McDonnell goes 18 rounds with Hampton Roads

It’s strange to see a guy whose ambition has been to control government arguing for less government control.  At ODU’s Webb Center last night, a room of attentive, engaged citizens packed the room to hear him tell us why.

After introductory remarks, Governor Bob McDonnell begins a short presentation to answer the question: “Why Reform Government?”  Bob starts with a few stats: our state government accounts for 117,000 employees within 250+ agencies.  In the past decade, state spending has grown 73%, outpacing inflation and population growth by 28%.”  Even if these numbers are as cooked as McDonnell’s claimed surplus, it would be hard for most anyone to find fault with his stated mission.  Bob sounds earnest.  So for the moment, I’ll hear him out.

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McDonnell’s Commission on Government Reform and Restructuring is tasked with finding and evaluating intergovernmental solutions to the state’s budget woes.  The audience nods intently at a laundry list of soft-pitch ideas: “Transform DMVs into one-stop government customer service centers.  Implement a 4-day, 10-hour shift week for state employees, curbing pollution and reducing traffic.”  A second PowerPoint page offers more controversial ideas: “Create inventory of state-owned land and buildings, and divest of surplus to pay for government services.”  The message here is that these ideas are up for debate, but they’re just the opening band for what Bob has really come here to pitch.

The next slide simply reads: PRIVATIZE ABC. “Virginians can purchase beer and wine at over 3,000 stores, but we can only buy liquor from 332,” Bob begins.  He cutely compares the worlds of 1934, when Alcoholic Beverage Control was created, to present day.  Back then, Russia had just made its first television broadcast; today, over a million Russians are on Facebook.  Postage stamps cost 3 cents, and Clarke Gable had just won an Oscar.  “The world has changed,” Bob says, flashing quotes from notable Virginia Democrats who also advocate the abolition of ABC, “and it’s time we do, too.”

I could continue describing statistics that compare, for example, binge drinking rates within the 18 alcohol-controlled states to the 32 privatized states.  But as I mentioned on Sunday, I’ve looked for a major fault in the ABC privatization plan and simply don’t see one.  There will inevitably be winners and losers from such a change, and sure, some of the winners might be Bob’s friends.  Despite some modest resentment when this inevitably becomes the case, from my perspective the benefits of privatization seem to greatly outweigh the costs. Bob’s slide puts it best: “100s of Millions for Transportation, Billions in Impact over Time!” (Exclamation point added for emphasis.)  I was happy when he concluded his sales pitch and opened the floor to public commentary.

Unfortunately for Bob, no one seemed to care as deeply about dismantling the ABC as he does.  Of the 18 speakers, only one gave direct feedback on the topic at hand.  Even so, he was engaged as people from across the region voiced their concerns on a host of issues.  It was a town hall meeting in its true sense, void of audience plants or the partisan bias of a Palin rally.  It was honest.

While there was no shortage of diverging political viewpoints, the debate was civil. James Bailey, a Portsmouth native whose comments lead me to believe he did not vote for McDonnell, began by thanking the Governor for making good on a prison reform campaign promise.  When Bailey went on to criticize Virginia’s parole boards for retroactively implementing a 1994 law to abolish parole – a law strongly advocated by then-Attorney General McDonnell – I’m confident he expected (as I did) a political duck-and-weave back to the Governor’s own agenda.  Instead, Bob offered acknowledgement of the issue.  Then, as Bailey took his seat, McDonnell asked him humbly, “What would you recommend?”  Bailey was taken off guard, but stood up again to engage the Governor for another few minutes of in-depth back-and-forth.

Throughout the evening, on subjects ranging from light rail to disabilities, McDonnell extended the same respect to dissidents that they seemed to give him. While only one elderly speaker broke the imposed one-minute time limit, Bob himself broke it for nearly every question – not to hear himself talk, but to probe deeper into the concerns people had come to voice.  Folks responded to this kind of sincerity: after nearly an hour of back-and-forth, the citizenry was sitting as upright as at the beginning.

If there was one no miscalculation during the evening, it came from the Governor’s staff. In most town halls, the room is packed during the opening remarks and then, as a meeting erodes into asinine rambles and political posturing, folks sheepishly trickle out.  A savvy strategist, therefore, stacks the deck of questions so that the most secular views come out last and are heard by the fewest number, most of them die-hard supporters anyway.  This room, on the other hand, was still packed with people like me.

And so, when the first nut jobs were finally trotted out – back-to-back anti-abortionists using Colbertesque phrases like “pre-citizen” – the evening’s meaningful discourse was subjugated by the politician’s own core constituency.  As the room was whitewashed in truthy phrases like “Hampton Roads has the largest concentration of abortion facilities in the area,” the Governor’s microexpressions seemed to say, “Shut up, Deacon, I was actually winning some people over.  Let’s talk about our social agenda in private.”

These final exchanges were a sobering reminder that, while we agree on liquor stores, this guy doesn’t share my overall ideology.  Listening to the opposition is not the same as agreeing with it.