Stuck at the start line

An especially notable distinction has emerged in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, one being watched with panting anticipation by a Republican Party desperate to pull itself off the skids. Republican Robert F. McDonnell has compiled a transportation plan while Democrat Creigh Deeds curiously has declared he won’t advance one until after – read, if – he gets elected.

The offshoot of this is that McDonnell deftly has maneuvered himself to the position of aggressor while Deeds chooses a course of passive nonresistance, a method that worked to his advantage in the primary against Terry McAuliffe, a candidate whose appeal steadily eroded to dust. The risk for Deeds is larger this time as indicated by recent polls that show McDonnell surging.

So what of McDonnell’s plan? It is, in part, this: Privatize state-run liquor stores and direct the revenue to transportation, impose tolls on interstates 95 and 85 at the state’s border with North Carolina, borrow $1 billion for urban road projects, spend almost a third of Northern Virginia’s sales tax revenue on transportation, pick up additional cash from offshore drilling revenue and spend three-fourths of surplus money on transportation. Deeds sees rubs and so do we, but not all in the same places and not in every instance.

First, McDonnell is right to propose pulling the state out of the business of selling liquor. Every argument advanced for keeping the state in the booze game is as shallow as a pool of spilled scotch. One line of hollow thinking goes that government-run shops more effectively promote responsible drinking because they lack the marketing accoutrements of, say, a typical bar. Sure. The same thing applies to a brown paper bag wrapped around a wine bottle. Or the hole-in-the-wall tavern at the wrong end of town. No one behaves irresponsibly there.

Selling off state stores would generate $500 million, McDonnell says. In addition, the state would continue to rake in almost $200 million in annual tax revenues from liquor sales. We say proceed. We similarly concur with committing a portion of NoVa’s sales tax revenue along with surplus and offshore drilling money to fixing and building roads.

Where then are the rubs? Deeds and his allies contend that McDonnell’s plan would steal money from education, casting “schoolchildren against transportation.” A nasty odor of desperation clings to this claim. It’s an argument that can be made every time state money is not spent on education. What, perhaps, Deeds means to say is that no additional transportation money can be spent unless it’s derived from new taxes or fees, appealing to some but not to us.

Concerns in this corner rise on other fronts, starting with interstate tolls. This is popularly considered by some Republicans as a mechanism to skirt taxes. Tolls, in fact, are like government fees, taxes in another form. The creativity of travelers in avoiding them is a remarkable thing, meaning that frequently tolls don’t pay off for government at projected rates. Truckers might find avoidance on an artery as essential as I-95 daunting, which means tolls could give an unwelcome slap to a key industry.

Borrowing money is a snazzy idea until dealing with the troublesome task of paying it back. At one point last year, the state budget was sliding in the red toward the $3 billion mark. This presents still more trouble, since McDonnell plans on using surplus money, of which there may be little to be had.

Here, though, is an essential point. McDonnell is generating ideas, the lifeblood of any campaign. Not all of those ideas are on track, at least not to our thinking, but there is a freshness about them that is lifting his candidacy. Deeds, on the essential subject of transportation and so far in this race, is standing at the starting blocks deaf to a starting gun that long since has sounded.