Analysis of Virginia Returns

How to read this map. I think it tells us a number of things even before we get to the dreaded recount.

As I write this (Wednesday am), Webb is ahead and the odds-on favorite, but his victory is by no means assured. Nevertheless, the vote totals allow some preliminary conclusions about voting patterns in Virginia. I favor the Democrats, and thus will concentrate on what the election means for them.

History

To make sense of Virginia, you have to understand the Byrd machine (named after a prominent Virginia family – I'm pretty sure they are relatives of the West Virginian of the same name). This was the Dixiecrat device by which rural areas of the western part of the state were favored over cities in the eastern part. The system worked mainly in the statehouse – it suppressed the black vote and prevented the cities of Norfolk and Richmond from gaining too much clout. It also, of course, delivered a reliably conservative delegation to Congress.

Two things worked to undo the Byrd machine. The first – civil rights – broke later in Virginia than in the deep south, and with no particularly spectacular effect on the overall voting pattern. When Virginia was ordered to integrate public schools, the state simply shut them down – a campaign known as "massive resistance." It's proponents to this day claim that this act helped prevent "unrest," by which they can quietly conjure images of black people running amuck without actually saying so. But Virginia did integrate, and the racial makeup of the state had some effect on voting. However, the legacies of the Byrd machine continued to work: the black vote was heavily concentrated in cities or swallowed up in rural districts.

Civil rights also undid the Dixiecrats, of course. Increasingly, the voice of rural white Virginia became Republican. Despite this seminal shift, the dynamics of the Byrd machine remained, they just worked to favor Republicans instead of Democrats.

The bigger undoing of Byrd politics was the rise of the Northern Virginia suburbs. These folks, mind you, are not for the most part screaming liberals. But it is a diverse community (VA natives still talk about it as a separate state), and less prone to vote according to party loyalty. They grew very, very quickly. In the eighties, conservative Democrats like Chuck Robb discovered that if they could combine enough remnant party loyalty throughout the state, the black vote, and the Northern Virginia vote, they could win elections.

The Republican response to this is well known. They used religion and culture to argue that Robb type Democrats were posers – that they were culturally alien to most of the state. Robb of course did not help matters by hanging out at parties in Virginia Beach were the cocaine drifted like snow. The state's first black governor, Douglas Wilder, had a similar tale of woe. And then the combination of the Reagan Revolution and the boy genius let the Republicans make huge gains in suburbs – huge swaths of development around the cities that largely cancelled out the urban vote. It was Byrd Politics 2.0 – encircle the enemy.

There was an implicit cultural argument in this maneuver. You, suburban residents, have values more similar to the rural parts of the state than to the godless, carpetbagger, crime-ridden cities. The challenge for Webb was to either get suburbanites to think like urbanites, or for suburbanites to think of him as real and his opponent as fake. The key would be the suburbs of Norfolk and Richmond, where the vote wound up pretty evenly split. If you want to know why the race is deadlocked, look at the returns in Suffolk and Chesapeake (semi-rural but developing areas around Norfolk). Even-steven.

Webb and the Gaffer

Cultural factors explain the power of the word "Macaca." The Democrats never had a prayer in this election until Macaca broke. The word had such effect because a healthy chunk of Northern Virginia's population growth is among immigrant communities. I was shocked a few years ago to find Korean neighborhoods (in 1988, there were two Asian kids in my high school of 2000). Those are the folks who would have taken Macaca seriously. They and their neighbors must have seen Allen's fumbling about identity as a sign of a lot of things they'd been noticing.

The investigation into Allen's background also revealed that he only came to Virginia in college. This fact would not of course bother immigrants, but it made it harder for him to employ the old line of painting Dems as outsiders and liberal snobs.

Webb made it particularly hard. He has a son in Iraq. His policies are modeled on the old Southern Democrats. If it were simply a matter of policy, progressives would bury this guy – he's pro-choice, anti-immigration (although he's softened this line for obvious reasons), and he talks like a native. Most importantly, he seems genuine. The defense used against Robb and Wilder – that they are ultimately eastern elites – just doesn't stick.

So Webb follows an old model of how to win an election. You poll very well in Northern Virginia. You mobilize black and urban voters. And – and this will be crucial to the outcome – you pick up enough votes elsewhere that it's harder for Republicans to count on their base. There was an anti-gay-marriage initiative on the ballot. Something like a third of the folks voting for it voted for Webb. It's not a ton, but it may turn out to have been enough to supplement Webb's natural strengths.

Democrats and the War

Of course, in heavily military Virginia, the war is a big deal. But here's the thing. Only part of the Webb vote was an anti-war vote. Another significant chunk consisted of people who wanted the war run by people who know something about war. It's no so much anti-war as anti-Rumsfeld. If Webb pulls this thing out, he won't really have a mandate for pullout.

I thought Webb had to win Virginia Beach to win the election. The Beach is full of suburbs and megachurches, but it also has a sizable military population. I thought it would be a bellweather of how well he convinced people who had come to see themselves as culturally (not just politically) Republican to vote for him. He lost. If he hadn't, his victory would have been much, much clearer.

Webb specifically ran because he wants to change the Democratic Party. Progressives will be justifiably nervous about those changes. But for the party to maintain power, for it to hold on in states like Virginia, it has to find ways to show people that there are a lot of ways to be a Democrat. I still think Virginia Beach is a key measure. Lots of people there think of themselves as conservatives, and simply as a matter of identity refuse to vote for Democrats. The Democratic Party is fighting a story that people tell themselves about their culture. To capture those votes, it needs to tell a different story about itself, and it needs spokesmen like Webb. And then, of course, it needs to find a way for the Webbs of the world to work with the Kennedys. The Virginia election results suggest that the answer is populist rather than progressive politics. I feel ambivalent about that (especially as it means that a Democratic congress will not really be very different from a Republican one), but I am so fed up with the alternative, I can live with it.


UPDATE: Webb claims victory! As Suffolk goes, so goes the Commonwealth...Race called for Webb. Really, I don't see what Allen can hope for at this point. But I've been wrong before.

AH WHAT THE HELL

might as well whore for traffic:

Richmond War Room will not be seduced by flashy campaigns... Really, they're serious.

Virtual Conservative debriefs the Republicans. Republicans lost because "they allowed themselves to run against themselves." It's Faulty Towers over there -- just don't mention the war!

Bacon's Rebellion is my favorite of the conservative bloggers (conservative in VA being very conservative by Fray standards). Great historical reference, guys. Spirit of 1676!

Virginia Progressive gives insight into Dem voter turnout: "I ain't no macaca!"

My family is from Lynchburg, so I'm not as suprised as I should be that these folks are blaming Dem. corruption. I'm sure there were problems, but it seems like a stretch to me.

Hampton Roads Politics comes closest to my own feeling: it's the war, stupid.

I'm very fond of Virginia -- these people speak my language. Let's hope they are coming together around some kind of moderate core and not splintering into a "culture war" that is more spin than substance.

That's enough politics for me. Still waiting to hear the scoop on a. Gilmore Girls b. Miss Spears c. Legally Blonde. Little help here please!


FINALLY: looks like Allen will concede, in part under pressure from party bigwigs. Death with dignity.

He's gone. Here's WaPo on the changes in Northern Virginia. All true, but I still think Bacon's Rebellion and Hampton Roads Politics are closer to the mark. Dems can win in Virginia only if they can shave Republican majorities in conservative areas. Even then, Webb would surely have lost if Rummy resigned two weeks ago.