Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Sufficient For a Thousand Losses

Eli thought it worthwhile to point out that Ken Cuccinelli's loss can be ascribed to many causes, many of which were sufficient in and of themselves, but all together yielded yesterday's result.  While the government shutdown, his pursuit of Michael Mann, his position on contraception and abortion all contributed, the Bunny's special correspondent, a feline friend in Fairfax points to another self-inflicted wound that was especially hurtful on Cuccinelli's home turf:  his remarks on the parallels between immigration enforcement and pest control.




When you compare immigrants to rats as he did, it does not help you with what is probably the fastest growing demographic in Northern Virginia.

Speaking on the conservative radio show "The Morning Majority," the attorney general launched into a critique of Washington, D.C.'s pest control policies, which he claimed protected rats from being killed.

"They have to relocate the rats. And, not only that, that’s actually not the worst part, they cannot break up the families of the rats!" Cuccinelli said, incorrectly suggesting that the District’s 2010 Wildlife Protection Act forced pest control specialists to dump them across the river in Virginia.
Cuccinelli then made his comparison.

"So, anyway, it is worse than our immigration policy," he said. "You can't break up rat families. Or raccoons, and all the rest, and you can't even kill 'em. It's unbelievable.
McAuliffe, the rat, even went so negative as to use Cuccinelli's comment in spanish language advertising and it had traction


4 comments:

Steve Bloom said...

All of this points to McAuliffe's extreme weakness as a candidate. It seems that for many voters it was a "vote for the lizard" election.

J Bowers said...

Goddard Space Cadet Center has a priceless explanation for why the Cooch lost.

Mal Adapted said...

J. Bowers: "Goddard Space Cadet Center"

As a former employee of Goddard Space Flight Center, I resemble that remark 8^D!

Susan Anderson said...

Much to my amazement, I got over 500 "votes" on my comment about Christie on Gail Collins at the NYTimes. I'm more used to being "discredited" at DotEarth as I continue to stand up for reality. However, one respondent pointed out something rather important.

He said that people had to press McAuliffe four times to get the Diebold machines to record a vote. I knew about those infamous voting machines, but hadn't realized they were still unfettered. Given the many who were disenfranchised in the recent shenanigans to disqualify votes in the name of preventing "fraud" (to create fraud), it is actually even more surprising that McAuliffe won.