McDonnell pledges to help with farmland preservation

HOT SPRINGS – Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell pledged Monday he would work to preserve farm land and allow farmers to reap increased profits through heavier reliance on renewable energy.

“I do think we need to have a governor who understands the importance of this industry,” McDonnell, the current attorney general, said at the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention at The Homestead.

While Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine was fogged out of the convention, unable to land his helicopter at the resort, McDonnell was able to fly to West Virginia before making his way to The Homestead.

McDonnell told local representatives he had already pushed for legislation to help farmers during his 14 years in the House of Delegates, including what he said was his work on promoting property rights and helping to repeal the death tax — no “taxation without respiration,” he joked.

He received the state federation’s support in 2005, when he won the attorney general’s race by just 323 more votes than Democrat Creigh Deeds.

Deeds, of Hot Springs, and Democrat Brian Moran, of Alexandria, will address the convention Wednesday morning. Terry McAuliffe, former Democratic National Committee chairman and ex-advisor to Bill and Hilary Clinton, is also in the race. McAuliffe is mulling a run for governor.

McDonnell said Virginia’s history, and its future, is closely tied to farming.

“It’s not only part of our great history, but it’s also critically important to the future of Virginia that we keep a very strong agri-business and farming industry in our state,” McDonnell said.

He said he favors increased farm technology and would champion the Farmland Preservation Act to find ways to preserve farm land from future development. He also said he would take a “holistic” approach to allow farmers increased profits off their land – including moving to 25 percent renewable energy by 2025 – and create a stable source of money for the agriculture best management practices program.

McDonnell said he would also promote the industry abroad.

Also speaking at the convention, Virginia Commonwealth University political analyst Robert Holsworth compared the recent presidential election to the one in 1980.

As Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain on a message of change this year, Republican Ronald Reagan prevailed on a similar change message over Democrat Jimmy Carter 28 years ago.

In both races, the economy was in trouble and had international pressures – the hostage crisis then and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now.

“Essentially, Carter ran almost the same campaign against Reagan that McCain tried against Obama,” Holsworth said, “which was to say, he’s going to be too risky, it’s too much of a gamble, you can’t take a chance on the change he’s going to bring about … and very much this is what happened here.”

McCain tried to paint Obama as too risky and an old liberal who would make the current economy worse, Holsworth said. But Americans decided to vote for change and hope Obama would be better than current President George W. Bush. The recent election returns have implications for Republicans, he said.

“What they bode is … sort of a long-term challenge for the Republican Party, that it’s not simply the fact that we had a bad economy,” Holsworth said, “What happened is that there have been other changes which have occurred in the United States, that occurred in this election, which pose a longer-term challenge for the party.”

He also said Republicans have a “solid” chance in Virginia to win the governor’s seat in 2009 as a three-way Democratic race unfolds, while McDonnell is the lone Republican candidate.

And agriculture, Holsworth said, is at the core of economic issues that came up during the recent elections. Obama spoke favorably during the campaign of immigration reform important to agriculture and his commitment to biofuels. The industry’s concern with Obama, Holsworth said, stemmed more from what he might do in the area of environmental reform.

A California referendum requiring “that calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens, and pregnant pigs be confined only in ways that allow these animals to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs and turn around freely,” passed overwhelmingly, Holsworth said.

The industry’s politics, as a result, will have to broaden its scope to deal more with the public and not just with legislators. At the same time, he said the federation needs to work hard to educate non-farmers.

“My sense is that that is one of the most essential issues that’s going to be facing agriculture,” Holsworth said.