Believe it or not, we were not wholly unsurprised by the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling invalidating the multiple counts of corruption against former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell. The main reason we were expecting the supremes to issue a “get out of jail free” card for McDonnell is simple: During his tenure as governor, the […]
Although it’s not something most voters tend to notice, Virginia’s upcoming congressional and presidential elections have already, to a surprising large degree, been shaped and remolded by a number of crucial court rulings (with one of the biggest still to come). The first of these legal battles began way back in 2010, when the General […]
Well, here we are in the thick of the congressional election season, with strivers from both parties jostling and jockeying to grab one of the limited number of golden tickets to the halls of political power. This is, it goes without saying, one of our favorite times of the electoral cycle, as the probability of […]
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 […]
Imagine, if you will, an alternate reality version of our beautiful commonwealth. A bizarro Virginia where Ken Cuccinelli won the governorship in 2013, and E.W. “Yoga is a tool of Satan” Jackson was elected lieutenant governor. Now imagine that this dynamic duo were in charge when Senate Bill 41, which would exempt religious organizations from […]
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 […]
So here’s the thing: For many who don’t pay close attention, Virginia’s legislature still tends to be viewed through a prism of bipartisan compromise. It is still considered, by some, as an exemplar of the fabled Virginia way, in which all arguments are settled through convivial relations and principled debate, and all members of the […]
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. […]
First off, here’s a newsflash for you: Neither Jim Gilmore nor Jim Webb is going to be president of the United States. With Gilmore finally dropping his embarrassing (and largely invisible) quest for the Republican nomination, and Webb recently announcing that he will not mount an independent presidential bid, our dreams of an all-Virginian Jim/Jim […]
We’re going to kick off this week’s column with an unusual bit of product placement. Although we rarely endorse anything outside of C-SPAN call-in shows, we would like to take this moment to declare the Broadway musical Hamilton the best piece of politically inspired stagecraft since Frost/Nixon, and the best musical about the Founding Fathers ever […]