Eating cake, beating drums

Perhaps inspired by fallen pop stars, Robert F. McDonnell has a drum and he’s going to beat it. The Republican gubernatorial candidate has developed a sudden crush on the Governor’s Opportunity Fund, a reservoir of state cash set aside to wave at businesses considering locating here. McDonnell wants to double the money in the fund and then do what Gov. Timothy M. Kaine so far has neglected to do, which is spend it like he stole it. Over McDonnell’s thumping a chorus runs on continuous loop: It’s about the jobs, man.

By leaving $11.2 million of the Governor’s Opportunity Fund unspent as of March 30, Kaine has left development opportunities untapped, McDonnell charges. “For the first 13 years of the fund ... every governor that had access to those funds was able to use those funds fully,” McDonnell told The Associated Press. “The current governor, over the last couple of years, has not fully used all the monies available in the Governor’s Opportunity Fund, which is extremely puzzling.”

Also puzzling, in a sense, is McDonnell’s House record on the opportunity fund. He voted to cut it by $8 million in the 2001-02 budget and another $5 million in 2003-04. He also opposed a $3 million increase proposed in 2004. Those stances reflected the party line on a Democratic idea that partisanship demanded disparaging.

McDonnell’s shift is only puzzling in a sense because the politics at play are vivid. The mantra of Clinton campaigning – it’s the economy, stupid – screams in candidates’ ears as the recessionary fog lingers. For McDonnell, beating state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, in November requires beating him on the economy, an issue that frequently has tripped Republicans in the post-Reagan era.

So McDonnell embraces the opportunity fund, a $20 million biennial pie he wants to sweeten. Before splurging, McDonnell should give thanks to the creator – Deeds sponsored the 1996 House bill that spawned the opportunity fund.

It’s another example of McDonnell favoring things he once opposed. He has challenged Deeds to a series of 10 debates after dismissing a call for the same number of debates from a GOP foe during the 2005 primary campaign season. Still, McDonnell’s interest, however recently discovered, in expanding and tapping the development money is well-placed. The opportunity fund has drawn businesses and jobs, along with tax revenues, that might otherwise have drifted elsewhere. The drowsing economy heightens the fund’s need.

More important is McDonnell’s plan to increase the production of petroleum and coal, moves that would provide relief as well as jobs by increasing supplies and lowering prices. He says he’ll halve the job creation requirement for businesses seeking state tax credits and appoint a deputy commerce secretary to oversee economic development in rural areas such as Augusta and Nelson counties.

In addition, McDonnell has taken positions on issues being debated in Washington, a place to which Mr. Deeds declines to go. McDonnell opposes both the cap-and-trade bill recently approved by Congress and the union “card-check” proposal that would effectively strip workers of secret-ballot rights in union elections. Both of these measures would hurt business and limit job growth. The next leader of this right-to-work state needs to know and say as much.

On the subject of creating jobs, McDonnell says he’ll appoint Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling his jobs czar. Not since the glory days of the Romanovs has czarism been so popular, but reality is a Bolshevik. Vice President Joe Biden is stimulus czar. What has he aroused beyond disdain?

Whether Bolling can do better, McDonnell has his attention where it belongs. And he has Deeds on the defensive. The senator risks losing precious ground with an electorate starved for economic light. To provide that, Deeds will need to do more than point to his opponent swaying to the issues. He needs to get a plan, and fast.