To Her Excellency, Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger:
Congratulations on your historic victory. By noon on Saturday, we can drop the “-elect” from your salutation. I’m sure lots of people are right now giving you advice, so allow me to join them. I’m not going to give you advice on specific positions to take, but I will offer some general advice on how to deal with a part of Virginia that didn’t vote for you except in a few blue places. I’ll forgo my usual tendency to produce a long list — you know, “47 things to know about Pittsylvania County” — and keep this one to just five things that should serve you well.
1. Make sure you’re seen handling natural disasters well.
At some point in your term, probably several points, you’re going to get a call from your emergency services people who are going to tell you there is some natural disaster that’s either just happened or is about to happen. Maybe this is something that can be planned for, such as an impending hurricane or blizzard. Maybe it’s something that’s happened unexpectedly, such as one of those random storms that parks itself over some mountaintop and floods the valley below.
Whatever the circumstances, acknowledge the situation quickly and get there as fast as you can. Gov. Glenn Youngkin earned a reputation in Southwest Virginia for being on top of floods, be they big ones such as Hurricane Helene or the small ones that have periodically drenched the region. If I were grading his crisis management skills, I’d give him an A-plus. He showed up as soon as possible — and then came back to check on things. The farther west you go in Virginia, the more estranged from state government people feel — yet the more likely there is to be some natural disaster, or at least that’s the way it seems. Even if there’s nothing you can do, show up anyway. People remember that kind of thing.
There may well be some policy dimensions in terms of money available for flood relief, but before anyone gets to the policy there’s simply the public relations aspect of being seen as in charge during a crisis. If you’re ever in doubt about whether a situation is worth going to check out firsthand, err on the side of going.
In the meantime, if you’d like to better understand the weather in this part of the state, may I suggest you sign up for weather journalist Kevin Myatt’s weekly newsletter, which you can do right here. And if you’re not already signed up for our weekly political newsletter, you can do that right now, too.
2. Show up. A lot.
Several governors ago, we had a governor who attended a jobs announcement in the western part of the state for a relatively small number of jobs. The legislator from that area told me that a legislator from another part of the state was baffled: Why would the governor go all that way to talk up just a few jobs? The legislator from out here informed his Northern Virginia counterpart that while the number of jobs involved might be insignificant somewhere else, it was a really big deal here.
Remember what I said about how the farther west you go in Virginia the more people feel disconnected from their government, no matter which party the governor is from? The only real fix to that is to show up — a lot.
I understand that during the campaign you didn’t have much reason to come out this way — there were more votes to be found elsewhere. I understand the math, even if I don’t like it. But now that the campaign is over, you’re in a different position — and people across Southwest and Southside are looking to you even if they didn’t vote for you. If there aren’t jobs announcements to go to, pick a few high-profile events to attend to show you understand what’s important on this side of the state. And just remember: Going to Roanoke, or even Blacksburg, doesn’t really count as visiting Southwest Virginia.
Here’s a wildcard suggestion: You’re going to get a lot of invites to speak at graduations. Most of them you can’t do; we elected a governor, not a graduation speaker. However, there are three high schools in Buchanan County that will close at the end of this school year and be consolidated into the new Southern Gap High School. It’s a traumatic experience for those communities to lose their high schools. It’s also a county that during the past decade has been losing population faster than any other county in the state. What if Southern Gap’s first graduation speaker was the governor? Symbolism isn’t a substitute for policy, but any policy initiative can use some good symbolism. Whatever your policies on economic development might be, think about it through the eyes of those future Southern Gap graduates: What hope can you offer them? And can you offer them a reason why, even after whatever future education they might choose to pursue, they should return home to Buchanan County, a county that very much needs them?
3. Don’t leave Southwest and Southside out of appointments.
I understand that you have plenty of supporters you need to reward with appointments. I also understand there’s not exactly a deep bench of Democrats in Southwest and Southside to turn to. Nonetheless, I’d urge you to instruct your secretary of the commonwealth (the secretariat that deals with appointments, for those not in the know) to try to find people from Southwest and Southside for virtually every board. OK, maybe we don’t need anyone on the Marine Products Board, but please try to make sure we’re represented on other boards. And make sure your secretary of the commonwealth understands what I’ll call the Roanoke Rule: A Roanoke address doesn’t count as Southwest Virginia. Some don’t believe the New River Valley counts, either. There’s a lot more of Virginia west of that.
4. Resist the siren’s call of national politics.
Even before you were elected, I saw people online chatting you up as a potential presidential candidate. That’s flattering, both for you and for Virginia. Remember, though, that Virginia’s election schedule works against a governor seeking national office; if that were your plan, you’d need to be in Iowa before you even move into the Executive Mansion. Even if that’s not part of your plan, please resist the siren’s call of national politics. The best way to build a national profile these days seems to be having a snarky social media account. That’s not you. The second-best way to build a national profile is by doing a good job here at home. We want a governor who’s focused on this side of the Potomac and not the other side.
5. Adopt one particular idea from your opponent.
Your Republican opponent in the recent election didn’t have many ideas — no need for us to recap all that — but she did have one idea you ought to steal: She proposed creating a western office for the governor. There is some precedent for that; North Carolina has a western governor’s mansion just outside Asheville. It’s unclear how often North Carolina governors actually use it, but they do use it some — often as a place to entertain economic development prospects in the region.
Southwest Virginia has a perfect building already for a western office: the former federal courthouse in Big Stone Gap. It’s a grand, imposing structure that conveys gravitas, but now lacks its intended tenant. What if the state bought this building and turned it into a state office building that you vowed to work out of for, say, even just one week a year. The concentration of some state offices in Big Stone Gap would have a localized economic development impact but declaring this to be the western governor’s office would have a larger symbolic impact.
Fun fact: Big Stone Gap is closer to eight other state capitals than its own. Can you help it feel closer?
Join us for an online legislative preview
Cardinal News is holding an online event Tuesday, Jan. 13, at 6 p.m., where our Richmond-based political reporter, Elizabeth Beyer, and I will be talking up the upcoming legislative session. Register here.