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Gov. Glenn Youngkin last week got to experience some of the things that make the western part of Virginia unique.
First he couldn’t fly into Wise County for a speaking engagement because a cloud was sitting on top of the mountaintop airport. Instead, his state plane diverted to Abingdon and the governor took a 49-mile ride to the town of Wise. His police escort couldn’t clear away one obstacle, though: a 100-ton boulder that, loosened by overnight rains, had fallen onto the road.
The governor persevered, though. Even though he was running late due to the elements, he made all of his scheduled events last Thursday in Southwest Virginia — the Southwest Virginia Economic Forum at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise where he talked about his economic initiatives for the region, a visit to Abingdon High School for a ceremonial bill-signing with students, and a visit to Richlands to tour the water plant and talk with local business leaders.
Curiously, at about the same time that Youngkin was going out of his way, literally, to make appearances in Southwest Virginia, the news was breaking that a fellow Republican had said he couldn’t be bothered to drive to Abingdon to meet with voters.
You may have already read that story about Hung Cao, one of the five candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in a June 18 primary to challenge Democrat Tim Kaine this fall. If not, here’s the short version: Virginia’s two Gannett newspapers, in Staunton and Petersburg, published a story pointing out that Cao launched a political action committee last year that he said would raise money for General Assembly candidates, but campaign finance reports show none of the money actually went to them (it went mostly to his own political consultants instead). While the story ran in multiple Gannett papers around the country, it was generally attributed in Virginia to the Staunton News Leader. Rather than explain what happened, Cao responded by blasting the Staunton paper as a “podunk local newspaper.”
Later, in a virtual town hall meeting with Fauquier County Republicans, Cao doubled down on his criticism of the paper, again calling it a “podunk newspaper” and “everybody in Staunton knows that, they laugh at those people. You wouldn’t even wrap your fish with that.”
Then he went on to criticize the multiple campaign forums that various Republican units have been holding — and which he’s been skipping. “I’ll sit here [behind the camera] all night if you want to, but for me to drive six and a half hours down to Abingdon or something like that and to stand there with four other dudes and to have 30 seconds to answer questions, it’s just ridonkulous, it’s just crazy.”
Wow.
I’ve been covering Virginia politics for a long time and I’ve seen politicians do a lot of really dumb things, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a candidate so dismissive of his own party’s base as Cao is.
Both the Shenandoah Valley (where Staunton is) and Southwest Virginia (where Abingdon is) are part of the Republican heartland. Staunton these days trends slightly Democratic, but the much more populous territory around it — territory served by that Staunton paper — is quite conservative. Augusta County regularly votes 70% or more Republican. Washington County, where Abingdon is, comes close to 80%. These are places where a Republican candidate ought to be solicitous — not places where you apply the insult “podunk” to a prominent local institution (even one you might have a beef with), and certainly not places you say are too far to drive to.
Rural Virginia has grown accustomed to being ignored by some (but not all) Democratic candidates. The annual Labor Day parade in Buena Vista used to be a required stop for statewide contenders from both parties; now statewide Democratic candidates have largely given up on that tradition. And rural America in general has too often been a punching bag for some on the left. The most recent example is the book “White Rural Rage,” which smears rural communities across the land as dangerous breeding grounds for white supremacists who want to overthrow democracy. (I wrote an earlier column disputing that.)
I’ve never, though, seen a Republican so cavalier in his treatment of places where his party is strongest.
I get that Republicans think they can profit by attacking “the news media,” but usually that means some configuration of CNN, MSNBC or those old standbys, The Washington Post and The New York Times — not a small local daily, even one owned by a major media corporation. I’m looking through the News Leader right now. What I see are photos from the graduation ceremonies at Augusta County’s high schools, a softball player at Riverheads High School named athlete of the week, and a report on how Waynesboro High School could get a $46 million renovation. That doesn’t sound like the work of “left-wing hacks” to me, and I’m pretty sure that people in Staunton aren’t laughing at those stories. Cao might want to actually address the story about him, but let’s move on from there.
Today I’m more curious about his complaint that it’s too far to drive from his home in Loudoun County to Abingdon to stand on a stage with his fellow Republican candidates and answer the same questions they’ve fielded in many other places.
It’s not just Abingdon, either. The Pittsylvania County Republican Committee posted on Facebook that four of the party’s five Senate candidates had visited the county — but “unfortunately, we have not seen nor heard of Hung Cao visiting Pittsylvania County and we hope that he comes to Pittsylvania County before June 18.” Pittsylvania is a 75% Republican county. Based on the 2021 governor’s race, there are more Republican votes to be had in Pittsylvania than there are in some major cities in Virgnia. More than in Alexandria, more than in Hampton, more than in Lynchburg, more than in Richmond, more than in Norfolk, more than in Roanoke. It’s also place where the Republican primary vote is likely to be elevated there because of the hotly contested race between U.S. Rep. Bob Good and state Sen. John McGuire for the 5th District Republican congressional nomination. The Pittsylvania County Republican Committee shouldn’t have to beg Cao to visit.
It sounds to me as if Cao simply doesn’t like to campaign.
Furthermore, it sounds as if he doesn’t understand the purpose of a campaign.
A campaign isn’t simply to educate voters. It’s also to educate the candidates — particularly candidates at the statewide level.
Virginia is a diverse state, and no candidate — especially a first-time statewide candidate (Cao has run previously for the U.S. House in Northern Virginia) — can fully appreciate that until, yes, they’ve made that six-hour trip to Abingdon. And beyond.
Standing on a stage and giving short, time-limited answers to the same questions over and over may not seem a good use of a candidate’s time, but that’s looking at things too narrowly. What might Cao (or any other candidate) learn from driving to a campaign forum in Abingdon that he might not learn from a virtual meeting? I can think of quite a few things.
First, there’s the informal interaction with voters off the formal campaign stage, something you can’t get virtually.
Second, he might find that six-and-a-half-hour drive to Abingdon sometimes takes longer than Google Maps says it should. All it takes is one fender-bender on Christiansburg Mountain and the whole interstate comes to a halt, and there’s really no other way to get where you’re going. A year or so ago, I drove to Wytheville to meet our Bristol-based reporter halfway to deliver a new laptop. We were each about two hours late because traffic both ways was disrupted by wrecks or roadwork. That six-and-a-half-hour (or more) drive might seem like wasted time to a candidate, but it’s actually a good education that might help inform their policy views on federal highway funding — or federal funding for Amtrak. Or federal funding for small airports. Take your pick. That might sound like the kind of big spending Republicans don’t like, but that’s also part of the education here — the biggest proponents in Richmond for more funding for Interstate 81, and expanding Amtrak to Bristol, are Republicans.
Next, Cao might learn things about Abingdon, or communities along the way, that he doesn’t know. Here are some things I’ve seen up and down I-81 on my recent travels that, at some level, involve federal policy. There’s now a solar farm in Rockbridge County (it’s right by the interstate; you can’t miss it). This is less visible to see, but the Roanoke and New River valleys are now home to multiple companies — Mack Trucks in Roanoke County and Volvo in Pulaski County being the biggest — that are making electric trucks. Wythe County would like to be home to a major manufacturer of medical gloves, but that project is now on hold. If Cao were to get off the interstate, he might pass small hospitals in Wytheville and Marion. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll see one right beside the interstate in Washington County, and the economic challenges facing small, rural hospitals is well-known. Federal policy runs through all these things, and the reality on the ground often defies easy talking points for both parties.
If Cao’s not willing to drive to Abingdon to meet potential voters, and see their community firsthand, what’s going to happen if he were to get elected? Our two current senators — Democrats Kaine and Mark Warner — routinely make multiday trips through Southwest Virginia, and there’s certainly no political benefit to them, given how deeply red those counties are these days. But they do it anyway, because that’s what senators are expected to do. They don’t Zoom in. They actually go there, just as their Republican predecessors did. It’s part of the job — first the job of being a candidate, and then the job of being an officeholder.
Here’s something else a candidate might learn after driving to a campaign forum in Abingdon: There’s still a lot of Virginia left west of there. Google Maps says the drive from Abingdon to the Cumberland Gap is two hours and nine minutes, but I’ve made that drive and I’m here to tell you, don’t believe it: Get behind one slow-moving truck, and you’re in for a much longer drive. Or, as Youngkin found out, maybe there’s a 100-ton boulder in the way. He didn’t complain about the distance or the delay — and I haven’t heard him call anything “podunk,” either. After all, these are the people and places that helped elect him. They might help elect Cao, too, if he’d actually take time to go there.
