Dem
51
GOP
49
You probably haven't heard of Scott Parkinson, since he's never held public office. He's a former congressional staffer, and an advisor to Ron DeSantis and a number of other Republicans. Nonetheless, we live in an age where inexperience is no barrier to running for high office. And so yesterday, Parkinson threw his hat into the ring for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Virginia. He is the first serious challenger, Republican or Democrat, to declare a run against Democratic senator Tim Kaine (although there are a couple of perennial candidates in the race already).
Parkinson's platform is a Trump-style economic program (more tax cuts, less regulation), coupled with a healthy dollop of culture wars stuff, focused in particular on education. Speaking to reporters after announcing his candidacy, Parkinson was uncertain exactly what his position on abortion is. Hmmmm. We suspect if he was running in deep red Alabama, rather than purple-blue Virginia, he would know very well what he thinks about abortion.
The Parkinson game plan makes some sense, since he's basically just running a repeat of Gov. Glenn Youngkin's (R-VA) campaign. And obviously, it worked for the Governor. That said, Republican politics figure to be much messier in 2024 than they were when Youngkin ran in 2021, since there's a GOP civil war brewing between DeSantis and Donald Trump. On top of that will be the endless questions about Trump's legal problems. There's also the fact that Youngkin ran against Terry McAuliffe, who was not especially dynamic or popular. By contrast, Kaine is very genial, has good approval ratings, and is 4-for-4 in statewide elections (one for lieutenant governor, one for governor and twice for senator). So, while we think that Parkinson has the right ideas, strategically, he's going to have his work cut out for him, and then some. (Z)