| After eight
years of mismanagement, neglect, and ignorance, the GOP
"has nominated the most conservative ticket they
have ever nominated." Lawrence Roberts Tells it
Straight
Arlington,
VA
June 17, 2001
We have a great
ticket. It is progressive, but pragmatic about what it
takes to win an election in Virginia. The GOP has
nominated the most conservative ticket they have ever
nominated. We have had eight years of financial
mismanagement by the GOP, insensitivity to the needs of
rural Virginia, a failure to fund education, backtracking
on Virginia's reputation for outstanding colleges and
universities, failure to manage federal health insurance
funding for uninsured children such that Virginia returns
money to the federal government instead of insuring those
children, failure to address the ever-worsening
transportation issues in urban/suburban Virginia, lowered
environmental standards, childish disputes with Maryland
over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, cost overruns and
mismanagement at VDOT, importing prisoners from other
states to fill prisons that should not have been built,
and putting people to death at a rate faster than every
state but Texas notwithstanding the flaws in criminal
justice DNA testing has uncovered.
There are plenty
of good reasons to sweep out the Republicans and we have
the candidates to do it.
We now have the
names of 160,000 who came to the polls despite the
media's virtually ignoring the election and the lack of a
contested race in the Governor slot. From these dedicated
Democrats we will draw new volunteers to the Democratic
Party and fresh ideas. This is about 155,000 more people
than would have attended a Democratic convention (our
usual way of nominating candidates). We also had our
candidates travelling around the state, learning about
issues of local importance and making local
relationships. That never would have happened without a
primary.
Democrats are
not used to voting in June primaries. It will take time
to get people to focus on voting in statewide primaries.
We are well ahead of where we were before June 12.
This election is
important. If we win, progressive ideals win. I suggest
that it is not "looking bad already", but
looking very promising. Our candidates will run strong,
energetic and enthusiastic campaigns. They have learned
from the mistakes of the past several campaigns. They
will define fundamental differences with the GOP ticket.
They can bring Virginia away from lock-step conservatism
into the political mainstream, into the information age,
and into the forefront of education, health care,
criminal justice, and fiscal responsibility -- a far
better place to live.
Instead of
dwelling on negatives, it is up to grass roots Democrats
to do the work that wins elections: working at the polls,
setting up and maintaining web sites, volunteering for
the statewide campaigns, joining local Democratic
Committees, working on door-to-door canvassing, phone
banks, literature drops, candidate forums, letters to the
editor, voter registration, giving money, talking to
friends.
We can complain,
or we can do our part to make sure that the Democrats --
who are now in a position to win -- do in fact win in
November. If anyone thinks this is going to be a repeat
of lackluster campaigns of prior years, then I invite
them to pay closer attention to what our candidates are
saying. They are responding to what they see on the
campaign trail -- Virginians recognize the failures of
the Allen/Gilmore years and the need for Virginia to come
together and invest in its future -- not relive its past.
LAWRENCE ROBERTS
Lawrence Roberts is chair of the Arlington
County [VA] Democratic Committee.
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