The Purpling of Virginia

By QUENTIN KIDD
TIMES-DISPATCH GUEST COLUMNIST
NEWPORT NEWS The great scholar of Southern politics, V.O. Key, once said of Virginia's political class: "[It] demonstrates a sense of honor, an aversion to open venality, a degree of sensitivity to public opinion, a concern for efficiency in administration, and, so long as it does not cost much, a feeling of social responsibility."
Key, of course was describing the Byrd organization, the oligarchy that ruled Virginia for half a century. Harry Byrd Sr.'s political machine may be a thing of the past, but some of the values of its political philosophy -- principally an aversion to taxes and little interest in government services -- echo in Virginia to this day, and are one of the main reasons Virginia is changing from a politically red state into a shade of purple.
While the 1950s may be known in Virginia as the decade of Massive Resistance, it is also the decade when the first modern debate about taxes and services took place.
In 1953 the Republican gubernatorial candidate, State Sen. Ted Dalton, proposed a $100 million revenue bond to finance highway building in the commonwealth. Prior to this proposal, Dalton's candidacy for governor had not garnered much attention from the Byrd people, but as soon as he proposed such a radical policy change as borrowing money to build highways, Byrd himself got involved and actively campaigned against Dalton.
At the beginning of the 1960s the Democrats, although fractured and unstable, were still dominant in Virginia. There was plenty of evidence that change was in the air -- but its shape had not really become clear. In January 1960, there were about 1 million registered voters; the governor was a Democrat (there had not been a Republican governor in the 20th century); there were six Republicans in the 140-person General Assembly (and no African-American had served in that body since 1891); and there were two Republicans in the 10-person congressional delegation.
Ten years later, in January 1970, Virginia had nearly 2 million registered voters; the governor-elect was a Republican (Linwood Holton); there were 31 Republicans and three African-Americans in the 140-person General Assembly; and five of the 10-person congressional delegation ran with a Republican label.
The 1960s and 1970s marked a period of instability and realignment of Virginia's political parties. Democrats were composed of African-Americans, progressive liberals, labor, and central-city voters. Republicans were composed of social and economic conservatives, longtime small government conservatives (who traditionally had composed the Republican Party of Virginia and simply stayed when the Byrd people came over), and pro-business conservatives.
While the two parties traded control of the governor's mansion almost on the decade between 1970 and the turn of the century, Republicans made slow but steady gains in the General Assembly, taking control of both chambers by 2000 to complete the realignment. Virginia had gone from being a solidly conservative one-party Democratic state in the 1950s to a firmly conservative two-party state by 2000.
The small-government, low-taxes, low-services ideological heart of Virginia's conservatism appeared still firmly rooted. The majority of voters did not seem interested in either party moving far from the right-of-center "mainstream." Few could see how the suburbs would soon loosen those roots and change the political hue of the state.
Virginia didn't really have suburbs in the 1950s. What we now call Northern Virginia was just beginning to emerge as a coherent presence, but the suburban growth and sprawl that we have come to know simply did not exist. Virginia started experiencing this suburban growth in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Said growth accelerated rapidly in the 1970s, and then went through another rapid acceleration in the 1990s -- an expansion that continues to this day.
While the conservative values of Byrd-era Virginia are rural values at their core, suburbs and suburban voters played an important role in the realignment of Virginia politics and in helping conservatism remain dominant in Virginia. They are also responsible for the purpling of Virginia.
Suburban voters initially wanted to move away from the problems of the cities. They wanted good, clean, and safe schools, and safe streets and neighborhoods. Suburbs tended to be filled largely with white people, middle-class people, and those self-described as fiscally and socially conservative.
Republicans argued for low taxes and small government, and this worked well electorally for the GOP in suburban Virginia. Why? Because middle-class suburban Virginians liked low taxes, and because they lived in relatively new communities, with relatively new infrastructure (such as schools and roads). Since many of them earned a good middle-class living and were relatively young (middle-age), they had little need for much government. The problems of the cities were distant. Suburban dwellers had good jobs that provided health care benefits, and while they might have had to drive a little further than they would prefer to get to work, it wasn't too unbearable.
However, as suburbanization rapidly increased in the 1990s and 2000s, some problems began to emerge that looked a lot like the problems cities have always had to deal with: schools became increasingly overcrowded and roads became unbearably congested. Suburban voters began to discover their desire for government and the services it provides. Republicans have had a hard time responding to these new suburban realities. The low-tax, low-services legacy that is at the heart of conservative Virginia is still an active and powerful influence in the Republican Party and it has caused Republicans to increasingly fall out of favor with suburban voters.
The souring of suburban voters on the GOP has resulted in the election of two Democratic governors in a row, both of whom ran campaigns that focused on core service issues such as highways, education, and the role of government in providing services. Jim Webb's election to the U.S. Senate had different circumstances, but it is safe to say that those suburban voters who pushed him over the top had been made more comfortable with the idea of voting Democratic by the candidacies of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. And this fall, Barak Obama will hope that same comfort level has traction for him as well.
Former Attorney General Mary Sue Terry once said that where she grew up in Southwest Virginia's Patrick County, they never expected government to do much for them and were never disappointed. That, however, is not the attitude of suburban voters, and Virginia is purpling because of it. Quentin Kidd is the chairman of the Department of Government at Christopher Newport University.