After the planet Uranus was discovered in 1781, astronomers realized that its orbit could only be explained if there was another, yet unseen, planet somewhere beyond it. Based on that, the great French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier publicly predicted the existence â and location â of the planet we now know as Neptune, making it the first planet predicted before it was ever seen.
In that same vein, today we predict the emergence of a type of politician we have yet to see â one that will likely emerge from rural America, perhaps even rural Virginia.
Before we get to that point, letâs work through the political math. When the parties started realigning in the â60s and â70s, we in the South saw a new type of Democrat arise. Those Democrats declared themselves to be âsocially liberal but fiscally conservativeâ â signaling that they were not the segregationists of a previous generation but werenât radical enough to alarm the business community. This was the formula that led to the election of Democrats such as Charles Robb, Gerald Baliles and Douglas Wilder in the 1980s â and ultimately to Mark Warner in 2001. We donât hear that phrase as much anymore, but there certainly is such a species, even if they are no longer as numerous as they once were.