HotAir's Strange Assessment of the Virginia GOP Electoral Juggernaut [UPDATED]

Leave it to a God-hating, anti-Catholic, self-described "squishy on abortion" libertine like "Allahpundit" to view the results of yesterday's elections and come away with this ludicrous reality-impaired assessment:

One interesting footnote to this race in case you haven’t followed it is that Deeds did his level best to paint the Republican as a hard-right culture warrior while McDonnell, wisely, ran on jobs. Just one more bit of evidence that fiscal conservatism, not social conservatism, is the GOP’s path going forward.

Please.

Yes, Governor-elect Bob McDonnell is a fiscal conservative and certainly ran as one during his campaign. But he's also a hard-core social conservative, too, and virtually everybody in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and anyone outside of Virginia who was paying attention to the race, knows it. McDonnell's opponent, Creigh Deeds, and Deeds' cheerleading section at The Washington Post saw to that, making McDonnell's social conservatism - highlighting a dissertation McDonnell wrote in 1989 as a 34-year-old grad student that was critical of mothers working outside the home, argued for preserving the “traditional family” structure, and concluded that “every level of government should statutorily and procedurally prefer married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators” - one of the most prominent issues in the campaign. McDonnell didn't need to highlight his social conservative bona fides (although his views on those issues are every bit as prominently displayed on his campaign website as are his fiscal and economic policy positions) because his opponent was doing that for him.

In addition, Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli is also a hard-core social conservative. And everybody in Virginia knows that, as well.

That fact didn't seem to hurt either McDonnell or Cuccinelli - both devout pro-life Catholics - one bit (and certainly helped them among the significant base of voters for whom such issues are of primary importance), as evidenced by their winning their races by over 15 percentage points each.

If anything, yesterday's results show that the key for the GOP to remain unified and win elections is to run as BOTH a fiscally AND a socially conservative party.

And just in case it wasn't completely obvious that social/cultural issues aren't losing issues, check out the results of the gay marriage referendum in Maine. Voters in Maine - that's MAINE, mind you; home to Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe - voted yesterday to repeal the state's recently enacted same-sex "marriage" law.

Yeah, "Allahpundit", whatever.


UPDATE
Deal Hudson highlights the genuine social conservative bona fides of yesterday's electoral victors:

... It's important, as well, that the GOP notes the kind of candidates who won in New Jersey and Virginia -- pro-life, pro-family, and aligned with religious conservative groups, both Catholic and Evangelical.

Bob McDonnell, the new governor of Virgina, is a bona fide religious conservative among Republicans, and a practicing Catholic who attended Notre Dame and who maintains strong ties to Evangelicals as a result of his Master's degree from Regent University.

The attempt of his Democratic opponent, Creigh Deeds, to smear McDonnell based upon his Regent's Master's thesis not only fell flat, it turned around and bit Deeds.

The new Virginia attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, has been a Catholic pro-life GOP activist in northern Virginia for many years. His election is the product of Cuccinelli's decades-long effort of building a religious conservative coalition to back his candidacy. That coalition undoubtedly helped both McDonnell and Bill Bolling, the new Lieutenant Governor.

[More]

UPDATE #2
Bill Donohue of The Catholic Leagues says that last night was a "Big Night for Catholic Values".


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Virginia Democrat Stakes Gubernatorial Campaign on Killing Babies [UPDATED]

Pot ... Kettle