The problem that I see though is that the Democrats decided to run a moderate vs. another strong conservative. In the Democratic Primary, the Democrats rejected former DNC chief Terry McAuliffe, who was seen as a “Hillary Clinton Democrat” and too liberal to win in Virginia.

What I have seen is a trend. Democrats nominate moderates to try to win in swing states, and Republicans continue to view moderates as not true conservatives.

If Bob McDonnell was a moderate Republican, he would coast to an easy win. But on a scale from one to ten, where one is Nancy Pelosi and ten is Pat Robertson, Bob McDonnell is a ten.

Your article is well-written, but it is not addressing the actual controversy. There are a number of conservatives who believe that the wife’s place is in the home. Bob McDonnell’s thesis was written in 1989. I remember 1989 and most women worked then. In fact, most women worked in 1979.

Had Bob McDonnell wrote that thesis in the early 1960s when the culture was dealing with a huge change in women entering the workforce, I could say that he was uncomfortable with change that he was seeing. But by 1989, that change had already happened and he wanted to move society decades into the past.

I think it’s better to look at a candidate for who the candidate really is. Can we believe that Bob McDonnell’s views have only changed on the controversial issues, and he is now just someone who only takes the strongest conservative views that people can take publicly, or should we consider that he may still hold some views that he does not wish to talk about.

Virginia will decide.