On some days, it’s hard to tell whether The Washington Post is a newspaper or just a copy-and-paste Democratic Party newsletter. On the front of Monday’s Metro section, in a story with a modest headline – “Republicans hope to take Va. Senate” – Post reporter Anita Kumar spent the first five paragraphs (and the last five paragraphs) selling the Democratic Party of Virginia spin that the Republican nominees were “nut jobs” that made Rick Perry look sane.
Inside the paper, the headline was clearer. "Democrats: GOP too extreme to win Va. Senate." Here’s how it began:
RICHMOND – Adam Light, a Republican running for state Senate in southwest Virginia, has advocated ending Social Security and Medicare.
Former Del. Jeffrey M. Frederick, a GOP candidate in Northern Virginia, said Darwin's theory of evolution "was used by atheists to explain away the belief in God."
Dick Black, running in Loudoun and Prince William counties, was criticized by leaders of his own party in 2003, when as a delegate he sent fellow lawmakers pink plastic models of fetuses as they prepared to vote on an abortion bill.
Democrats, behind in recruiting a litnd fundraising, think the conservative crop of Republican candidates selected last month to run in November gives them the edge they need to hold on to their thin majority in the Senate.
“A lot of them are nut jobs,’’ Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) said. “They’ve nominated a group that makes the governor of Texas look sane.”
The Post website linked to the YouTube page "vademocrats" and a 2009 floor speech where Frederick spoke on the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and said he preferred Abraham Lincoln (born on the same day). How is it strange to say Darwin's theory of evolution "was used by atheists to explain away the belief in God"? That's like saying it's controversial to say "the Bible was used to explain the belief in God."
As for Black's pink fetus models, this only means that The Washington Post thinks it's more "mainstream" to kill a baby than to save a baby. It's "creepy" to hand out dolls, but not creepy to vacuum out a baby's brains.
Kumar buries the more relevant political facts on the ground which suggest the Democratic Party of Virginia is going to have a rough time trying to keep the Senate this fall. Paragraph 13 reads: “Thirteen of the 16 Republican senators seeking reelection will do so without Democratic opposition. But 16 of the 20 Democratic senators running for another term will face Republicans.” Then it's noted those "nut jobs" Light and Black are running in Republican-leaning districts.
Paragraph 16 adds: “Republicans enjoyed a nearly 2-to-1 cash advantage over Democrats as of June 30, the last reporting period...They had $13.7 million in the bank, compared with $7.4 million for Democrats, including committees controlled by candidates, parties and leaders.”
Kumar then ended the same way she began, by helpfully providing the Democrat talking points:
Tom Garrett, Louisa County’s commonwealth’s attorney, who is running in the new Senate district west of Richmond against Democrat Bert Dodson, called himself a “Cuccinelli conservative” even before receiving the sole primary endorsement from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, a tea party favorite.
Garrett has proposed mandatory drug testing for all welfare recipients and has advocated abolishing the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, which is charged with keeping air and water clean.
Ben Loyola, a businessman and veteran who is running against freshman Democrat Ralph Northam in Norfolk, has said he wants to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and eliminate corporate taxes and the income tax.
Del. Bill Carrico of Grayson, who is running against Democrat John Lamie in the race to replace retiring William Wampler in southwest Virginia, introduced a bill permitting prayer on public property, including schools.
Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple (Arlington), who chairs her chamber’s Democratic caucus, said candidates who are “conservative and outside the mainstream” will have a tough time in Virginia.
Kumar didn't focus on liberal Democrats running for Senate like openly gay Adam Ebbin and note they favor turning school bullying into a crime, a class-one misdemeanor punishable by a year in prison and up to a $2,500 fine. The bill also would enable victims to sue their harassers. The Post has never noticed this "Anti-Bullying Responsibility Act." Today's liberals: partial-birth abortion should be legal, but playground bullying is litigation bait punishable by a year in jail.
Ebbin is running in a Democratic area, but that didn't stop Kumar with "nut job" Republicans.
