November 2 was a good day for conservatives.
The best example of that was the governor's race in Virginia.
Republican Glenn Youngkin won the race by sidelining Trump, the Republican party leader. He paid lip service to Trump to keep the farmers and rural shop keepers in line, but he made clear he was not interested in campaigning with Trump and Trump was not invited to Virginia. Mercifully, Trump stayed away, an aberation for the headline hunting former President.
I was a Republican for a quarter of century, but Trump drove me out. I officially became a California conservative Independent in 2020.
That said, Youngkin is my kind of Republican, very much unlike Trump and his followers in Congress, some of whom are trying to avoid being subpoenaed because they wanted to overturn the votes of 81 million Americans.
The AP reports, "A former private equity executive, Youngkin presented himself as a nonthreatening suburban dad in a fleece vest. He
embraced Trump just enough to win the GOP primary and rev up the party base but was also able to target more moderate voters by talking about fiscal management and investing in schools and campaigning without the former president at his side.
"According to
AP VoteCast, a survey of voters, it paid off.
While a majority of voters held an unfavorable view of Trump, about half had a favorable view of Youngkin.
"Youngkin’s arm’s-length approach to Trump didn’t seem to hurt him with GOP voters. Most Youngkin voters, about 8 in 10, said the candidate supports Trump the right amount."
Look for more Republicans next year try to model themselves after Youngkin in swing areas — refusing to disavow Trump but not hugging him too closely, and tailoring their messages to both the former president’s most hardcore voters and persuadable suburbanites, the AP
Here's hoping Youngkin is the Republican of the future, a Reagan/Bush Republican. My kind of Republican.
In addition, conservatives, and maybe even some Democrats, rejected an absolutely ludicrous
proposal to replace the city’s police department with a new Department of Public Safety.
All in all, a good day for conservatives.