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Campaigning Against Government in the Old Dominion: State Taxation, State Power, and the Virginia 1997 Gubernatorial Election
Author(s) -
Farnsworth Stephen J.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.259
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 1555-5623
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.2002.tb00130.x
Subject(s) - victory , governor , respondent , dominion , state (computer science) , government (linguistics) , power (physics) , political science , property tax , public administration , economics , law , public economics , law and economics , politics , tax reform , engineering , linguistics , philosophy , physics , algorithm , quantum mechanics , aerospace engineering , computer science
James S. Gilmore III (R) credited his election in 1997 as governor of Virginia to his attacks upon the size and taxation authority of state government, a twist on recent Republican attacks upon the size and taxation authority of the national government. Gilmore's plan to eliminate the personal property tax for nearly all cars and trucks was also seen as the key to his victory by independent analysts and by Virginia legislators. This quantitative analysis finds, however, that Gilmore's support was primarily the result of partisan orientations, evaluations of his character, the performance of the incumbent Republican gubernatorial administration, and background measures like the respondent's education and age. Variables that measured an individual's interest in smaller state government, his or her knowledge of which candidate proposed the car tax cut, and the importance he or she placed on tax issues did not achieve statistical significance.