Virginia's election gives lie to the Big Lie -- Nov. 4, 2021 column

By MARSHA MERCER

As Democrats on Capitol Hill argue over what message voters sent in Tuesday’s earthquake election, it’s worth considering what voters and politicians in Virginia aren’t saying.

Nobody claims the Virginia election was rigged.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe set the tone for civility when he promptly conceded the election.

“While last night we came up short, I am proud that we spent this campaign fighting for the values we so deeply believe in,” he said in a statement Wednesday morning.

He congratulated Republican Glenn Youngkin on his victory, calling him Governor-elect, and said, “I hope Virginians will join me in wishing the best to him and his family.”

That’s the classy way disappointed candidates are supposed to act.

Losing candidates in this country traditionally rise to the occasion. They accept election results, are grateful to their supporters and gracious to the victors.

They don’t spew malice toward voting machines, hard-working state election officials or our electoral system. And they certainly don’t make wild claims about being robbed.

And yet, for more than a year, faith in American elections has been sorely challenged by the Big Lie, the falsehood spawned in Donald Trump’s brain that he actually won the last presidential election.

During his 2016 campaign, Trump claimed the only way he could lose the White House was if the election was rigged. In victory, he griped he would have won by a bigger margin but for irregularities that didn’t exist.

After Trump lost in 2020, numerous recounts and court cases revealed no widespread fraud that would have changed the election outcome. Trump persisted in his delusions, and too many Republicans bought into the Big Lie, leading to the Stop the Steal movement and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, one of the darkest days in our country’s history.

A majority of Americans believe Trump says he lost because he “doesn’t like the outcome,” according to a Marist Poll taken for NPR last month. Sadly, 75% of Republicans still say Trump has a legitimate claim that there were “real cases of fraud that changed the results.”

Many Republican-controlled states have passed laws since the 2020 election making it harder for their citizens to exercise their right to vote. Fortunately, Virginia, under Democratic control, moved in the opposite direction, passing much-needed reforms, including no-excuse early voting.

After a tough campaign season with scathing charges and countercharges, turnout in Virginia was higher than in any gubernatorial race since 1997.

A few days before the election, some Youngkin allies tried to float the idea the gubernatorial election was about to be stolen. Asked for proof, they provided none.

Since Republicans captured the top three state elected offices and appeared to win a majority in the House of Delegates, we have not heard a peep from Trump or his followers about election fraud.

Could it be questions of “election integrity” only arise when Republicans lose? Surely not.

Youngkin walked a fine line during his campaign, repeatedly saying he believed President Joe Biden won the election, which he called “certifiably fair.” But Youngkin also called for “audits” of voting machines in the state, even though a statewide audit in March overwhelmingly verified Biden’s 2020 win.

He reportedly talked frequently on the phone with Trump, while keeping the former president at arm’s length. This brilliant strategy kept Trump from attacking Youngkin, which likely would have torpedoed his candidacy.

Now, as all eyes turn to next year’s congressional races, there’s hope voters will trust that election. Asked if they’d trust the results if their candidate did not win, 71% of Americans said they would – 88% of Democrats, 77% of Independents and 53% of Republicans, Marist reported.

A majority of Americans overall also say they will trust the results of the 2024 election even if the candidate they support loses. But the party divide is stark. While 82% of Democrats and 68% of Independents they will trust the result if the other guy wins, and only 33% of Republicans say they will.

The same Virginia electoral system that delivered victories for Democrats in the last four presidential contests has now elected Republicans as governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general and likely has given the GOP control of the House of Delegates.  

That should convince the deepest skeptic Virginia’s electoral system does work. Fair elections in the Old Dominion give all voters something to celebrate, regardless of the results.

Bye-bye, Big Lie.  

(C) Marsha Mercer 2021. All rights reserved. 

What should we carry into 2021? -- Dec. 31, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Four years ago this week, I wrote about “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien’s haunting short story about the weight of things foot soldiers carried in Vietnam.

The soldiers carried necessities as practical as mosquito repellent, as powerful as anti-personnel mines and as personal as memories. The short story is a classic, beautifully written, rich in detail and as poignant now as when it was first published in 1990.

Rereading it made me start thinking about the New Year, what I wanted to carry into 2017 and what I hoped we could leave behind.

I mainly thought we should leave behind the 2016 presidential election. At the time, the wounds of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump were still fresh. Her supporters were devastated, and recriminations were flying.

Yes, the election was a shock, but we need to let it go, I said.

Commentators were prolonging the agony, and even President Barack Obama opined that he could have beaten Trump in the general election had he been able to run again. I thought that was the kind of wishful thinking Democrats should leave behind with 2016.

In retrospect, the 2016 election was a civics lesson. While Democrats were sad about Clinton’s loss in the Electoral College, after winning 3 million more popular votes than Trump, they did not deny Trump’s victory. No one harped for weeks the election was rigged or voter fraud rampant. Clinton was gracious in defeat.

No one could have imagined then how the Trump presidency would shred democratic norms and values or that it would end in a Trumpian hail of false claims of victory, spurious attacks on election and state officials and even on Republicans who dared to acknowledge reality that Joe Biden won.

But Trump has always been all about Trump. Even after dozens of defeats in the courts challenging election results without producing any verifiable evidence and numerous failed overtures to bully state legislators into overturning the will of voters, Trump continues to rage against facts and truth.

“Can you imagine if the Republicans stole a Presidential Election from the Democrats – All hell would break out,” he tweeted Tuesday from Florida. His temper tantrums are ludicrous but also dangerous.

Trump still has many dedicated followers, and I write this knowing they will see red – and not just their MAGA hats – at my opinion.

Democrats, take note: Trump was the most admired man in America in 2020, Gallup poll reported Tuesday, with 18% of respondents naming Trump compared with 15% for Obama. Trump toppled Obama from the top slot after 12 years.

Biden came in at 6% and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, 3%.

When Gallup asks people the open-ended question which man and woman they admire most, the incumbent president usually wins, the pollster reported. But 21% of respondents this time did not offer an opinion at all and 11% named a relative or friend as the man they admire most.

So what should we leave behind in 2020? I wish we could leave the disputes over the 2020 presidential election, but we know Trump will never concede. He’ll keep flailing in the mud from Mar-a-Lago or wherever he ends up after Jan. 20. But Americans will no longer need to pay attention to his sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Biden has a rocky road ahead, and it’s made more difficult by lies that he gained the office by cheating. Biden, though, already is showing a contrast with the last four years of megalomania. He has the experience at governing that should help restore confidence in our battered institutions.

He’s surrounding himself with a diverse group of competent people, starting with his choice for vice president. Kamala Harris will inspire new generations of young people to public service.

And what should we carry into 2021? You already know. We need to keep our masks and hand sanitizer close and our social distance. We need to fight coronavirus fatigue and be ready to roll up our sleeve to take the COVID-19 vaccine when it’s our turn.

That’s the only way we truly will put 2020 behind us.

Happy New Year.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

A running mate matters more this year -- March 5, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Democratic voters have spoken, and they’ve said “no” to presidential candidates who are 1) youngish, 2) female, 3) black or 4) rich.

Gone are candidates Cory Booker, 50; Pete Buttiegieg, 38; Amy Klobuchar, 59; Kamala Harris, 55, and many others. Tulsi Gabbard, 38, is forgotten but not quite gone. 

Money didn’t buy presidential hopefuls love or victory. Mike Bloomberg spent an astonishing $560 million on TV, radio and digital ads as of Tuesday, according to CNN, and dropped out Wednesday after winning only America Samoa on Super Tuesday.

Tom Steyer spent $210 million on ads before he dropped out after coming in third in South Carolina, winning no delegates.  

So, we have a Democratic contest between two white male senior citizens: Biden, who will be 78 on Election Day, and Bernie Sanders, a heart attack survivor who will be 79. 

Both are said to be fit for the rigors of the job, as is President Donald Trump, who will be 74 on Election Day. Trump’s unscheduled visit to Walter Reed hospital last year remains a mystery.

Elizabeth Warren, 70, is assessing her future, as of this writing, after coming in no higher than third in any state. She is a smart, effective senator who has much to offer in the Senate.

Biden, the new frontrunner, won at least nine of the 14 Super Tuesday states, including Virginia. Sanders won Colorado, Utah, Vermont and is projected to win delegate-rich California, which is still counting votes. 

A presidential election between oldies is not necessarily a bad thing. In a country where the average life-expectancy age is 76 for men, though, running mates may become a bigger deal this year. Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, is 61.

First and foremost, the running mate should be qualified to be president. The Constitution requires only a natural born citizen at least age 35 and a resident of the United States for the last 14 years.

To energize women disappointed by the lack of a viable woman in the race, the nominee should pick a running mate who is not an old, white male. Sorry, Sherrod Brown, whose name often appears on short lists of potential running mates. The U.S. senator from Ohio is 67.

Another temptation to stifle is picking a running mate with more sizzle than substance. We’ve seen what happens when a presidential contender of a certain age wants to juice his campaign with a younger outsider running mate.

In 2008, Republican John McCain, 72, picked Alaska Gov. and self-described “Mama grizzly bear” Sarah Palin, 44. The disastrous choice made people wonder about McCain’s judgment.

A running mate can also be reassuring. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama, 46, wanted someone with “gray in his hair” who he thought would not aspire to the presidency. Biden, 65, was a safe choice with decades of Senate experience, which Obama lacked.

Should he win the nomination, Sanders already has said his running mate must back Medicare for All, his controversial single-payer health-care plan. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 30, is too young to be VP. Thank goodness.

Biden, should he win, will need to show he’s stable but not ossified. He has teased several women’s names as potential running mates – among them Stacey Abrams, failed gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, and Michelle Obama. Obama has repeatedly said she’s not interested in running for office.

Abrams said she’d be “honored” to run for vice president and “absolutely” wants to be president herself. She is African American, 46, a Yale law school graduate, former Georgia state representative and Georgia House minority leader.

But, she has baggage as a tax lawyer who didn’t pay her own taxes in 2015 and 2016. She said during the 2018 campaign she needed the money to pay her family’s medical bills.

Republicans attacked her on the issue and likely would again, even though last year she reportedly paid off the $54,000 in federal taxes she owed as well as $170,000 in student loan and credit card debt.

While presidential nominees usually shy away from picking former rivals as running mates, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar are all attractive former competitors who’ve been vetted and would balance a Biden or Sanders ticket.

Nobody votes for a president based on the running mate, but the choice is a candidate’s first big decision. Whoever wins the Democratic presidential nomination this year will need to make the choice seriously, carefully and boldly.

(C)2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.