Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), the Republican nominee for governor, endorsed his newly-nominated running mate, Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr., but refused to say whether he agreed with Jackson’s myriad controversial comments.

Cuccinelli told a crowd in Abingdon, VA on Monday that he wants Jackson, as Lt. Governor, breaking ties in the currently split Virginia Senate: “I don’t need to know what the subject matter that’s going to tie up 20-20 that the LG can vote on will be. I’m confident that we’re going to get the right vote every single time out of E.W. Jackson. So I’m glad he’s on this ticket, too.”

But in a statement to the Virginia Pilot, Cuccinelli also said he would not answer questions about his new running mate’s views. “We are not defending any of our running mates’ statements now or in the future,” he noted, adding “The people of Virginia need to get comfortable with each candidate individually.”

Given the panic and criticism from some Republicans over Jackson’s surprise victory at Saturday’s Republican Party of Virginia nominating convention, it is unsurprising that Cuccinelli wants to keep his running mate at arm’s length. But their arch-conservative views on key issues seem largely identical:

	Jackson	Cuccinelli
LGBT Rights	Jackson opposes LGBT equality, claiming, “Homosexuality is a horrible sin, it poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies; it brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of.”	Cuccinelli opposes LGBT equality, claiming, “When you look at the homosexual agenda, I cannot support something that I believe brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.”
Planned Parenthood	Jackson has attacked Planned Parenthood, calling it “more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was.”	Cuccinelli has frequently attacked Planned Parenthood, accusing them of having an “open willingness to participate in human trafficking,” and has suggested the fact that abortion clinics in Virginia are in urban areas with large African American populations is an example of white racism.
Health care	Jackson does not believe Virginia should comply with the Obamacare law, claiming, “Virginia is duty bound to DEFY NOT COMPLY with any federal encroachment on the rights and freedom of our people. Working families across the Commonwealth are disappointed that a Republican led General Assembly decided to COMPLY and NOT DEFY a law that will greatly hurt the economy and health care options affecting all Virginians.”	After Cuccinelli’s failed challenge to Obamacare in federal court, he suggested Virginia might not need to comply with the law: “It’s not like there’s criminal penalties out there — it becomes a power struggle,” he noted, adding, “There have been periods of time when states have just thrown their hands up and said, ‘We’re not going to do this’… It’s still possible, but it’s outside the expected legal structure.
President Obama	Jackson has attacked President Obama for having “Muslim sensibilities,” claiming Obama “sees the world and Israel from a Muslim perspective.” He called Obama an anti-Semite, blaming “his Muslim associations and his long period of mentorship under Jeremiah Wright.”	Cuccinelli dabbled in birtherism in 2010, saying, “Someone is going to have to come forward with nailed down testimony that he was born in place B, wherever that is. You know, the speculation is Kenya. And that doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.” He quickly backed down.

For his part, Jackson sees Cuccinelli as an ideological soul mate. In a March posting on his campaign website, entitled “Ken Cuccinelli Is Right,” he wrote: “As an American and a Virginian whose ancestors were deemed by some to be less than human, I am proud to stand with a man who has the courage to speak to our consciences. As the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor, I will be proud to help Ken Cuccinelli bring common sense values and governance to Richmond. If we are elected in November, KEN AND I WILL FIGHT FOR EVERY VIRGINIAN’S RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.”

As multiple polls released in the past few days indicate, President Obama’s public standing remains strong despite the GOP’s relentless effort to exploit the “trifecta” of real and imagined government errors in the Benghazi, AP, and IRS auditing events.  This is not surprising given that the conservative spin on the facts has gone well beyond what’s legitimately at issue, pushing an self-serving, manipulative narrative of Obama’s intentions and actions in each case.

What’s more interesting is how the President and his team have decided to fight the scandal accusations: rallying his base. Rather than merely rebutting each and every claim that conservatives throw at him in a defensive posture, Obama is calling on core supporters to reorient the conversation towards more friendly, and substantive, political terrain.  Call it the “white blood cell strategy” of defusing political attacks: motivate the “healthy” forces on your side to combat the “unhealthy” ones on the other.

First, at an event in Baltimore late last week, the president wisely turned back to the central issue animating the lives of Americans -– jobs and the economy.  The Baltimore Sun reported on the President’s personal connection on the economy while advancing his administration’s agenda:

As he traveled through Baltimore to promote his jobs agenda on Friday, President Barack Obama found himself sitting near a 29-year-old man who was uncertain how to reset his life after being released from prison two years ago.

In one of the few spontaneous moments of the president’s visit, Marcus Dixon — father of two boys — told Obama how he connected in 2011 with a workforce development group called the Center for Urban Families, put his life back together and began studying to become a pharmacist.

“I grew up without a father,” the president reminded Dixon. “For your sons to see you taking this path, that’s going to make all the difference in the world.”

The President then visited a pre-k class at Moravia Park Elementary school in Baltimore City and a local dredging company to help round out his efforts to focus on manufacturing, early childhood education, and job training.

Second, at a well-received commencement address at Morehouse College, the President talked intimately and forthrightly about his experience as a black man in America invoking history and offering pointed advice on how best to succeed in a divided nation:

You now hail from a lineage and legacy of immeasurably strong men – men who bore tremendous burdens and still laid the stones for the path on which we now walk. You wear the mantle of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, Ralph Bunche and Langston Hughes, George Washington Carver and Ralph Abernathy, Thurgood Marshall and yes, Dr. King. These men were many things to many people. They knew full well the role that racism played in their lives. But when it came to their own accomplishments and sense of purpose, they had no time for excuses…

Be a good role model and set a good example for that young brother coming up. If you know someone who isn’t on point, go back and bring that brother along. The brothers who have been left behind – who haven’t had the same opportunities we have – they need to hear from us. We’ve got to be in the barbershops with them, at church with them, spending time and energy and presence helping pull them up, exposing them to new opportunities, and supporting their dreams. We have to teach them what it means to be a man – to serve your city like Maynard Jackson; to shape the culture like Spike Lee. Chester Davenport was one of the first people to integrate the University of Georgia law school. When he got there, no one would sit next to him in class. But Chester didn’t mind. Later on, he said, ‘It was the thing for me to do. Someone needed to be the first.’ Today, Chester is here celebrating his 50th reunion. If you’ve had role models, fathers, brothers like that – thank them today. If you haven’t, commit yourself to being that man for someone else.

Combined, the timing and substance of these two events suggest that president and his team recognize that his progressive base can be called up to fight for the issues that really matter to voters — the economy and social advancement for all people.  As Obama told the crowd in Baltimore, “I know it can seem frustrating sometimes when it seems like Washington’s priorities aren’t the same as your priorities,” he said. “But the middle class will always be my No. 1 focus, period. Your jobs, your families, your communities — that’s why I ran for president.”

It remains to be seen whether this approach will fully contain the politicized charges and assist the president in moving forward with his agenda.  But Washington Post/ABC polling released on Tuesday suggests the strategy is initially working as planned.  

Strong approval of the President’s job performance is up 3 points among Democrats since April (from 56 to 59 percent) while his overall job approval number is up slightly from 50 to 51 percent with a 5 point increase in strong job approval among all adults.  Even though a strong majority (74 percent) of Americans believe the IRS acted inappropriately in its auditing, a plurality (45 percent) of Americans believe that Republicans in Congress are just politically posturing rather than raising legitimate issues about the events.  In contrast, 51 percent of Americans believe the President is “concentrating on things that are important to you personally” while only 33 percent of Americans hold similar opinions about Republicans in Congress.   By a 46 to 37 percent margin,  Americans also say the President is doing a better job of handling the economy than Republicans.

President Obama is doing the smart thing politically by calling on his troops to remind opportunistic Republicans that they cannot overturn an election that easily.

In 2010, Bishop E.W. Jackson — the Virginia Republican nominee for Lt. Governor — created a political action committee designed to elect “conservative black candidates” in districts represented by members of the Congressional Black Caucus. But a ThinkProgress review of Jackson’s PAC filings reveals that it backed just one such candidate, while funneling thousands to Jackson himself.

Objecting to the way members of the all-Democratic Congressional Black Congress has been “conflating the black struggle for civil rights with the demands of radical homosexuals for marriage and other special rights,” Jackson announced the STAND America PAC in April, 2010. He vowed to “demand that representatives of the black community start respecting the values of the people who elect them,” noting that the PAC would make sure that happens.

Since its formation, the PAC has reported raising about $130,000, all from individual donors. Of this, just $2,750 went to conservative African American candidates — about two percent of total spending. $1,000 of that went to Michel Faulkner (R), who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) in 2010. The remaining $1,750 went to Jackson’s own unsuccessful 2012 campaign for U.S. Senate in Virginia. The committee also made a $1,000 donation to the 2012 re-election campaign of House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who is white. While one solicitation asked for contributions to help defeat then-Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) in his Senate campaign, the committee reported no contributions to his Republican opponent nor any apparent independent efforts in that race.

The vast majority of the PAC’s funds went to overhead — fundraising, strategic consulting, and overhead. More than $20,000 of the PAC’s spending, over 15 percent, was paid in “consulting – management” fees to Jackson himself. While using a PAC for personal inurement is not illegal, it is hardly the purpose for which the contributions are apparently solicited.

Other spending went to travel and meals (about $7,500), other consultants (more than $53,000), and bank fees (more than $700, including four account “overdraft” charges). The PAC also made donations to 912 First Landing Patriots and the Hampton Roads Tea Party (two Virginia Tea Party groups) and the Christian Coalition and Vision America (two Christian conservative organizations).

While new PACs do face significant upfront costs, the percentage spent on political activity is unusually low and the group appears to spending little on the group’s stated mission. Campaign finance expert Paul S. Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center frequently warns — when donating to political action committees it is really “donor beware.”

Neither STAND America PAC nor the Jackson for Lt. Governor campaign responded immediately to a request for comment.

Virginia underwent a massive political and demographic transformation before our eyes, according to new data released on Thursday. These data confirm that state’s slide away from the GOP isn’t an election year fluke, but rather a symptom of deep underlying changes. 

Start with a Washington Post poll of Virginia registered voters. These data show that Virginians now support legalizing same sex marriage by a robust 56-33 margin, compared to just 46-43 in favor in 2011.  In addition, 86 percent of Virginia voters say they support background checks for gun buyers and 54 percent of Virginians support giving undocumented workers the right to live here legally provided they pay a fine and meet other requirements, a measure only a scant 39 percent opposes:

It’s no wonder Republicans can’t carry Virginia any more in Presidential elections: the state has just changed too much for that aggressively conservative brand to attract majority support from the new Virginia.

Other new data underscore the rapidity of change.  Census data assembled by analyst Geoffrey Skelley and posted on Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball demonstrate that Virginians are increasingly not actually from Virginia: they were born somewhere else and moved there later.  Virginia’s decline in “nativity” (the proportion of a state’s residents who were born in the state) has been the sharpest decline in the nation over the last century. In 1910, 89 percent of Virginians were born in Virginia, compared to just under 50 percent today.  That compares to a nativity drop of just 67 to 59 percent in the nation as a whole during the same time period:

Two other states to keep an eye on, judging by nativity statisticsm are North Carolina, down from 95 to 59 percent, and Georgia, down from 91 to 55 percent. Georgia, bear in mind, is probably becoming a majority-minority state sometime this decade.

Georgia. Wouldn’t it be something if that state started slipping away from the GOP. For those who say that could never happen, well…you probably said the exact same thing about Virginia.

The Census Bureau has just released new population projections based on alternative scenarios for immigration — high, low and constant.  The Bureau released their main projection, based on a medium immigration scenario, last fall, which showed the US becoming majority-minority in 2043. The new projections take that conclusion even further.

Under all scenarios in the new projections, the US will become majority-minority no later than 2046.  In other words, even if immigration is low or constant, the date we become majority-minority only moves back a few years.  And if the high immigration scenario occurs, we will become majority-minority earlier, in 2041.

The Census release also notes that the population under 18 years is projected to become majority-minority in either 2018 or 2019 in all four series.  That’s only 6-7 years away.  And the working-age population (18-64) is projected to become majority-minority between 2036 (high series) and 2042 (constant series).

These data show that the race-ethnic transformation of the United States is inevitable.  We are hurtling toward a new world that no one can stop and to which everyone will have to adapt.  And that very definitely includes conservatives who think that by opposing immigration reform they can somehow stop this transformation. The new data from the Census suggest just how futile this quest will ultimately be.

As I pointed out on TP Ideas last Thursday, the new Census voting data show that the GOP’s problem in 2012 was not “missing white voters”, but rather the ongoing march of demographic change. In fact, if we want to talk about missing voters, it makes more sense to talk about missing Latino voters.

Latino turnout lagged white turnout by a very substantial 16 points (48 percent vs. 64 percent). These missing voters are helping the GOP at this point, blunting the impact of demographic change on Republican electoral fortunes. But that might not last forever: this gap represents a potential tranche of votes which, if tapped by successful mobilization efforts, could make GOP’s situation much worse than it already is.

How much worse?  Reid Wilson at National Journal did the math, using census data to show how many additional Hispanic votes would be generated by state if Hispanic turnout matched white turnout:

Of course, Obama won anyway in 2012, even with all these missing Hispanic votes.  But in closer elections, they could be critical. Perhaps one day, mobilizing these Hispanic voters might play a significant role in turning Texas purple, Arizona blue and Colorado and Nevada even bluer.

Maybe instead of worrying about missing white voters, Republicans should start worrying about missing Hispanic voters. And what might happen if they started showing up.