McDonnell distances self from 1989 thesis
Published: August 31, 2009
At age 34, two years before his first election and two decades before he would run for governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell submitted a master’s thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as “detrimental” to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over “cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.” He described as “illogical” a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.
The 93-page document, which is publicly available at the Regent University library, culminates with a 15-point action plan that McDonnell said the Republican Party should follow to protect American families — a vision that he started to put into action soon after he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.
During his 14 years in the General Assembly, Mc-Donnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family. In 2001, he voted against a resolution in support of ending wage discrimination between men and women.
In his run for governor, McDonnell, 55, makes little mention of his conservative beliefs and has said throughout his campaign that he should be judged by what he has done in office, including efforts to lower taxes, stiffen criminal penalties and reform mental health laws. He reiterated that position Saturday in a statement responding to questions about his thesis.
“Virginians will judge me on my 18-year record as a legislator and attorney general and the specific plans I have laid out for our future — not on a decades-old academic paper I wrote as a student during the Reagan era and haven’t thought about in years.”
McDonnell added: “Like everybody, my views on many issues have changed as I have gotten older.” He said that his views on family policy were best represented by his 1995 welfare reform legislation and that he “worked to include child day care in the bill so women would have greater freedom to work.” What he wrote in the thesis on women in the workplace, he said, “was simply an academic exercise and clearly does not reflect my views.”
McDonnell also said that government should not discriminate based on sexual orientation or ban contraceptives and that “I am not advocating vouchers as there are legal questions regarding their constitutionality in Virginia.”
The Washington Post learned of the thesis in a recent interview with McDonnell, who mentioned it in answering a question about his political roots. McDonnell brought up the paper in reference to a pair of Republican congressmen whom he interviewed as part of his research. McDonnell then offered: “I wrote my thesis on welfare policy.”
McDonnell’s opponent, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, and other Democrats have sought to highlight McDonnell’s conservative record, saying he is obscuring a large part of his background to get elected. Deeds recently spoke to women’s groups about McDonnell’s record on abortion, saying that voters needed to know about his stances.
“There is a just a massive effort under way to rebrand Bob McDonnell, and his whole legislative career speaks otherwise,” said former Del. Barnie K. Day, D-Patrick County, who supports Deeds. “The voters have a right to know who these candidates really are.”
When asked about Regent, McDonnell generally responds that it is one of many schools he has attended. He received a bachelor’s in business administration at the University of Notre Dame in 1976, and he received a master’s in business administration from Boston University in 1980 while serving overseas in the Army.
After four years in the Army and the start of a management career with a Fortune 500 health supply company, McDonnell moved with his wife, Maureen, and two young daughters from a suburb of Kansas City, Mo., to Virginia Beach, where he enrolled in a public policy master’s program at what was then called CBN University. The school was founded by Pat Robertson and named for his Christian Broadcasting Network.
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Reader Reactions
The amazing thing about all this is last year, these same people where bashing Obama about things Rev. Wright said 20 years ago.
Not even Obama himself said.
Now that it is the Republican favorite SON it is okay what he, Bob himself, says and legislates the religious rights trash.
Your all a bunch of hypocrites and religious fanatics.
Jcarney why cannot you use a person’s name without trashing them.
I wish you a lot of luck if Dirty Deeds is going to use this as his core campaign issue. Something this petty is not going to carry the union Sockpuppet anywhere close to the finish line. A single issue that doesn’t even apply to today is a pretty weak and unintelligent basis for your political views. Have you thought of looking to the future, job issues, union problems etc. I think your view in the rear view mirror is the only thing you have as Obama and minions like Perriello are collapsing the country under a pile of debt for useless programs.
By the way, no I have not read the thesis, #1) it is a waste of time, from decades ago #2) I actually work, so I can pay all of those taxes for the dems to waste and pay a tiny portion of the interest on debt payments for Obama’s reckless and absent-minded, extremist agenda. It should be interesting if Obama can push the unemployment level above 10% on Friday. He’s closing in on his buddy Jimmy Carter with a goal of >11.3%.
“Rjma”: No one seems to care about track records on the other side, particularly on relevant issues like the severe tax hike addiction Sockpuppet has, or the Obama one that was completely ignored last Nov. Let the facts come out, however slowly they may, and the Sockpuppet will sink under his own weight just like Obamacare.
“TCgates”: Obama should retract himself from the presidency and let hillary take over or something. He is doing more damage to your party than anyone since ole’ Jimmy C or Truman. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap! can’t get that song out my head now…
I’m sorry. A Master’s Thesis IS no more nor no less than a glorified term paper—that is an opinion based on the personal expereince of having written one and reviewed many. They lack the originality and rigor of a Doctoral Thesis, and more often than not, they break no new ground academically, and have limited value other than proving that you can research and argue a topic of interest. I’ve not read McDonnel’s paper. I don’t feel compelled to. I am fairly certain that, being familiar with the institution and its over-arching philosophy, I am unlikely to be warm and fuzzy reading it—I generally avoid reading right wing religioun-influenced tracts beyond issues in debate in my own church (we’re having a thing with homosexuality right now). If it were more than marginally relevent, maybe I’d go crazy and scrutinize it.
Look, I don’t question why someone else might want to fixate on something I see having dubious value. That’s what makes politics interesting, and indeed, that kind of diversity in opinion and point of view is healthy.
The comment you quote and take exception to is the childish retortst hat sound like what a bunch of boys might say in sandlot baseball. If you can’t see them, I can’t help you.
Antiboy writes: “The rest of y’all are really acting childish—you do know that, right?“
My, how very grown up of you.
And it’s a master’s thesis. By trying to say it is only a term paper is admitting that there is stuff in there that you’re uncomfortable with.
And actually his track record does look a lot like that paper.
If you read the RTD, 4 repubs said that they’re not surprised by the thesis. Russ Potts says “The thesis that I have been reading about is exactly who Bob McDonnell is”.
While Regent could have been a school of convenience, and largely irrelevent to McDonnell’s core beliefs, his “cover” story for his thesis is pretty thin. Nonetheless, he is right to stress his track record over a glorified term paper written in a place and time that is old history. Look, he’s a conservative. Get over the old news.
The rest of y’all are really acting childish—you do know that, right?
Enjay,
Your post would almost make sense, except you forget one thing: a fact for your premise. What position did Obama write about and need to retract? I know there was a complaint about what he wrote as a kindergartner but I’m talking about something in his adult life.
In other words, what are you talking about?
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap! I guess we can apply the same logic to Obama and his racist preacher. I’m sure the voters will decide whether to follow an 8th grade smear campaign from Sockpuppet-Deeds or substantive issues. Sockpuppet-Deeds is a chronic tax hiker even when moderate democrats tell him to ease off the gas tax pedal he floors it. Sockpuppet is in beholden to special interests and I can’t wait to see what the Unions extract from him after their millions they’ve already pumped into his campaign both directly and indirectly. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap! great song, I think I’m going to run it by Sockpuppet’s campaign mgr. for some ads. An AC/DC tune should attract some voters.
Enjay- 2009-1989= 20 years not 30. So you cite an anonymous Deeds supporter. Is this something you overheard or is it written somewhere than can be documented.
So when McDonnell ran for office 18 years ago, would it have been reasonable to think that he espoused all those views he wrote 2 years before? A reasonable supposition I’d say. Eventually he probably moderated some of his views. He probably doesn’t use the word “fornicator” in public too often anymore.
But people are left to wonder what parts of those views still make up his mindset. Remember this were well thought out words from a master’s thesis, not remarks from a speech. They carry more weight than words that were written on relatively short notice.
Obama had quite a record, including two books. Some ideas may have been politically awkward come summer and fall of 2008. But people were free to make up their own mind about it. Same as today. Of course McDonnell’s supporters are going to say “he’s not like that any more”, but voters will decide whether or not they believe that.
By the way, this story is now being covered on CNN.
Today, a Deeds supporter said that even though the thesis was written 30 years ago, it indicates how McDonnell will govern today.
Yet during the presidential campaign, when questions were raised about Obama’s early ideas, comments and political ideology that he himself espoused, his supporters justified his position as that of a young man and that his position and philosophy has changed over the years.
Why is that not a reasonable response from McDonnell? Is that an argument which can be used only by Obama?
Why can one candidate change his position but not another? Isn’t that hypocritical? It seems that democrats want us to believe that what is good for them is not good for others, that only their candidates have rights that the opposition does not. How petty and selfish. Their response to this question I am raising is: “Oh that is a different case” How, what, when, why? Only you are right and the rest of us are wrong.? Didn’t Obama say he wants to heal the country? Your actions don’t indicate a desire to heal or follow your own leader.
For me and for many, it’s not what McDonnell wrote in 1989 but how he has consistently tried to fulfill all his regressive points in his government tenure in years since. As governor, he would be truly scary.
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