Another Rethuglican Hater Running for Virginia's Governorship

[Lorax]

Robert McDonnell announced his candidacy for the 2009 Virginia Gubernatorial election at American Legion's Boy's State of Virginia 2007, making him the seventh consecutive elected Attorney General to run.

The GOP nominated McDonnell without significant opposition to be their nominee for Governor. Creigh Deeds won the Democratic Party primary, which sets up a rematch between the two candidates who ran for attorney general 4 years earlier.

In contrast to his Democratic opponents and Democratic Gov. Kaine, McDonnell is campaigning to begin petroleum exploration and development off the coast of Virginia.

McDonnell opposed the acceptance of $125 million in federal stimulus funds to enable Virginia to extend unemployment benefits to Virginians who work part time or are in approved job training programs because, according to his campaign, it would create "an unfunded federal mandate to permanently expand benefits with one time funding poses an undue hardship on the taxpayers and employers.

Thus the long term effect would not be good for economic development. After the Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates narrowly voted to reject the federal funds, McDonnell's stance was the subject of an opposing ad by Common Sense Virginia, a political action committee.

McDonnell said the ad was "deceptive", and he called Common Sense Virginia "an out of state partisan attack dog group funded by big national unions".

McDonnell's 1989 thesis for Regent University, a Christofascist college founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, a 93-page document entitled "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of The Decade," has gained attention in the campaign because it outlined a 15-point conservative Republican/Christian political agenda, 10 of which points McDonnell pursued during his years in the General Assembly, according to press analysis.

These positions "included ... opposition to abortion in cases of rape or incest ..., covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional "family" and public policy discrimination against those he labled as "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators."

Is this guy living in the middle ages, or what?

In this master thesis he also declared his belief that working women harmed the family and described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

The American Taliban at it's finest, folks.

[Lorax]

At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family.

He said government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

The 93-page document, which is publicly available at the Regent University library, culminates with a 15-point action plan that McDonnell said the Republican Party should follow to protect American families -- a vision that he started to put into action soon after he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.

During his 14 years in the General Assembly, McDonnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family.

In 2001, he voted against a resolution in support of ending wage discrimination between men and women.

"Virginians will judge me on my 18-year record as a legislator and Attorney General and the specific plans I have laid out for our future -- not on a decades-old academic paper I wrote as a student during the Reagan era and haven't thought about in years."

McDonnell added: "Like everybody, my views on many issues have changed as I have gotten older."

What he wrote in the thesis on women in the workplace, he said, "was simply an academic exercise and clearly does not reflect my views."

McDonnell's opponent, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds [[Bath), and other Democrats have sought to highlight McDonnell's conservative record, saying he is obscuring a large part of his background to get elected.

Deeds recently spoke to women's groups about McDonnell's record on abortion, saying that voters needed to know about his stances.

"There is a just a massive effort underway to rebrand Bob McDonnell, and his whole legislative career speaks otherwise," said former delegate Barnie K. Day [[D-Patrick), who supports Deeds. "The voters have a right to know who these candidates really are."

When asked about Regent, McDonnell generally responds that it is one of many schools he has attended.

The school was founded by Pat Robertson and named for his Christian Broadcasting Network.

McDonnell said that he was seeking a faith-based institution that explored the Christian origins of Western law and that he and his wife wanted to return to Virginia, where they grew up.

The school expected students to take their faith seriously; they were admitted only after signing a statement affirming that Jesus Christ was their savior.

The school also produced a number of politically active conservatives.

Its Web site used to say that 150 of its graduates worked in President George W. Bush's administration. Regent's motto: Christian leadership to change the world.

The combination of faith and public service was on McDonnell's mind, too. His 1989 thesis -- "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of The Decade" -- was on the subject he wanted to explore at Regent: the link between Christianity and U.S. law.

The document was written to fulfill the requirements of the two degrees he was seeking at Regent, a master of arts in public policy and a juris doctor in law.

The thesis wasn't so much a case against government as a blueprint to change what he saw as a liberal model into one that faith-actively promoted conservative, based principles through tax policy, the public schools, welfare reform and other avenues.

"Leaders must correct the conventional folklore about the separation of church and state," he wrote.

"Historically, the religious liberty guarantees of the First Amendment were intended to prevent government encroachment upon the free church, not eliminate the impact of religion on society."

He argued for covenant marriage, a legally distinct type of marriage intended to make it more difficult to obtain a divorce.

He advocated character education programs in public schools to teach "traditional Judeo-Christian values" and other principles that he thought many youths were not learning in their homes.

He called for less government encroachment on parental authority, for example, redefining child abuse to "exclude parental spanking."

He lamented the "purging of religious influence" from public schools. And he criticized federal tax credits for child care expenditures because they encouraged women to enter the workforce.

"Further expenditures would be used to subsidize a dynamic new trend of working women and feminists that is ultimately detrimental to the family by entrenching status-quo of nonparental primary nurture of children," he wrote.

He went on to say feminism is among the "real enemies of the traditional family."

McDonnell said in his statement that he is "fully supportive of the tremendous contributions women make in the workplace.

He called for the repeal of the estate tax and for the adoption of a modified flat tax to replace the graduated income tax.

Awarding deductions and distributions based on need "is socialist," McDonnell wrote.

His advocacy of abortion restrictions is well known; he sponsored or co-sponsored numerous pieces of legislation on the topic, including a ban on late-term abortions, a requirement that minors receive parental consent before having an abortion and a mandated 24-hour waiting period for women seeking an abortion.

He and like-minded colleagues succeeded in repealing Virginia's estate tax and reforming welfare law, as well as restricting access to abortion.

He also sponsored bills on four occasions to establish covenant marriage in Virginia. All four were unsuccessful.

Under McDonnell's proposals, couples choosing to enter covenant marriage would have been required to obtain premarital counseling and sign a declaration of intent acknowledging that marriage is a lifelong commitment.

In addition, the time of separation necessary for couples with children to obtain a no-fault divorce would have been extended from one to two years.

One controversy that drew wide attention was an effort in the General Assembly in 2003 to end the judicial career of Verbena M. Askew, a Circuit Court judge from Newport News who had been accused of sexual harassment by a woman who worked for her.

As chairman of the Courts of Justice Committee, McDonnell led the effort in the House. He said he was opposed to Askew's reappointment because she didn't disclose, as required, that she was a party to a legal proceeding.

McDonnell was widely quoted at the time as saying that homosexual activity raised questions about a person's qualifications to be a judge.

Spokesman Tucker Martin said McDonnell was misquoted and does not consider homosexuality a disqualifying factor for judgeships or other jobs.

Askew, who was not reappointed, denied any wrongdoing and was never found by a court to have harassed the employee.

Republican friends who support McDonnell's campaign for governor acknowledge parting ways with some of his more conservative views.

Former governor and U.S. senator George Allen said he doesn't share McDonnell's opposition to abortion in cases of rape or incest.

"There should always be an exception," he said. And state Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle [[Virginia Beach), a close friend first elected to the legislature the same year as McDonnell, described covenant marriage as "the state overstepping its bounds."

Allen, Stolle and other Republicans say that such positions represent a small piece of McDonnell's record.

McDonnell is quick to point out his promotion of criminal justice legislation, an interest that stemmed from his two years as an assistant prosecutor in Virginia Beach after his graduation from Regent.

He points to a record of bipartisan cooperation as attorney general that included toughening Virginia's laws on sex offenders, cracking down on identity theft and promoting stricter laws against animal fighting.

He says that he worked closely with Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, particularly in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, and that he was praised by Democrats on the day he left office for his handling of the Virginia Tech crisis and other accomplishments.

Del. Robert G. Marshall [[R-Prince William), who has shared most of McDonnell's conservative positions over the years, said there is no question that the candidate is playing down his conservatism today.

Marshall said McDonnell risks alienating two groups of voters: moderates who might view him as hiding his true beliefs and conservatives who might think that he is no longer conservative enough.

"If you duck something, that tells your opponents that you think your position is a liability," said Marshall, who is backing McDonnell.

"Why else wouldn't you acknowledge it? But I'll tell you, I've got precinct captains who are annoyed that he's not answering these questions. He doesn't have to bash people in the head with it. But he doesn't have to put it in the closet, either.

There's a balance you can take."

We know this guy is a self-identified Evangelical- do we need to know anything more? I think we already know where he stands on the issues.