Posted By HR Partnership on November 7, 2009

by Danae Jones Aicher, a former journalist-turned political communications adviser. She now is a soon-to-be-stay-at-home-mom working on a book about raising biracial children.

Virginia Governor-elect Bob McDonnell should be commended on a solid win, but Republicans shouldn’t get too excited. A fact which can’t be ignored is Virginia voters’ trend of electing a governor of the opposite party of the sitting President. Whether conscious or not, this trend may point to voters’ desire for political balance more than anything.

Now what’s ahead is a lot of hard work. And that work cannot be partisan. That’s the message all of our lawmakers should take from the elections. We are facing troubling economic times here in the state (though not as troubling as in many other states), and traffic here in Hampton Roads and elsewhere continues to be a nightmare.

The Governor-elect seems to think all the problems we face be fixed without raising new revenue but by trimming “fat” from the state government’s budget.

We should be clear what that means… that services will be cut for someone, somewhere. Apparently, for about 60% of Virginia voters, that’s okay. We’ll see how it works out.

Problems like transportation have been festering for years and years. The same old partisan politics won’t work to solve that problem. The Governor-elect will have to stand up, be courageous and possibly consider solutions that go against his party’s mantra. Democrats will have to be as courageous and resist the urge to oppose him at every turn just for the sake of opposition. In doing so, we could show national Republicans and Democrats what real public service is all about while actually putting Virginians above party politics.

Categories: About Hampton Roads, Government & Citizens, Transportation
Tags: Hampton Roads, Military Bastion, Transportation, Virginia