Breaking down McDonnell's Regent University thesis....

Republican Bob McDonnell's 1989 thesis is all over the Internet, so what can you find in the 93-page document?

Following the traditional "the more eyes the better" mantra, we're posting the thesis online and asking readers to sift through the Republican's social viewpoints and arguments to find interesting tidbits of information. We're still reading the academic paper that McDonnell wrote as a 34-year-old student at Regent University in Virginia Beach. 

The Pat Robertson-founded college was known then as CBN University. Democrat Creigh Deeds campaign clearly believes that the document pulls back the veil on McDonnell and one of the Democrat's seniors advisors has called the paper "devastating to the McDonnell campaign." 

McDonnell's team is backing away and downplaying the impact of the paper calling it an academic exercise that shouldn't be used 20-years after it was written. But Deeds advisor Mo Elleithee is quick to point out that the paper is "not the ruminations of some college kid. This is someone on the cusp of public life." 

So here's a link to McDonnell's thesis.... 

Read as much as you want and see what you can find in the paper and cut and paste the details into the comments section.   

Comments

[Chris G]

Jack, either you are a dunce or didn't see the documented sources at the end of his thesis. Let's assume the latter case. What is "scary" to you about what he wrote? I'm always suspect of people who claim to be "scared" or "frightened" while failing to cite the specific cause of such an emotion. I get an image of some quivering wimp (likely a thin gray mouse) in a corner who can't face reality- kind of like something I might see in a cartoon. Rather than tar and feather McDonnell, why not take his thesis as a snapshot? He wrote this 20 years ago. I think it's more prudent to look at the aggregate writings and legislative efforts of politicians to form an opinion of their worldview to gain insight about how they may govern. We got very little of that kind of coverage in the last presidential election. That fact is what should scare you Jack. BOO! You scared?

[Patrick]

Hey, paw. Remind me again what office Michelle Obama is running for in the state of Virginia? Thanks.

[paw]

Princeton wasn't so fast to give up the vitriol and hate-filled diatribe thesis of Michelle Obama. Yes i have read it...Saul Aulinsky and Scholar Gates are pruod of it, too. Why don't you out that online for the masses to peruse, oh editor?

[Jack]

These are not the musings of an 18-22 year old undergrad, these are the foundational ideas of a man in his mid 30s about to embark on a career in politics...

There are too many troublesome passages from the thesis to cite. Needless to say, working women, fornicators, homosexuals and humanists all share culpability for America's ills in McD's world. There's no way one can read it and not come away with a clear idea as to where McDonnell stands on all sorts of issues. This is scary enough on its own. However, the most troubling thing is that this screed qualified as an acceptable thesis at an accredited university. Virtually ALL of McDonnell's citations: are of like-minded politicians, political propaganda, are absent of refereed sources, and pretty much represent personal opinion.