As noted yesterday, four Virginia GOP Congressman, Scott Rigell, Rob Wittman and Randy Forbes, from Hampton Roads, and Frank Wolf, from Northern Virginia, are ready to throw John Boehner, Eric Cantor and the Tea Party lunatics under the bus. Unlike their Kool-Aid drinking brethren in the GOP, they understand that slashing government spending is not always a good thing, particularly in their districts. And it also seems that some of them have finally grasp the fact that the nation and Virginia have changed and that to survive politically, they need to change as well (although Randy Forbes sadly continues to prostitute himself to "family values" hate groups). A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at the willingness of these four to commit heresy in the eyes of the fever ridden, ignorance embracing GOP base. Here are excerpts:
They are the Four Virginia Republicans of the Apocalypse. Their apostasy on reopening the federal government likely guarantees their survival in districts between the Washington suburbs and the Virginia Beach seacoast. Perhaps the same can’t be said for their party.
Scott Rigell, Rob Wittman and Randy Forbes, all from Hampton Roads, and Frank Wolf, a Northern Virginian, account for one-half of the eight Republicans in the state’s U.S. House delegation. Unlike the other half, they favor a no-strings-attached funding measure to end the shutdown that began Oct. 1. It idled thousands of federal workers, many of them in the aforementioned congressmen’s districts.
Rigell, Wittman, Forbes and Wolf — names largely unrecognized beyond their districts — are among 22 House Republicans who would vote with the Democratic minority, apparently assuring passage of an unencumbered bill to resume financing the government.
It’s a scenario the Republican leadership claims is baseless. It’s a scenario that puts these four Virginians crosswise with one of their own: Eric Cantor, the gentleman from Henrico and the House majority leader.
No other state is as heavily represented among the Republican defectors as Virginia. That is because few other states have become the federal suckling Virginia is. Washington largesse, which accelerated here during World War II, transformed Virginia from rural Southern backwater preoccupied with race to a multihued Mid-Atlantic suburban dynamo.
The reinvention of Virginia is evident in the Rigell, Wolf, Wittman and Forbes districts. There, Virginia politics also is being reinvented.
More than a quarter of the state’s economy is attributed to Washington’s beneficence, military and civilian.
In overall federal spending, Virginia — at $17,008 per person — is second only to Alaska. On purchasing, the federal government is the biggest customer in this state. Because of its rich Uncle Sam across the Potomac River, Virginia leads the nation in procurement funding, per capita, and it is third among all states in federal salaries and wages.
Defense spending, per person, is higher in Virginia than any state . . .
Before sequestration became a reality, Virginia got a sense of its possible sting. In 2010, the Obama administration recommended shuttering the Joint Forces Command in Hampton Roads, threatening 5,800 military and civilian jobs. Pushback by the congressional delegation and state and local government forced a partial retreat by the Pentagon. There still were casualties: about 1,900 jobs.
Randy Forbes was particularly high-profile — dare one say, uncharacteristically bipartisan — in the fight to save the Joint Forces Command. He had to be. Ordinarily the only thing to the far left about Forbes is the part of his hair.
Scott Rigell is sui generis among the rebels. He was the only House Republican to oppose the caucus’s initial gamble with Obama: a funding bill that defunded the president’s health care reform. Rigell then became the first Republican in the Virginia delegation to urge a clean spending measure.
As if that didn’t signal Rigell might be angling for something bigger — say, the U.S. Senate or governor — the former car dealer pressed for a bipartisan remedy to the fiscal crisis during an appearance on “The Daily Show,” the political comedy program. At least Rigell knows where the votes are. No joke.
On November 5, 2013, Virginians will have an opportunity to send the national GOP a strong message that this extortion and effort to destroy Virginia's economy need to stop. How? Vote a straight Democrat ticket and send Ken Cuccinelli, E.W. Jackson and Mark Obenshein all down to a crushing defeat. And better yet, tell exit polling folks why you voted anti-GOP.
No comments:
Post a Comment