In a strongly worded endorsement today, The Virginian-Pilot editorial board endorsed Steve Shannon for Attorney General. Much of the endorsement laid bare how bad it would be for Republican Ken Cuccinelli to win next week’s election. The Pilot concluded:
To put it politely, Cuccinelli’s election would bring embarrassment to Virginia, instability to the state’s law firm and untold harm to the long list of people who don’t fit his personal definition of morality.
In a separate editorial, the board refused – just as it did in 2005 – to endorse anyone for Lieutenant Governor. Neither the Republican incumbent, Bill Bolling, nor the Democratic challenger, Virginia Beach’s Jody Wagner, measured up. The board gave Bolling credit for having jumped on the redistricting reform bandwagon, but felt – as per their rules – that Wagner had not made the case for unseating him.
~
These three editorials should make it clear to everyone that this ain’t your daddy’s Virginian-Pilot 😉 That the paper didn’t endorse the hometown candidate tells me that while they respect tradition, they no longer feel bound by it.
Proof that the Pilot is no longer the bastion of old-school thinking was the inclusion of the issue regarding the executive order on nondiscrimination of gays and lesbians in both the gubernatorial and AG endorsements. That the issue weighed enough on the minds of the editorial board not only to be part of their consideration but part of the written response tells me that we’ve got a 21st Century group of thinkers on that board.
~
And I’m 1 for 3 on my predictions. Pretty good for baseball, horrible for politics 😦
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I just don’t believe that Cuccinelli will cause “untold harm to the long list of people who don’t fit his personal definition of morality.”
I just don’t see that any Attorney General would do that.
Hyperbole like that should be on a page authored by somebody named Tribbett, and not in a “reputable” newspaper.
Actually, if you read this editorial in conjunction with the gubernatorial one, you’ll see where they are getting that from.
This paper isn’t prone to hyperbole.
How can anyone support Shannon for AG, when the man doesn’t even know what the responsibilities of the office are. Shannon is running as if he was campaigning to be a Commonwealth’s Attorney not the Attorney General.