Here's an article from NationalReviewOnline that suggests the one thing Virginians may agree on is the lackluster performance of Jim Gilmore. Note that this article was written yesterday, even before the polls closed.

[size=4]Fire Jim Gilmore[/size=4]
[b]Even if Earley wins[/b].
By Ben Domenech, November 6, 2001 1:20 p.m.

There's only one opinion that's nearly universal here in the Virginia GOP: Fire Jim Gilmore.

The vast majority of Republican activists, from the top down, blame Gilmore for the state of the Virginia governor's race. Some are still angry about his mishandling of the budget squabble earlier this year, or his grousing about the state's economic troubles over the past six months, or his failure to inject former Attorney General Mark Earley's campaign with the money they needed early on to combat Democrat Mark Warner's $17 million-plus TV ad blitz.

"Jim Gilmore had all the tools he needed to help Mark Earley win this race — RNC coffers full to the brim, a party that reunited after a tough primary, and a candidate that's more attractive than Gilmore ever could be," says one GOP county chairman. "As he's done in so many other cases, Gilmore squandered away the tools he had, and it's conservatives who are going to suffer."

The other two Virginia races, for lieutenant governor and attorney general, were thought of as sure victories for the GOP in the summer. After the Democratic primary, Republican nominees Jay Katzen and Jerry Kilgore had the luck to face two of the most liberal Democrats to run in the state since the 1970's. Kilgore will cruise to victory over lawyer Don McEachin, but polls suggest that Katzen, a state senator with a penchant for star-spangled rhetoric, will lose to Tim Kaine, the former mayor of Richmond who has a soft spot for gun control, gay marriage, abortion, and rolling back the death penalty. Some GOPers privately hope that it's Kaine, not Warner, who becomes the face of the Democratic party in Virginia over the next four years.

As it stands today, Earley can still win in this race — but it'd have to be a Bret Schundler-style victory, a come-from-behind shocker. Of the six different sources for nonpartisan media polls conducted in the past three weeks, only those conducted by the Washington Post show Warner with a wide lead in the race. The other four, polls from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, and WJLA/ABC-7 TV show a much slimmer margin between the two candidates, frequently with percentage leads for Warner falling within the margin of error. The most recent poll, conducted by WJLA, showed typical results, with Warner receiving 50% of support from likely and registered voters, and Earley receiving 46%, with a 4.5% margin of error. The wisdom on the battleground holds that this is really a five-point race, despite the Post's repeated emphasis on their own double-digit Warner margins (an oddity noted this weekend by the Post's own unrepentantly clueless Old Dominion reporter, Robert Melton).

-continued -

If Earley were to pull off a slim victory, it would probably come as a gift from Hampton Roads, the southeastern portion of the state. Earley is a Hampton Roads native who represented parts of Chesapeake and Virginia Beach in the state senate for a decade, and campaign adviser Chris LaCivita has said that the 1.5 million people on the peninsula and in South Hampton Roads are critical to Earley's success. While Earley may have recovered some ground in Southwest Virginia, where Warner made headway after an ongoing flirtation with the NRA and sportsmen groups, no GOP candidate can afford to have losses in the Tidewater region against a Northern Virginia Democrat like Warner. Earley's attacks on Warner's support for a $900 million tax-hike/transportation referendum in Northern Virginia also comes into play here, as Warner has said he would let Hampton Roads voters follow suit if the general assembly put the question on the ballot.

Mark Earley came into this race with the opportunity to become one of the most articulate, attractive, and outstandingly conservative governors in the nation. Many in the media labeled him as the second coming of George Allen — but Earley was never one to mimic Allen's aw-shucks style, and journalists are quick to forget that Governor Allen wasn't the close friend of conservatism in 1993 that he is today. Instead of the smashmouth tactics of Jim Gilmore, Earley's candidacy supplied a more unique persona — a missionary who challenged Ferdinand Marcos's regime in the Phillippines, Earley was frequently endorsed by NAACP chapters and local unions during his stay in the state senate, and in the 1997 elections, Earley won significantly more votes from women and minority populations than either Gilmore or Lieutenant Governor John Hager. An intellectual conservative who reaches out to the inner cities and has a lifetime of work in Virginia, Earley's campaign held all the promise of a great administration for the ideals of the right.
*     *     *
See how the loyal are repaid: In Sunday's Washington Post, Gilmore claimed that Warner simply "outdid" Earley, in his campaign's actions and strategy. Again, that's Chairman of the RNC Jim Gilmore, speaking before Election Day, admitting that maybe Terry McAuliffe and the Connecticut Yankee just ran a better campaign.

There must be some grand strategy to Gilmore's actions — why he allowed Democrats to completely control the spin surrounding the budget battle in the state this summer, why he forced Earley's campaign to run on fumes, getting outspent 2-1 despite the flush RNC coffers, why he made more dour pronouncements about the state's economic status just last week. It's probably the tactics of the truly politically adept, that make no logical sense to any other observer.

Everyone in Virginia remembers "No Car Tax," the campaign slogan that made many brand Gilmore a fount of political wisdom for discovering a real silver-bullet issue. After the polls close tonight, many Virginia Republicans will be left wondering if Gilmore can win anything without one.

Article is at: [url]http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-domenech110601.shtml[/url]

Eric The()Hun[>]:)]

The GOP blew it!
NJ, VA......
Shundler got elected in Jersey City, again and again.  In Jersey City, only 6% of the electorate are registered Republicans.  I he could do that, then he could've won the state.
No support from the GOP and the state or national level.  Pissy bitches.

IT sounds as if People voted Republican but just couldn't frickin stand the governor. Because someone also said that the Repubs gained 6-8 seats in the congress??

Benjamin

I was looking at if for the basic national trend heads up before the 2002 election??

Would anyone concure with what I am seeing.

The GOP added 13 seats to their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.  This, with a GOP Attorney General, Warner will be as impotent as a Las Vegas Gambling commissioner.

Early was defeated by the interparty warfare between Gilmore and the GOP led legislature.  Some GOP leaders even went so far as to say they were going to vote for Warner.

But a word of warning, to all of you stupid assed "Sportsmen for Warner"  who were duped into voting for him, I'll make you this wager... $100 bux says he'll come out with some form of anti-gun legislation in the first 6 to 12 months of his tenure.  

You easily conned people deserve all the crap that is going to come out of his office during the next 4 years.  The problem is is that good, 2nd Amendment patriots will have to suffer for your mistakes.

A pissed off Michigander in Maryland (who looked forward to moving back to VA)

Budget crisis in VA? WTF??! Hell, that's what we want! A budget crisis means that the jackassed politicians have outspent their collection of tax dollars. The only failure of the Republicans is to fail to convince people that Virginia's government NEEDS to be reduced in size. Jim Gilmore has some great beliefs, but he did let the Dems spin him their way. As socialized as today's VA residents are, however, I doubt any amount of spin could have convinced voters that downsizing government is good. Too many people depend on those cushy state jobs.
As for Earley's failure, that was, to a great extent, his own fault. His marketing was shitty. His ads made him look like a dolt or at best a stiff politician. Warner ran a brilliant ad campaign, and won on personal appeal. The "Sportsman for Warner" campaign was a stroke of genius. He successfully split off a large chunk of VA hunters from the self defense/2nd amendment activists. He ran as a moderate, but will soon turn to appease the liberal base and we will all suffer.....

New Yorkers, smile proudly [^]

Virginians, hang your heads in shame [V]

New Jersey, business as usual [:(]

Repubs picked up 12 seats in the House of Delegates in VA--pretty impressive and more than they expected to get.  I loved the "Sportsman for Warner" signs, even had a rifle on the sign.  Should have included a hammer and sickle too.

"There stands Warner, like a marshmellow wall"

GunLvr

Hey they only let me vote once! [V]

Warner is about as pro gun as Chuckie Shumer, that flyer they sent out showing Warner sitting on a tree trunk, in camo, supposedly turkey hunting had me rolling on the floor. There was no shotgun anywhere in the pic!

And I have no F'ing idea where Gilmore was in all of this!

Guess Gilmore is too busy in his new job.  Head of the RNC.