Quote of the Day: Some Virginia Republicans See a Blue Wave Coming

As noted in a prior post, so far the only announced Republican challengers to Senator Tim Kaine can easily be categorized as "far right," "extremists" and with other adjectives which will likely totally alienate moderate Republicans and independent voters.  The Virginia GOP base - nowadays largely comprised of Christofascists and thinly veiled white supremacists - will likely love these unhinged candidates.  As a post at Bearing Drift (which calls itself the "conservative voice of Virginia") notes, last month's Virginia election results combined with Alabama's shocker on Tuesday ought to have set off alarm bells and sirens within the GOP.  The piece then goes on to predict that the Virginia GOP will not get the message.  Here are the money quote:

[Roy Moore] lost a race in a state that has not elected a Democrat statewide for over 25 years. He had the endorsement of the President of the United States, the off-and-on endorsement of the Republican National Committee, and he handily beat a primary opponent who also had the endorsement of the President and the RNC. Most of all, he had Corey Stewart and Cynthia Dunbar from Virginia in Alabama aggressively campaigning for him. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, what went wrong was that Roy Moore is behind the times.  He didn’t keep up with what is happening in the Deep South:

-Donald Trump is about as popular as loud flatulence in church.

-The Republican Southern Strategy is deader than Jim Crow.

-Democrats have an equal claim on God, guns, and family values in the South.

-You can’t balance the Federal budget by raising taxes on the middle class and cutting entitlements spending.

-Most voters are a lot smarter than the average politician thinks that they are.  That is why 40% of them are Independents and will not blindly vote for the Republican or Democrat without reason.

Yes, Roy Moore is behind the times and his political life is most probably over.  The same thing can be said of the Republican Party of Virginia if they don’t wake up and join the 21st century.

 I particularly like the "loud flatulence in church" comment - even though it is completely true!!

Virginia GOP Appoints Far Right Nut as Executive Director

I frequently read the conservative Virginia blog "Bearing Drift" to know what the enemy is up to if you will.  One of the more extreme contributors to that blog is Shaun Kenney who often seems to live in an alternate universe detached from objective reality.  Under Kenney, it is safe to say that the Virginia GOP will continue its gay-baiting, anti-women, anti-modernity formula and no doubt remain an arm of the Christofascists at The Family Foundation.  All of this is good news for Democrats as most citizens  of the Commonwealth (outside of Southwest Virginia and religious extremist circles) move forward into the future.  The Washington Post noted Kenney's appointment:

The Republican Party of Virginia hired a new executive director Wednesday and announced that former attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli II had made a $25,000 donation to boost the organization’s depleted coffers. Party Chairman Pat Mullins appointed Shaun Kenney, a veteran Virginia political operative, former party spokesman and blogger, as executive director.  


Kenney served as the party’s communications director in 2007 under then-chairman Ed Gillespie, who this year is seeking the GOP nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). He has been frequent contributor to the conservative blog Bearing Drift.

Kenney takes a top job at a party eager to change its fortunes after losing the last two presidential contests and seeing Democrats sweep all three statewide offices last year.

The state GOP is also trying to overcome fundraising woes that it blames on the 2013 election cycle, which went into overtime with a recount in the attorney general’s race and several special elections. Before Cuccinelli’s donation, the state GOP had less than $70,000 in cash on hand between its state and federal accounts, compared to about $230,000 available to the Democratic Party of Virginia.

Anyone who hoped that the Virginia GOP might return to sanity should be disturbed by Kenney's appointment.

Some Republicans Say It is Time for Bob Marshall to Disappear

Bob Marshall - A Virginia Embarrassment

As noted in the last post, GOP Del. Bob Marshall had nothing good to say about yesterday's ruling in Bostic v. Rainey.  But then again, the man has stated in interviews that he'd like to drive all gays from Virginia.  The crazier a bill in the Virginia General Assembly is and the more focused it is on forcing far right religious views on all, the more one can be assured that Bob Marshall's fingerprints will be all over it. Finally some Republicans have had enough of Marshall's demagoguery and the bad image he gives to both Virginia and the the Republican Party of Virginia.  A piece in Bearing Drift makes the case of why Marshall needs to simply disappear from the Virginia political scene.  I would make the case that the same holds true for The Family Foundation.  Here are column excerpts:

It’s time for Bob Marshall to go away.  To finally retire from public life and allow the Republican Party in Virginia to heal the damage he and his terminal foot-in-mouth disease have done to the Party.  He turns 70 years old this year and has spent 11 terms in the Virginia House of Delegates.  It’s time for fresh blood in Prince William.  Anybody who cares about their constituents and about their party would be ready to hand off the reins to the next generation.

So that’s why Bob Marshall is, instead, throwing his hat into the ring in the 10^th Congressional District race.

Did anybody expect anything less of him?  I know I didn’t.  This is a man who is a pariah in Richmond, who his own colleagues shun, who routinely skips hearings (he’s been to almost no Counties committee meetings, and almost no Science and Tech meetings) and party meetings so he doesn’t have to talk to the rest of the Republican delegation who are trying to actually accomplish things in Richmond.  I guess that gives him more time to work on the ridiculous pieces of legislation he introduces, like creating a Virginia currency, creating our own incandescent light bulb regime (that even AG Cuccinelli opposed), and refighting the Civil War with his incessant anti-Obamacare bills relying on the discredited and unconstitutional doctrines of nullification (which has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans on it) and interposition (which has the blood of Civil Rights heroes on it).  Or this little gem from this session, HB 90, a worthless bill designed to ensure that federal employees don’t have their power shut off in the event of a Federal Government shutdown.  Great work, Bob.  That’s going to really help with job creation in Prince William.

Bob Marshall’s political career has been one long, self-aggrandizing ego trip.  He’s never satisfied with simply being the Delegate from the 13^th District, and has spent the last 6 years trying desperately to find a way to Washington.  None of those attempts have been successful.

That’s what Bob is, folks.  A Virginia embarrassment.  This is a man who, while claiming to be pro-life, said that disabled children were punishment from God for the sins of their parents.  Ignoring the fact that most of these disabled kids are born to pro-life parents, it was one of the most fundamentally demeaning and idiotic statements made by a man whose entire career has been bouncing from one demeaning and idiotic statement to the next.   The man makes Todd Akin look reasonable.

It's stunning that this was written by a dyed in the wool Republican.  One has to wonder when the Virginia GOP as a whole will wake up to the poisonous nature of the Christofascists and the hate and division that is all they bring to the public arena. 

 

Bearing Drift: GOP Opposition to LGBT Anti-Discrimination Laws is A Losing Proposition

I do not always agree with the views espoused on Bearing Drift, which describes itself as "Virginia's Conservative Voice," but unlike many of the far right outlets, there is intelligent thought at Bearing Drift - at least sometimes.  Whether or not it's enough to overcome the insidious influence of the horrid, hate filled Christofascists at The Family Foundation is another question.  But perhaps it is a start.  I particularly liked this post that gets right in the face of the theocrats and seeks to wake the Virginia GOP up to objective reality when it comes to the long term negative anti-gay bigotry is for the GOP.  Here are some post excerpts:

Earlier this week in Richmond, on a tie vote in the Senate General Laws Committee, a bill that would have prohibited sexual-orientation discrimination in state government employment was defeated. Only one of the Republicans on the committee, Jill Vogel, voted in favor of the bill.

Last year a similar bill made it out of committee and was approved on a 24-15 vote in the state Senate before being defeated in the Republican-dominated House of Delegates, where it was left in the General Laws Committee and never got to the floor.

Four years ago, when similar legislation was under consideration by the General Assembly, I spoke in favor of SB66 as a representative of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia I noted that the RLCVA had endorsed the bill “because we believe it is not the place of the government to discriminate on irrelevant characteristics in employment regarding otherwise law-abiding citizens and taxpayers.”

Majorities of American voters oppose workplace discrimination — in hiring, firing, and promotion — against gay men and lesbians (or, to use the current term of art, “LGBT Americans”).

So the question I want to ask is, Are Virginia Republicans shooting themselves in the foot by opposing a form of this popular legislation? 

After all, the bills that have been coming before the General Assembly have addressed only government employment and have not attempted to impose non-discrimination policies on private employers (who, as I noted earlier, already tend to have adopted those policies on their own initiative).

The TargetPoint Consulting survey also looked into whether elected officials would benefit or suffer by voting in favor of anti-discrimination bills like this. While this survey referred only to the federal ENDA bill, but the sentiment would probably be held by constituents of state lawmakers, as well.

Electoral consequences of support are more positive than negative. 39% of voters say they would support the re-election of a member of Congress that voted for a bill that prohibits employment discrimination against gay and transgender Americans, while 33% say they would oppose their re-election.

To put it bluntly, opposing anti-discrimination laws that apply to gay and lesbian Virginians is a losing proposition for Republican officeholders.

Is there a principled argument for permitting the government to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or any other characteristic rather than the ability or inability to perform one’s duties on the job in a competent and effective manner? If so, I have not yet heard it.

Conservative Blog Warns Obenshain Not to Try to Steal AG Election

I noted this morning how the Richmond Times Dispatch has raised the specter again of Mark Obenshain trying to steal the Virginia Attorney General election by throwing the election into the Virginia General Assembly where apparently Obenshain thinks the GOP majority would give the election to him regardless of the voter of the Virginia electorate.   The conservative blog Bearing Drift - the leading Virginia conservative blog in the minds of some politico junkies - slams Obenshain for perhaps heading down this deceptive road.  Unlike too many in today's GOP, the folks at Bearing Drift worry about the long term viability of the Republican Party and winning future elections.  Here are some of the highlights:

A good lawyer will keep every possible option on the table for his or her client and that’s exactly what Mark Obenshain’s legal team is doing in advance of the recount of the ballots cast in the attorney general race. Among those options? Contesting the possible outcome of the recount before the General Assembly.

The basis for a contest appears to rest upon how ballots were handled in Fairfax county, where our own Brian Schoeneman was in the thick of the action in his role as an election official. Brian has been very open about the process the county used to count, canvass and secure its ballots. He has done, and continues to do, a fine job in that capacity.  But none of that may prevent a contest. 

The assumption is that given the partisan make-up of the General Assembly, Mark Obenshain would be able to win a contest without much problem. Republicans would hear whatever evidence is presented and, regardless of its quality, hand the AG’s office to one of their own.

That would be a fatal mistake. Wooly-eyed partisans would cheer such an outcome . . . The real damage, though, comes afterwards. Anointing a winner — even if it is allowed under Virginia law — carries with it the real possibility that the party selecting the new incumbent will suffer at the next election. Worse, whatever patina of cooperation exists between the parties today would be erased for good. There are those who prefer such an outcome, even yearn for it. But Virginia loses if that happens as the political class would descend into an orgy of destruction.

Mark Obenshain would do himself an immense deal of good by making sure that doesn’t occur. He is already well position to run for statewide office in 2017 if the recount does not go his way. 

Accept the recounts results and then get on with it. There will be plenty of fights to come in the next session. 

It is encouraging that a few sane Republicans still exist.  However, one has to wonder how long it will be before the folks at Bearing Drift begin to be called RINOS.