Miller Webb Time

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

I have no idea what to make of the Harris Miller-Jim Webb primary in Virginia. In many ways, it's the mirror image of the Montana race, where the "fiery populist" (whatever the heck that means) had lots of out-of-state support, but "people who win in Virginia", like most of the Democrats state legislature, tended to support well-financed Harris Miller (except "Mudcat" Saunders, who may be the most important Democratic political operative of the last five years). I tended to think Miller's biography as a rich lobbyist and a party activist wouldn't do him much good, but in mid-2001, Mark Warner was just a rich telco executive and party activist who had a failed Senate bid to his name, so maybe it wouldn't matter. Sponsor a truck in the Craftsman Truck Series, give him a little bluegrass ditty, and he'll do just fine. Miller ran the most generic political ad in the history (viewable on his homepage) pulled straight out of a mid-90s time capsule that Bill Clinton and Mark Penn buried in Alexandria, which certainly turned me off. But all in all, I think each candidate had their strengths; Miller seemed better able to style himself as a "Warner Democrat", Webb as a "Reagan Democrat"  Both might have a reasonable longshot chance against George Allen. But the people have spoken, and Webb it is.

Here's a nice map I made. It compares Webb's performance to Miller's on a county-by-county basis. Green counties are places that Webb performed better than his 53.5% overall vote total; purple is where he performed worse. Not surprisingly, the Southeastearn portion of the state has a high concentration of African-Americans, where Webb fared worst thanks to his prior statements on affirmative action. Webb needs to pile up endorsements from leaders of the African-American community, then move the "race" issue to more favorable territory, and fast, lest 20% of the population simply decide not to vote.

Repeat after me: stop kvetching about turnout. Turnout for the 2006 primary was slightly higher than turnout for the 2005 governor's primary, which was more or less uncontested. Substantially increasing turnout is really, really hard, especially when the stakes of the election are perceived to be low. Virginia has not had primaries for much of its history, so it's not an activity voters are accustomed to.