle, the assembled throng of pumped-up partisans engaged in an unofficial voice vote for the three remaining would-be GOP nominees, which went about as expected. Cruz! (Huge cheer.) Trump! (Less huge cheer.) John Kasich! (A sad smattering of applause that sounded like air leaking from the tail end of a balloon dog.)

But once the actual voting began, it became clear that Trump’s Virginia delegate operation was, like the man himself, a completely disorganized and ad hoc affair, with no actual plan other than to show up and make noise. And so the Cooch steamrolled them, getting a slate approved that was 10-3 in favor of Cruz. Even better, Cuccinelli trash-talked the Trump effort (“This is a competition. And they are incapable of competing effectively on the ground,” he sneered to the Richmond Times-Dispatch), and bragged that he could have easily nabbed all 13 slots, but gave three to Trump as an “olive branch.” (Stewart, charmer that he is, angrily retorted that it was actually a “screw-you branch.”)

And we all know what happened next. Trump romped to victory in the Indiana primary, and Cruz and Kasich immediately dropped out, essentially ceding the nomination to the orange-hued huckster.

The fallout from this insane turn of events is really just beginning, but one thing’s for certain: The electoral prospects of elephants across the commonwealth just took a huge hit. Cuccinelli has already announced that he will not be running for governor in 2017, and Republicans from U.S. Representative Dave Brat to once-and-future gubernatorial hopeful Ed Gillespie have been mouthing the sort of tepid, generic words of support you might use when discussing a future son-in-law whom you secretly despise. (“Republican voters have nominated Donald Trump for president, and I will vote for him against Hillary Clinton,” Gillespie said, issuing a written statement so you couldn’t see him gritting his teeth.)

And so, as we contemplate the upcoming presidential battle for the swing state of Virginia, for once we heartily agree with a Republican strategist, Tucker Martin, who told the Times-Dispatch: “I don’t expect Virginia to be a battleground state this time around. Hillary will win, and I believe she will win handily. And that makes any chance of the Republican Party winning the White House that much more unlikely.”

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, twice-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.

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Opinion

President Clinton: Get used to it, folks

OD_©Ron Sachs CNP via ZUMA Wire

Okay, we’re calling it. As of this moment, it is virtually guaranteed that Hillary Clinton will be the 45th president of the United States. She has an almost insurmountable delegate lead over her Democratic opponent Bernie Sanders, and even if she should lose every remaining primary and caucus, the Dems’ lack of winner-take-all states makes the chances of Bernie overtaking her in pledged delegates vanishingly slim.

And then, of course, there’s the ongoing disaster that is the Republican primary race. The elephants basically have three choices right now: run with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket and lose; deny Trump, the highest vote-getter by far, the nomination at a contested convention, run somebody else and lose (with The Donald mounting a third-party bid) or break the GOP in half by supporting a “moderate” third-party candidate and lose. There are seriously no other options, and anyone who thinks otherwise hasn’t been paying sufficiently close attention.

And now that we’ve got that settled, we can focus on the more interesting question. Namely, what does a Clinton victory look like, and how will it affect the other races on the ballot, both in Virginia and nationwide? If the Republicans completely surrender to Trump (a distinct possibility) and offer only token resistance before giving him the keys to the Grand Old Party, the result could be a wave election that upends the balance of power both in the U.S. Senate (already a likelihood) and the U.S. House of Representatives (until recently an unthinkable turn of events). If, on the other hand, the Republican establishment explicitly rejects Trump, and allows vulnerable Congress-critters to run against him, they might still salvage their majorities in both chambers.

But it sure ain’t gonna be easy. And making things tougher is the fact that, with the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, conservatives have lost an important bulwark in their fight for electoral dominance. This became exceedingly clear last week during oral arguments in  Wittman v. Personhuballah, the Supreme Court case focused on whether Virginia’s 3rd District was drawn by the Republican majority in 2012 to dilute the black vote in surrounding districts.

The answer is yes, without a doubt. But with Scalia on the court this case could have gone either way. Without him, the balance of power has shifted, and it appears likely that the court will either deadlock on the issue—which would mean the district court ruling that found this “racial gerrymandering” unconstitutional would stand—or even muster a 5-3 vote against the practice.

The practical effects of this ruling will mean that Representative Bobby Scott, currently the only black congressman from Virginia, will probably be joined by another Democrat on Capitol Hill, and Republicans will find their sizable majority decreased by two.

Now, considering that the donkeys need to flip a total of 30 seats to retake the House, one might not seem like that big a deal. But with all of the stars seeming to align against the elephants heading into the general election, it’s small defeats like this that could build into a tsunami of electoral misery.

And trust us: Every step Donald Trump takes toward securing the Republican nomination is one more step toward President Clinton beginning her term with both houses of Congress firmly under Democratic control.

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, twice-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.

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News

Crunch time: Things just got real

Feb 25, 2016 - Houston, Texas, U.S. - MARCO RUBIO and DONALD TRUMP argue as they answer a question during the Republican Presidential Primary Debate at the University of Houston Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016. (Credit Image: © Gary Coronado/Houston Chronicle/Pool via ZUMA Wire)

Well, here we are again: facing a blank page, days away from hugely important elections, fully realizing that you, dear reader, know exactly what happened. But we do not! And yet file we must, and so we jump once more into the abyss, gleefully predicting things that will be proven or disproven in real time. Such is the life of a print journalist.

On the Democratic side, we’ve already made it abundantly clear that we think Hillary Clinton basically has the nomination wrapped up, even as Bernie Sanders continues to close the gap in national polls. The reasons are myriad, but it really comes down to a weird quirk in the donkeys’ primary process. Instead of letting all of the necessary delegates be apportioned through state primaries and caucuses (as the Republicans do), the Dems have created a block of “superdelegates”—a group of 712 party insiders who can back whomever they wish. Clinton has done a typically expert job of courting these folks, and at this writing has 449 pledged superdelegates (Sanders has 19). And so, even though they both had the same number of earned delegates going into the South Carolina primary, in reality Clinton had an effective lead of 430 delegates (the first candidate to amass 2,382 delegates will clinch the nomination).

Yes, these superdelegates can change their minds, and if Bernie managed to carry South Carolina, and also won the majority of available delegates on Super Tuesday, you would definitely see a sizable increase in his superdelegate count. But we are absolutely certain that did not happen. Hillary’s performance in the Nevada caucus showed that her popularity with black and Latino voters matched the pre-caucus polling, and we would bet real money that she easily carried South Carolina (editor’s note: She received 73.5 percent of the vote), as well as the majority of Super Tuesday states (including Virginia). And if that’s true, then it’s basically all over but the shouting.

On the Republican side, however, we are far less certain of the outcome. There’s no doubt that Donald Trump had a commanding position going in, having won three of the first four contests (New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada) by wide margins. But not since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 run has a frontrunner for the nomination of a major party been so hated by the power brokers within that party, and there’s no doubt that panicked GOP bigwigs are going to do everything in their power to, at the very least, try to deny him the 1,237 delegates he needs to win outright. This would result in a brokered convention, where the insiders would be able to push a more palatable alternative.

The problem is that Trump’s main competitor, Marco Rubio, had not won a single contest going into Super Tuesday, and only had a meager 16 delegates to Trump’s 82. Yes, he finally took the fight to Trump in last week’s feisty Republican debate, but was it enough to push the needle?

As for Virginia, we are cautiously predicting a Trump victory (a pre-election Monmouth University survey had him capturing 41 percent of likely Republican voters). But who knows? The combination of fallout from the Republican Party of Virginia’s now-abandoned “loyalty oath” and a late Rubio surge might have pushed him out of first place, but we doubt it.

And so, at this point, the smart money is on a Clinton-Trump presidential race, which is perhaps the single craziest thing we’ve ever written. Until we actually have to write the words “President Trump,” that is.

Odd Dominion is an unabashedly liberal, twice-monthly op-ed column covering Virginia politics.

Updated March 3 at 9am with a reference to donkeys rather than elephants.