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Opinion Youngkin won as a pragmatic Trump alternative. He’s showing his cards.

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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Glenn Youngkin found ideal conditions a year ago to run for governor as a relatable, solutions-focused pragmatist who avoided Donald Trump’s toxic stain yet still mobilized the former president’s base.

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He inherited a political environment ripe for a Republican resurgence in Virginia, where Democrats had been dominant for a decade.
Much of Virginia’s electorate was disenchanted with rising crime rates and the pandemic’s long-running societal and economic disruptions and blamed Democratic leadership in Washington and Richmond for it.

Wealthy enough to fund his own campaign and lacking any political record that the Democrats could exploit, Youngkin hired savvy political advisers who spotted an opening with issues relevant to suburban Virginians for years.

Youngkin revived echoes of Democratic progressives who called for defunding the police in 2020’s summer of unrest after the police killing of George Floyd. He knew that moderate suburbanites opposed cutting support for law enforcement.


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Team Youngkin also deftly cloaked two hot-button culture-war causes as public education issues that were also highly resonant in suburban Virginia. He decried the supposed teaching of “critical race theory,” a college-level academic premise that racism is inherent in the legal and societal structure of America. He also blasted policies public schools had adopted to accommodate transgender students.
Even though Trump had endorsed him, Youngkin barnstormed the state in his red logo zip-up vest taking on the persona of a good-natured uncle. Trump never appeared in Virginia, and Youngkin convinced many swing voters that he was not Trump-like. As Youngkin reminded voters, he was on the ballot and Trump was not.

Youngkin ate into the moderate Northern Virginia vote that Democrats had dominated during the Trump presidency while he engineered a staggering Republican turnout in conservative rural Virginia. His long-odds gamble paid off.






But that was last year, and it’s not a strategy Youngkin can reprise.
Youngkin has shown his cards with policy decisions and his ambitious national travel schedule as he stumps for GOP candidates, including some on the far right who are election deniers. For weeks, he has spent huge amounts of time campaigning for Republicans running in other states.
Hours after he was sworn in on Jan. 15, the governor issued 11 executive actions that delighted the right, including stripping the public schools of their authority to set policy on wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and muzzling teachers from discussing “divisive concepts,” including the nation’s troubled racial history.

Having openly voiced doubt about the causes of climate change, Youngkin is working to remove the commonwealth from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The program, which aims to limit carbon dioxide emissions and requires power producers to purchase permits for the carbon they emit, returned $221 million to Virginia in 2021.






More recently, Youngkin imposed new guidelines that compel transgender students in public schools to use restrooms and sports facilities that match a student’s sex at birth.
Youngkin’s rightward shift is not accidental. For an ambitious upstart, it was inevitable.
Just as he knew that he could not win last fall in centrist Virginia as a Trump acolyte, Youngkin knows he has no shot in today’s Republican Party nationally if he’s seen as a squishy fence straddler. So, in his quest to please far-right activists who dominate the GOP presidential nominating process for a possible national run, he has forfeited the political middle in Virginia and likely made himself unelectable statewide should he later opt to challenge one of the state’s two Democratic U.S. senators, either in 2024 or in 2026.
For better or worse, he will own his record in future elections, and odds are he won’t draw the winning hand he held in 2021.

 
Like it or not the transgender policies he’s promoting poll well across party lines….98% approval amongst Republicans, 83% amongst independents, and 53% amongs dems, which translates into about 80% approval amongst all voters. So, not exactly “far right”
 
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Glenn Youngkin found ideal conditions a year ago to run for governor as a relatable, solutions-focused pragmatist who avoided Donald Trump’s toxic stain yet still mobilized the former president’s base.

Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates

He inherited a political environment ripe for a Republican resurgence in Virginia, where Democrats had been dominant for a decade.
Much of Virginia’s electorate was disenchanted with rising crime rates and the pandemic’s long-running societal and economic disruptions and blamed Democratic leadership in Washington and Richmond for it.

Wealthy enough to fund his own campaign and lacking any political record that the Democrats could exploit, Youngkin hired savvy political advisers who spotted an opening with issues relevant to suburban Virginians for years.

Youngkin revived echoes of Democratic progressives who called for defunding the police in 2020’s summer of unrest after the police killing of George Floyd. He knew that moderate suburbanites opposed cutting support for law enforcement.


ADVERTISING

Team Youngkin also deftly cloaked two hot-button culture-war causes as public education issues that were also highly resonant in suburban Virginia. He decried the supposed teaching of “critical race theory,” a college-level academic premise that racism is inherent in the legal and societal structure of America. He also blasted policies public schools had adopted to accommodate transgender students.
Even though Trump had endorsed him, Youngkin barnstormed the state in his red logo zip-up vest taking on the persona of a good-natured uncle. Trump never appeared in Virginia, and Youngkin convinced many swing voters that he was not Trump-like. As Youngkin reminded voters, he was on the ballot and Trump was not.

Youngkin ate into the moderate Northern Virginia vote that Democrats had dominated during the Trump presidency while he engineered a staggering Republican turnout in conservative rural Virginia. His long-odds gamble paid off.






But that was last year, and it’s not a strategy Youngkin can reprise.
Youngkin has shown his cards with policy decisions and his ambitious national travel schedule as he stumps for GOP candidates, including some on the far right who are election deniers. For weeks, he has spent huge amounts of time campaigning for Republicans running in other states.
Hours after he was sworn in on Jan. 15, the governor issued 11 executive actions that delighted the right, including stripping the public schools of their authority to set policy on wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and muzzling teachers from discussing “divisive concepts,” including the nation’s troubled racial history.

Having openly voiced doubt about the causes of climate change, Youngkin is working to remove the commonwealth from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The program, which aims to limit carbon dioxide emissions and requires power producers to purchase permits for the carbon they emit, returned $221 million to Virginia in 2021.






More recently, Youngkin imposed new guidelines that compel transgender students in public schools to use restrooms and sports facilities that match a student’s sex at birth.
Youngkin’s rightward shift is not accidental. For an ambitious upstart, it was inevitable.
Just as he knew that he could not win last fall in centrist Virginia as a Trump acolyte, Youngkin knows he has no shot in today’s Republican Party nationally if he’s seen as a squishy fence straddler. So, in his quest to please far-right activists who dominate the GOP presidential nominating process for a possible national run, he has forfeited the political middle in Virginia and likely made himself unelectable statewide should he later opt to challenge one of the state’s two Democratic U.S. senators, either in 2024 or in 2026.
For better or worse, he will own his record in future elections, and odds are he won’t draw the winning hand he held in 2021.

It is certainly very fair to say that Youngkin was extraordinarily disciplined in the campaign when it came to not invoking Trump (or letting himself be invoked by Trump), when he was in fact a pretty conservative guy.

But it's nothing short of fantasyland for the Post to suggest that somehow they're he's "surprised" everyone with the various things he's done in public education. Let's be honest here - everybody knows that what ultimately propelled him to victory, and McAuliffe to defeat, was the sense that public education had gone off the rails, whether in terms of Covid response or in terms of what was going on in Loudoun County. That was his issue, and that's where he is in doing what he said he'd do.

As for posturing and barnstorming in election season, meh. It's comes with the territory of being governor of the Commonwealth. You have one term, and you have to be on to the next thing, whether that entails national goverment ambition, local goverment ambition, or private ambition.
 
It is certainly very fair to say that Youngkin was extraordinarily disciplined in the campaign when it came to not invoking Trump (or letting himself be invoked by Trump), when he was in fact a pretty conservative guy.

But it's nothing short of fantasyland for the Post to suggest that somehow they're he's "surprised" everyone with the various things he's done in public education. Let's be honest here - everybody knows that what ultimately propelled him to victory, and McAuliffe to defeat, was the sense that public education had gone off the rails, whether in terms of Covid response or in terms of what was going on in Loudoun County. That was his issue, and that's where he is in doing what he said he'd do.

As for posturing and barnstorming in election season, meh. It's comes with the territory of being governor of the Commonwealth. You have one term, and you have to be on to the next thing, whether that entails national goverment ambition, local goverment ambition, or private ambition.
Sure, but he is choosing to campaign with lunatics like Kari Lake. He doesn’t have to.
 
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They recently discovered a number of cases where some Virginia school districts and individual schools, withheld honor and merit awards from a number of students who earned them so as not to make other students feel bad. The stunt was not discovered until college applications and scholarship deadlines had passed. When pressed some said CRT was the cause because of a requirement for equal outcomes. (so much for it not being in the public schools)
 
Oh, by the way, the reason Youngkin stopped the plant deal was due to it's ties the Chinese Communist Party. His administration said no Virginia tax dollars would to to the CCP , not to mention the security concerns.
But please don't let a good headline go to waste. Do you really believe ANY politician from either party would stop a large number of jobs coming to their state without a reason? (AOC is the one exception but she really isn't a politician, she's just a simpleton.)
 
They recently discovered a number of cases where some Virginia school districts and individual schools, withheld honor and merit awards from a number of students who earned them so as not to make other students feel bad. The stunt was not discovered until college applications and scholarship deadlines had passed. When pressed some said CRT was the cause because of a requirement for equal outcomes. (so much for it not being in the public schools)
I see you paid attention to your propaganda feed this morning. Lots and lots of grievance scratching in this post.
Who is the who in your conspiracy?
There is a proven link between some merit awards being delayed and a stated goal to keep some other kids from feeling bad?
Who has stated, when pressed, that CRT was the cause?
 
I see you paid attention to your propaganda feed this morning. Lots and lots of grievance scratching in this post.
Who is the who in your conspiracy?
There is a proven link between some merit awards being delayed and a stated goal to keep some other kids from feeling bad?
Who has stated, when pressed, that CRT was the cause?
Keep trying to excuse negligence. If you have no response then you might want to keep your mouth shut.
 
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