Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Bolling achieves second term as Virginia's lieutenant governor
The incumbent called the statewide GOP sweep "the dawn of a new day in Virginia."
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From The Roanoke Times
Election Day 2009
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Election Day 2009: Full coverage
Republican Bill Bolling won a second term as Virginia's lieutenant governor Tuesday -- the first to be re-elected to the post since Democrat Don Beyer in 1993.
Bolling, whose create-jobs-to-help-families campaign closely meshed with Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell's, beat Democrat Jody Wagner handily in a spirited and often acrimonious race.
Bolling, in Richmond with the winning Republican ticket Tuesday night, said: "The votes have been counted, Virginia's red, Democrats are blue."
That line drew roars from the crowd.
Bolling, 52, an insurance executive from Mechanicsville, called the dominating Republican victories "the dawn of a new day in Virginia."
"We are going to change the direction of the commonwealth of Virginia, and if I might borrow a quote, this is change you can really believe in," he said, reappropriating a campaign slogan President Obama used last year.
Wagner, 54, a Virginia Beach attorney and businesswoman, joined her Democratic ticket mates at the Westin Hotel in Henrico County and urged her supporters to keep fighting for the issues she championed in her campaign.
"Our work is not over; we cannot pack up and go home," Wagner said in her concession speech, citing the need to keep focused on issues such as job creation, education and transportation over the next four years.
Bolling and Wagner were ideological opposites -- he is staunchly anti-abortion, for instance, while she supports abortion rights -- but neither emphasized such issues in this campaign.
With state finances reeling from the national recession and the General Assembly gridlocked over how to address a host of unmet transportation needs, the two have sparred mostly over who is better equipped to bring the warring sides together and get something done in Richmond.
Bolling will now return to the part-time, $36,000-a-year lieutenant governor's job with two constitutional duties: presiding over and casting tie-breaking votes in the state Senate and standing by to take over if the governor is unable to finish his or her term.
