More on Virginia Election

Sailorcurt does some more analysis of the election results in Virginia, which I talked about earlier here.

The Brady campaign seems to have a tendency to stick with “safe” endorsements. They don’t expect their endorsement to actually gain any votes for the candidates (except in certain, very specific areas) so they only make endorsements in races where they have a reasonable expectation to win.

Even with that, they don’t have a great success rate and they lost both of the races that were being touted by all involved as being “referendums on gun control”…Devolites-Davis lost her District 34 senate seat and Cuccinelli held onto his (by the skin of his teeth) in district 37.

Yep.  And they are telling people it’s a win.

The strange thing is that the NRA seems to have the same tendency as the Brady Campaign. The NRA absolutely CAN have an impact on the election results but in many cases they seem to worry more about getting the “W” than supporting the superior candidates.

For example: In Senate district 14, the NRA supported “B” rated Henry Blevins against extremely Pro-gun (and VCDL endorsed) libertarian candidate Donald Tabor. There was no anti-gun candidate in the race so there was no danger of splitting the pro-gun vote…so why not support the superior candidate? Unless, of course, the “W” is more important than upholding principles.

Not all that strange.  Most groups that issue endorsements will endorse as many safe, friendly seats as they can in order to inflate the value of their endorsements.  I called out Brady mostly because they lost in the ones where they really took chances, and then touted it as a victory.

The main reason NRA won’t endorse Libertarian candidates is because Libertarians don’t win.  If you endorse the Libertarian, the Republican who didn’t get your endorsement is going to be pissed at you, and might decide his B grade isn’t worth keeping.

Read Sailorcurt’s whole post.  It’s a good analysis of the election.  I’ve also written in the past about the Grading/Endorsement system, and how it’s more politics than principle.