RICHMOND, Va. – When other Democrats were satisfied with the usual “happy talk” and attacking those of us who didn’t follow the party line, I wrote honestly about the Medicaid Expansion debate in my Washington Post column co-authored with the state’s top conservative writer Norm Leahy.
We said Governor McAuliffe and the Democrats in the General Assembly had “played the political game,” that the Governor “needs to ditch the talking points” of the political game, “[t]hey aren’t going to change any minds.”
The latest poll on the Medicaid Expansion Debate shows that Norm and I got it right. We were the only ones giving the Governor honest, accurate advice. Click here to read what we said and click here to read the latest poll numbers.
Don’t get me wrong, the column said the GOP likewise played the political game.
We weren’t impressed with their politics either, but since it is the Governor’s top priority, he has potentially the most to gain or lose on the outcome.
I don’t write to please the political elite. I write for YOU, to give YOU honest analysis, honest facts, the only such bipartisan political column in the country as the Washington Post has said, or my WTVR.com column which is unique in our area.
It is the same approach I used to expose the truth about the Mayor’s Shockoe Boondoggle. His “sweetheart” contracts and deal for the politically connected smacks more and more of the “cesspool of corruption and inefficiency” that he/Mr. Hicks/ Senator Marsh and others backed when they called me the usual racial names for daring to challenge the status quo in 2003.
But the public backed these reform efforts, and because of it, Mayor Wilder – using my analysis – killed the cesspool of corruption and inefficiency associated with a version of the current Shockoe Stadium boondoggle.
The dirty little secret about that Shockoe Stadium proposal has never be told. However, we can save it for another day.
Today, we discuss the latest Medicaid Expansion poll which should be a wake-up call to Democrats. The public has become increasingly unhappy about the direction of the country and this is beginning to bleed over into their views on things here in Virginia.
What makes this situation politically ominous for incumbents is the stock market is at record highs, home prices have risen to levels not seen since before the Great Recession and the unemployment rate has likewise come back down a good ways.
But all this apparent good economic news isn’t registering with the public because, as I have written in the past, there is a vicious “middle class squeeze” worrying Virginians.
The public, in my view, sees the Mayor’s wasteful, Shockoe Stadium boondoggle as part of the “corruption and inefficiency” they believed they had voted out of City Hall.
Mark my words, every day the Mayor and City Council keep doing what they are doing with the Shockoe Stadium boondoggle, wasting more money studying it, trying to find a way they can vote for it, they are alienating the people who voted them into office.
Mayor Jones’ pro-Shockoe posse believes it can win in Richmond by calling myself and other opponents “racist” as the Richmond Times-Dispatch labelled their tactics.
The Mayor made a huge mistake, as did his allies at the Richmond Crusade, as did his allies when they tried to throw me out of the Easter Parade for getting signatures on the referendum petition.
The Jones pro-stadium posse's attacks on the character of myself and other citizens for daring to circulate a referendum petition, harassing us at the Easter Parade are boomeranging.
The Governor is way too savvy to fall into the Jones trap. I urge him and his staff to read our Washington Post column again.
Paul Goldman is in no way affiliated with WTVR. His comments are his own, and do not reflect the views of WTVR or any related entity. Neither WTVR nor any of its employees or agents participated in any way with the preparation of Mr. Goldman’s comments.
