The McDonnell election was an excellent win for Republicans and conservatives.  Bob McDonnell ran a brilliant, positive campaign that appealed to independents and many Democrats – one that will probably be studied for some time to come – in contrast to the tired old politics-of-destruction, no-new-ideas approach that the Deeds campaign took, which most voters are so weary of after less than a year of Obamanation.

I think McDonnell will be an excellent Governor for our Commonwealth – jobs, education, pushing for offshore drilling, etc. – but the candidate that really got the conservative base fired up for this election was the candidate for Attorney General, State Senator Ken Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli, a home-schooling dad, is very solid on all of the core social issues, and this pulled together an expanded base of evangelicals, conservative Catholics, home-schoolers, 2nd Amendment proponents (Ken is a regular at many local gun shows), and other like-minded Tea Party activists, etc. We had not seen a major grassroots effort like this in Virginia for some time. Many of us became politically active for the first time and flooded the state Republican convention as new delegates. That put Ken over the top in a three-way race for the AG spot on the ballot back in the summer.

His Democrat opponent, Steve Shannon, had more money coming in early on for television ads from big special interests, whereas Ken’s campaign was really mostly grassroots, with mom-and-pop donations pouring in from all over to get him across the finish line, which we did.

Now to the Obama Administration nightmare scenario:   Ken is a true believer in the 10th Amendment. The nightmare for the Obama Administration that will emerge is that, while McDonnell will be busy trying to create jobs and lower taxes and get our economic house in order in a center-right fashion, Cuccinelli will be busy challenging the feds on the legal front and going on the offensive right in DC’s own back yard, heh heh.  It will be fun to watch…. And we’re just getting warmed up.