Outside View: The seeds of hope
The following editorial appeared in Friday’s Washington Post.
Before Barack Obama ever popularized it, “the audacity of hope” was more than a phrase in Virginia politics; it was lived experience. When L. Douglas Wilder, the first African-American state senator elected in Virginia since Reconstruction, weighed a race for lieutenant governor in 1985, his candidacy was rated such a fantasy that fellow Democrats implored him not to run and Republicans chortled that he would be thrashed by any opponent with a pulse. Wilder won anyway, notching a victory so improbable that he alone could surpass it – which he did, four years later, by becoming the first African-American elected governor of a state.
“I am a son of Virginia,” Wilder proclaimed in his inaugural address on Jan. 13, 1990. That simple, breathtaking declaration rang out not only in Richmond, capital of the Confederacy, but throughout the South and beyond. Reaching past the all-too-recent traumas of segregation, massive resistance and institutionalized racism – traumas Wilder had witnessed firsthand – he evoked a better America and his heartfelt pride in hailing from the state of Jefferson, Madison and George Mason. It was a stirring moment and a transcendent one.
Wilder, 77, who since 2005 has been mayor of Richmond, his hometown, announced the other day that he would retire from elective politics at the conclusion of his term in office next year.
His decision marks the end of one of the most remarkable careers in American politics in any era, and a farewell from center stage for an outsized, prodigiously gifted public servant.
Silver-tongued, cunning, by turns brash, prickly and suavely charming, Wilder made excellent copy for journalists while managing also to be a fine governor. Taking office in a recession, he was forced to make brutal spending decisions, which he did with little ado while also setting Virginia on a sound fiscal path by establishing and institutionalizing a rainy day fund that provides the state with budgetary ballast to this day.
Fiercely independent by nature, he broke frequently (and, more recently, for good) with his own Virginia Democratic Party, which had lent him such faint support in his first run for statewide office. He delighted in that, and in keeping some of the party’s national grandees at arm’s length as well. In his campaign for governor, he let it be known that he welcomed help from the Rev. Jesse Jackson – as long as Jackson did not set foot on Virginia soil.
When they met for the first time last year, Obama told Wilder that he had been inspired by what the former governor had achieved in Virginia. Reflecting on that by phone with us, Wilder struck a note of humility. “No single individual achieves too much in life on his own or by himself,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate. As (Massachusetts Gov.) Deval Patrick and others have said, to once show that things can happen means the door is open for other things to happen.”