Herbert Hoover's Ghost In Virginia Election

In the year 2008, with Internet fund-raising and YouTube and “rapid re-sponse” Web sites the talk of politics, it is somewhat jarring to see a reference to Herbert Hoover in a U.S. Senate campaign in Virginia.



The heavily odds-on favorite to win a Senate seat there, former Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, sent out an e-mail Monday pushing a Washington Post line about his Republican opponent, the arch-conservative Jim Gilmore — also a one-time governor.


Here is The Washington Post:

In Mr. Gilmore, Virginia had its very own Herbert Hoover.

Does a reference to Hoover and the 1932 campaign really have any resonance in 2008 — when increasingly economic anxious Americans have only to look to the last eight years to find their White House villainy?

Hoover deserves a full examination — not cheap political shots that miss the mark anyway.