McDonnell Strong, Deeds Moving Left in Homestead Debate

July 26, 2009 by Cato  
Filed under Democrat Campaigns, Republican Campaigns, Taxes, Transportation, Virginia, Virginia Politics

If the best you can do is scream "ABORTION”, while your own constituents face losing jobs, you have to ask yourself – Is Creigh Deeds the man Virginia needs as her next Governor?  Sound overly simplistic?  Not if you had listened to yesterday’s gubernatorial debate at the Homestead.

Everyone agrees that transportation is a big issue in the Commonwealth.  Earlier this week, former AG Bob McDonnell unveiled a plan to help solve Virginia’s transportation woes.  Virginia Sen. Creigh Deeds – no plan.

McDonnell is calling for Virginia’s two US Senators – Jim Webb and Mark Warner – to vote against “Cap and Tax”.  Deeds is “non-committal”.  This would be bad enough for any candidate for Virginia’s highest office.  To add insult to injury, thousands of Deeds’ own constituents work at a Mead Westvaco plant in Covington which faces closure if “Cap and Tax” passes.  To quote McDonnell,

“If you won’t take a stand for 1,500 jobs in your district, people in Virginia can’t be confident that you’ll protect jobs statewide. A governor needs to take a stand and say if it’s wrong for Virginia, I’ll oppose it (cap and trade).

While McDonnell also took a strong stand against “Card Check” legislation, again Deeds waffled by claiming that any legislation would [probably] protect the secret ballot.  That already exists.  The whole purpose of “Card Check” is to end the right of workers to a secret ballot, or in lieu of ending it, forcing elections where employees cannot hear both sides of the issues.

Virginia, like everywhere else, needs to create jobs.  Despite attempts by liberal governors like Mark Warner and Tim Kaine to make Virginia less business friendly, Virginia still enjoys a robust climate for creating jobs.  Since most new job creation is in the small business sector, another telling statistic is that Creigh Deeds receives a failing grade from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the nation’s leading small business grassroots organization.

Bob McDonnell appears to be right.  Virginians shouldn’t be too comfortable about a Gov. Creigh Deeds, unless they think that growing government is the way to grow an economy.