Bob McDonnell's 'Rebranding' is Going to be a Tough Sell

2 years ago

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As Melinda and Jill have mentioned, a 20-year-old homework assignment written by the GOP candidate for Virginia's governor recently tilted his carefully crafted campaign image into that of a barely evolved Neanderthal. For a good portion of Virginia's voters, the 55-year-old former state assemblyman and attorney general, Robert McDonnell, looks like their kind of guy. The pro-life, conservative, father of five, whose motto is "not to make excuses and to be accountable for my own actions," has a good chance of getting elected as Virginia's chief executive. His opponent, Democrat Creigh Deeds, was until recently way behind in the polls.

But Democratic strategists in Virginia are delighted McDonnell's grad school thesis recently surfaced, laden with outdated themes promoting subjugation of women and anti-gay rhetoric. McDonnell inadvertently directed a Washington Post reporter last week to his two-decades-old 93-page paper, promoting Republican family values that were outmoded even in 1989. In a fire and brimstone writing style, the then 34-year-old juris doctor and master's degree candidate described a plan to "correct the conventional folklore about the separation of church and state," teach "traditional Judeo-Christian values" in public school, and undermine the "dynamic new trend of working women and feminists" that is "detrimental to the family."

McDonnell, who recently urged the Republican Party to "rebrand," is now seen to be recasting his own image. Distancing himself from the paper, the candidate says he hasn't thought about it in years and blames his antiquarian thinking on a more innocent time. "Virginians will judge me on my 18-year record ...and the specific plans I have laid out for our future -- not on a decades-old academic paper I wrote as a student during the Reagan era."

His embarrassing positions did not surface via shoe-leather investigative reporting or opposition research funded by political rivals. McDonnell brought the paper to the attention of an alert Post reporter, mentioning in an interview he'd written his thesis about "welfare reform." She found a copy of the earnest polemic online at McDonnell's alma mater. Called CBN University when he attended, and since renamed Regent University by founder Pat Robertson, the school sent many graduates to careers concentrating Christian thought and action toward achieving political agendas, particularly during the administration of George W. Bush.

Filed Under: Woman Up

Tagged: Robert McDonnell, RobertMcdonnell, virginia, virginia governor, VirginiaGovernor

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