Can the Virginia GOP Escape From Crazy Land?

RVP extremist John Whitbeck

As it gathers for the so-called "Republican Advance" - an event the Richmond Times Dispatch describes as "a holiday fundraising soiree where party notables, aspiring candidates and GOP operatives share a cup of wassail" - many wonder if the Virginia GOP has learned anything from its losses in 2013 and Ed Gilespie's defeat back in November.  In my view, the answer is a resounding "No."   Moreover, despite the fact that Bill Bolling (who unlike Ken Cuccinelli was electable) has tried to steer the Virginia GOP back toward sanity, the more likely trend is for the party to veer off into even deeper insanity, especially if The Family Foundation and Tea Party elements have their way.  The Richmond Times Dispatch looks at Bolling's efforts. Here are excerpts:

The annual gathering also offers an early glimpse at potential statewide candidates jockeying for position to run in 2017.

None of the party’s last three statewide officeholders — former Gov. Bob McDonnell, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, or Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli are expected at the Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles.

Cuccinelli, who lost the race for governor to Democrat Terry McAuliffe, will be in Richmond for the dedication of the Commonwealth Public Safety Memorial, honoring 870 Virginia first responders who died in the line of duty.

McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were convicted in September on federal corruption charges. The former governor has maintained a low public profile since the trial, pending his sentencing Jan. 6.

Bolling also will not be on hand — but the Hanover Republican has plenty to say about where the party is and where it needs to go to make future Advances seem less like retreats.   Bolling even took out a full-page ad in the Advance sponsorship booklet urging unity.  “This is a challenging time for our party, but if we work hard, smart and together, we can rebuild the Republican Party and once again earn the right to lead Virginia,” it reads.

He [Bolling] said some of the current leadership of the party is “in denial” that it needs a course correction despite losing the six statewide elections since Republicans McDonnell, Bolling and Cuccinelli swept to victory in 2009.

“Believe it or not, after losing two close statewide elections,” for governor in 2013 and U.S. Senate this year, “my sense of grass-roots Republicans is that they have an attitude of ‘we can do this,’ not any sense of defeatism,” Cuccinelli said in an email. “That bodes well going forward.”

Nominating candidates that “light the ideological fires of the farthest right wing of the party is fine, but those candidates aren’t going to win,” said Bolling.

Meanwhile, a piece in Blue Virginia looks at the insane likely next head of the Republican Party of a Virginia, an anti-Semite and far right extremist:

The race to lead the Republican Party of Virginia is all but settled and somehow, Virginia Republicans see no issues with elevating one of the most polarizing and insensitive figures in the Commonwealth. They couldn't find a single candidate more qualified than John Whitbeck, whose unique brand of extremism, obstructionism and of course, anti-Semitism shows Virginia Republicans couldn't be less interested in working to move Virginia forward. 

"It says a lot about Virginia Republicans that they would welcome as chair someone as extreme as John Whitbeck," said Morgan Finkelstein, press secretary for the Democratic Party of Virginia. "From his offensive anti-Semitic comments to his extreme positions opposing abortion even in cases of rape and incest, Whitbeck blatantly puts his ideological Tea Party agenda ahead of the citizens of Virginia. By backing someone so polarizing, the Republican Party of Virginia is sending a clear signal that they're only interested in being the party of 'no.'"

From his offensive positions to his far-right friends, John Whitbeck represents a major step in the Tea Party takeover of the RPV.

With voices like these leading the Republican Party of Virginia, it's no wonder that even hard-line conservatives are finding that they're not right-wing enough. Tea Party extremist Susan Stimpson has already announced a primary challenge to Speaker Bill Howell, Dan Moxley is primarying Senator Emett Hanger and of course, David Brat has already replaced Eric Cantor in Congress. John Whitbeck's rise to Chair is further proof that Virginia Republicans are bolting to the right wing extremes.

The Virginia GOP - Still Drink the Kool-Aid

While Ken Cuccinelli said that he would not be running for office at the just passed "Republican Advance," indication are that the Republican Party of Virginia remains lost in fantasy land and unable to grasp that the world - and areas outside of the redneck, Bible beating hinterland of Virginia - is moving into the future.  Meanwhile, the Virginia GOP remains mired in the past, longing for the days of Jim Crow and when gays remained closeted.  A piece in Politico looks at the denial that continues to reign among the Kool-Aid drinkers who see the Virginia GOP's problems as only "cosmetic."  Here are excerpts:

Virginia Republicans suffered a drubbing last month, losing all three statewide races (though a recount is impending in one). A year earlier, it was pretty much the same story as Mitt Romney got swamped and the party unexpectedly lost ground in the Senate.

But to hear GOP leaders in this once reliably red state tell it, this is no time to panic. No hint of discouragement is betrayed. Just as many party activists insisted after Romney’s loss, key figures here said that their shortcomings are cosmetic — that the problem is largely about campaign mechanics and how the conservative message is being delivered, not the message itself.

So if the Commonwealth, sure to again be a top battleground in 2016, is a microcosm for the broader Republican Party, the GOP faithful here weren’t showing much interest in the kind of soul-searching many in the GOP believe is necessary if they want to win big elections again.

They blamed the loss on a failure and inability to more aggressively push back against Democratic Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe’s avalanche of negative ads. They argued that more money, not having a third-party candidate in the race and a scandal-free governor would have made the difference.

For the first time since 1969, the GOP probably won’t control any of the five statewide offices. For the first time since 1973, the party that won the presidential election the year before also won the governorship.

Several conservative loyalists expressed contempt for moderate Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who dropped out of the Republican race for governor after Cuccinelli maneuvered to change the way the nominee would be picked from a primary to a convention. Bolling stayed officially neutral but maneuvered behind the scenes to help McAuliffe.

Bolling, who did not attend the gathering, wrote an op-ed for the Richmond Times-Dispatch last week that laid out five steps to revitalize the GOP. One of them was to stop selecting nominees at party conventions, which tend to settle on more conservative candidates.

“While such conventions might empower a few thousand of the most strident voices within our party, they effectively lock out other voices that should be heard,” he wrote. “They too often result in the nomination of candidates who simply can’t get elected when judged by a broader Virginia electorate.”

Many from the Bolling wing of the party cite the 10-point loss of E.W. Jackson, who came out of nowhere to win the nomination for lieutenant governor at a May convention despite a history of controversial remarks, as reason to return to a primary system for picking nominees. But there is not currently the support for such a move on the state central committee.

Will the GOP Go Extinct in Virginia?

A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at the questionable future of the Republican Party of Virginia, particularly in the wake of the 2013 Virginia statewide elections.  The column looks at issues that I discussed with friends at a holiday fundraiser - like me, all were former Republicans.  Also like me, all had been repelled and driven away by the extremism of today's GOP and its take over by the Christofascists and, to a lesser extent the Tea Party elements that do no coincide with Christofascist elements.  With Virginia's demographics changing rapidly, the question becomes, will the GOP become extinct in Virginia or will it, instead, become a permanent minority party if it doesn't throw off the strangle hold of the Christofascists.  Here are column highlights:

Beyond a message, Virginia Republicans are looking for a messenger. They need one or several who can sell ideas relevant to the real lives of the broadest range of Virginians rather than the rhetorical needs of the party’s narrowing base.

In electing a Democratic governor, a Democratic lieutenant governor and (perhaps) a Democratic attorney general, Virginians were not fully endorsing their views. Voters accepted them in the absence of a practical alternative.

Terry McAuliffe ran on Obamacare. Ken Cuccinelli ran against it. He rarely advanced other options for closing the health care gap. “No” is not a solution.

The state GOP’s post-election conference this weekend at The Homestead is as much an opportunity for activists to lick wounds as it is a chance to inflict new ones. As recent backbiting suggests, this is a party better at retribution than reflection. The mountain setting means much of this is taking place out of view.

There are talented Republicans who could lead their party from the wilderness. It’s that Republicans discourage talent by sticking with a creed that is strictly enforced by a shrinking pool of true-believers. Their sway is magnified by made-to-order legislative districts and a members-only nominating process.

As a consequence, prospective problem-solvers have a problem: They are reluctant to speak truth to power because they risk being stripped of it.
Even those Republicans to whom the party might turn are problematic.  . . . . The loud albeit unspoken lesson in this: Republicans need to get in front of a changing Virginia before they’re trampled by it. Speaking to the diversifying electorate rather than talking down to it is an avenue back into the urban and suburban vote troves that are the foundation of the latest Democratic ascendancy.
 
• Eric Cantor, the U.S. House majority leader from Henrico, is not a Republican given to counterintuitive behavior. So when he is, it gets people’s attention. Cantor is supporting an openly gay candidate for a Democrat-held House seat in California. Since the summer, Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California have combined to give the candidate, Carl DeMaio, $15,000.

Cantor may be taking only a baby step, but it’s an important one. It allows him, as national Republican congressional leader, to be seen as attuned to changing national opinion. But it is not so bold as to threaten his standing with the small number of younger, more conservative Republicans he must accommodate to remain in the leadership.

• Frank Wolf and Scott Rigell, Republican congressmen from Fairfax and Virginia Beach, respectively, know how to engage voters the GOP prefers to revile: federal employees and those in the private sector dependent on the beneficence of Washington, D.C. And because of this, Wolf and Rigell know how to get re-elected, even amid uncertainty over future federal spending.

Wolf and Rigell were early in their opposition to the Republican-orchestrated federal shutdown. For them, it was a human story about paycheck-less paydays for friends and neighbors and money permanently sucked out of the local economy.

• Outmaneuvered by Cuccinelli for the gubernatorial nomination, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is preserving for the Republican Party a narrow conduit to its traditional allies in business. Though his conservatism largely matches Cuccinelli’s, Bolling knows, as many in the corporate class do, not to be doctrinaire. The idea is to close the sale, not scare it off.

Bolling is laying out a path forward through his Virginia Mainstream Project. It’s a political action committee that emphasizes the inclusion his critics say he refused to practice with Cuccinelli. Among the Bolling PAC’s priorities: that candidates are selected by primary rather than convention.

Republicans have to decide whether getting rid of bad blood is more important than attracting new blood. They’re not mutually exclusive. It’s a message Republicans may not want to hear.

Like the column's author, I suspect the message will fall on deaf ears among the Christofascists and Tea Party zealots who will prefer to continue drinking Kool-Aid and controlling a shrinking field of political extremists.

How Ken Cuccinelli Blew His Early Advantage

I will not feel comfortable until the votes are counted on the evening of November 5, 2013, and it is confirmed for certain that GOP lunatic candidate Ken Cuccinelli has gone down to defeat.  Yet the post mortems have already begun and a remarkable piece in the Washington Post authored by political polar opposites slams both Cuccinelli and his campaign for bungling and unbelievable tone deafness when it comes to reading the public mindset.  Much of the piece would blame Cuccinelli's campaign staff, but in my view, the real problems ultimately is Cuccinelli himself who (i) is a "true believer" fanatic who is so certain of his own views that he cares nothing about what others - including a majority of voters - may think and (ii) has created many easily avoidable disasters for himself.  Long ago he should have gotten out and mingled with those outside the echo chamber of The Family Foundation and far right organizations that much of the larger public perceive as scary and/or insane.  That, of course, would have been inconsistent with his zealot/fanatic/extremist mindset. Cuccinelli will likely never grasp that the views of The Family Foundation are not representative of most Virginians.  Here are column excerpts:

Last month, we wrote that Ken Cuccinelli II’s campaign to become Virginia’s next governor needed to raise its game or face certain defeat. Has it done so? Unequivocally, no.  Cuccinelli’s strategists and consultants have doggedly followed a baffling strategy.

Even the best campaigns can lose. But an inept campaign guarantees a loss for an underdog, and Cuccinelli (R) has been the underdog since July. The attorney general’s defenders will undoubtedly refute our analysis, claiming instead that bad luck and strong headwinds have hobbled the GOP effort in Virginia. In our view, his problems went much deeper.

Simply put, Cuccinelli’s advisers never displayed an ability to win. They badly underestimated the seasoned team of his opponent, Terry McAuliffe (D), which was aided by nearly twice as much campaign cash.

[T]he real damage from “giftgate” had nothing to do with luck. It resulted from Cuccinelli’s inexplicable refusal to repay the $18,000, even after McDonnell had reimbursed Williams. This gave McAuliffe a political gift: an issue to use in a late-summer television ad barrage to undercut Cuccinelli’s previously “clean” image. When Cuccinelli’s campaign finally realized its huge, unforced error, it reversed course and Cuccinelli donated the value of the gifts to charity. But the damage was done.

Cuccinelli’s defenders also bemoan the bad timing of the federal shutdown and debt default, which soured voters on Republicans generally. It’s true that was a tough break. But by then, his campaign was already lagging in the polls.

Moreover, Cuccinelli had been angling to harness tea party enthusiasm since his first-in-the-nation legal challenge to Obamacare in 2010. He had to know — or should have known — the risks of associating himself with the bloc’s often-rigid views. This month, he and shutdown leader Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the tea party’s hero of the moment, were the featured speakers at the conservative Family Foundation’s annual gala in Richmond.
Bad luck also didn’t create a pattern of pitting gubernatorial candidate Cuccinelli against Attorney General Cuccinelli on issues such as McDonnell’s transportation plan, unpopular tolls in the Tidewater region and landowner rights in Southwest Virginia.

No, Cuccinelli’s problems aren’t about luck. They’re about a candidate and a campaign team being unable to play this level.

Consider: Early on, Cuccinelli refused to resign as attorney general when he mounted his run for governor, as predecessors of both parties have done. We agree that this unique Virginia tradition is outdated. But given that several developing cases were fated to become front-page news during the election, his campaign advisers should have seized on the Virginia tradition as a blessing. They didn’t see it.

Cuccinelli, the likely easy winner in the already declared GOP gubernatorial primary, decided nonetheless to get the rules changed. He helped force a nominating convention that was stacked against rival Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling. The perceived double-cross alienated key Republicans.

As McAuliffe’s summer ad campaign methodically wrecked Cuccinelli’s image, the Republican’s consultants failed to offer what professionals call an “alternative positive narrative.”

Cuccinelli’s consultants agreed with Virginia political observer Larry Sabato, who said the GOP nominee was a sure winner once Republicans launched their anti-McAuliffe campaign. We debunked such foolishness early on. The Cuccinelli campaign long promised an October surprise. Right.

The verdict: “Unable,” aided and abetted by “unlucky,” leads to “unelectable.”

The authors of this scathing piece:  Norman Leahy, an editor of the conservative Web site BearingDrift.com and producer of the political radio show “The Score,” and Paul Goldman, a former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia.  Typically, these men do not agree on anything.  

Virginia GOP Central Committee Moves to Oust Bill Bolling

The Republican Party of Virginia has become a fetid swamp of insanity and the worse thing one can do in the eyes of the ignorant, unwashed party base - or the Central Committee which now acts more like a communist Politburo of old enforcing political orthodoxy - is to stand up for the need to recognize objective reality and the fact that to win, a political party cannot stray too far into crazy land.  Lt. Governor Bolling has therefore, committed a cardinal sin in his opposition to the carnival of insanity that is the Virginia GOP's 2013 statewide slate.  Yes, Bolling may be harboring sour grapes, but he hasn't totally surrendered to the Kool-Aid drinking that is now de rigueur for GOP membership.  The result?  A move is afoot to force him from the Virginia GOP central committee.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling angered many Republicans when, after quitting the race for the party’s gubernatorial nod, he publicly mulled over an independent bid and then said he wouldn’t endorse anyone in the race.

That anger turned to fury over the weekend, when it appeared that Bolling had tried to help persuade an influential business PAC to support Democrat Terry McAuliffe over Republican Ken Cuccinelli II.



Now, some Republicans are urging the Virginia GOP to oust Bolling from the party.

The controversy began last week, when the political arm of the Northern Virginia Technology Council voted to endorse Cuccinelli. McAuliffe allies erupted in protest and launched a weekend of heavy lobbying to reverse the decision. According to two people with knowledge of events, Bolling was among those who called the PAC’s leader on behalf of McAuliffe.

It was seemingly the first indication that Bolling had taken an active role to promote the Democratic nominee in the governor’s race.

Now, leading Republicans say privately that they believe Bolling has essentially left the party. Some are urging the GOP to make that official by removing him from the party.

“I think his future as a candidate within the Republican Party as presently constituted is nil,” said Bob Holsworth, a former Virginia Commonwealth University professor and veteran Richmond politics watcher.

“I think what Bolling or others are hoping is that, if there’s a [Cuccinelli] defeat, the reaction among moderate Republicans would be so strong as to provide a new opportunity. He didn’t have a future from the time he started dissing Cuccinelli, and this is just an escalation of what’s been going on for the last couple of months.”

In March, McAuliffe said he would have a place in his cabinet for Bolling.  Bolling’s longtime political consultant, Boyd Marcus, shocked political observers last month by endorsing McAuliffe and going to work for his campaign.

Today's Virgina GOP is unrecognizable compared to what the party stood for back during my years as a City Committee member for the City of Virginia Beach.  Insanity and religious extremism are the rule of the day and moderates continue to flee the party - or at least those few that are left.  Voter need to understand that this is not the GOP that they or their parents grew up with.  It is something extreme, ugly and dangerous for both Virginia and the nation.

Why Ken Cuccinelli is Losing the Virginia Governor's Race

I continue to hope that Democrats do not get cocky and/or indifferent and fail to get out and vote on election day.  It is VITAL that the GOP slate of Cuccinelli, Jackson and Obenshain lose, but that they lose disastrously.  Over and over again we hear whiners in the GOP claim that the GOP loses because it fails to nominate sufficiently conservative candidates.  In this year's Virginia GOP slate ALL of the nominees are far to the right of Attila the Hun, so if they go down in flames, that tired platitude will go down with them and hopefully send a message to the GOP nationwide.  Politico looks at what one can only hope is Ken Cuccinelli's rapidly collapsing campaign.  Here are excerpts:

Republicans can’t believe this is happening: Democrat Terry McAuliffe — whose controversial business dealings and past life as a party moneyman make him a walking negative ad — has taken command of the Virginia governor’s race.

More than a dozen interviews last week with longtime Republican insiders around the Commonwealth yielded near-unanimous consensus that their candidate, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, lost significant ground over the summer and would lose if the election were held today.

The only real point of disagreement is how wide a margin it would be.  “It’s going to be a bath,” one prominent state Republican who wants Cuccinelli to win went so far as to say. Like several others, the person sought anonymity to speak candidly about the state of the race.

But a contest that looked winnable for Cuccinelli for much of the year has broken against him. Here’s a look at how it happened.

1. The gifts scandal

Gov. Bob McDonnell was expected to be a big asset for Cuccinelli. Instead, the Star Scientific scandal has turned the incumbent into a major liability.

The constant drip-drip of revelations by The Washington Post — of gifts and loans totaling more than $124,000 from the dietary supplement maker’s CEO, Jonnie Williams, to the governor and his family — was bad enough for Cuccinelli. But the candidate couldn’t easily distance himself from the scandal because he, too, accepted some $18,000 worth of gifts from Williams — and failed to disclose a chunk of them, as required by law.

2. A divided GOP

A significant number of Republicans remain on the sidelines in the race. A nonpartisan poll released last week by Purple Strategies, which had Cuccinelli trailing by 5 percentage points overall, found that only 77 percent of self-identifying Republicans currently support him.

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who dropped out of the race for governor after the state GOP changed its nominating procedure to ensure Cuccinelli would win, said Friday he still isn’t comfortable endorsing Cuccinelli.

“Clearly, this is not just the most conservative, but the most ideologically-driven ticket that the Republican Party has ever put forth,” Bolling said in an interview. “There are a lot of Republicans, like me, very concerned about the direction of the party. We believe for the Republican Party to be a viable party in Virginia, we’ve got be a more mainstream party and communicate a more mainstream message.”

3. Northern Virginia has been neglected

Several Republicans complained that Cuccinelli has not spent nearly as much time campaigning in Northern Virginia as McDonnell did four years ago. A review of all his public events during the month of August shows only a handful of publicly announced appearances in the D.C. suburbs. He made far more stops in places that should be reliably red.

Cuccinelli‘s controversial views on abortion, gay marriage, skepticism of global warming and advocacy for the rights of fathers don’t play well in Northern Virginia, especially with women. He has tried not to emphasize those issues but also not backed away from his stances.  Operatives say that Cuccinelli has never created an identity beyond being a rock-ribbed social conservative.

4. Teflon Terry

 

“They’ve sold him as a businessman rather than a political fundraiser or a Clinton stooge,” said Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia political scientist, who switched the race to “Lean Democratic” before Labor Day.

5. The left is outspending the right

Democrats have significantly outspent Republicans on television so far, which has helped drive up Cuccinelli’s negatives, and that disparity is expected to continue for the duration of the race.

Through the end of June, Cuccinelli raised $7.7 million for the race and McAuliffe raised $12.7 million. The next fundraising report is due Monday.

Cuccinelli is beloved by the tea party, but he does not have an extensive donor network and has never built the deep relationships that McDonnell cultivated with many in the Richmond business community.

“The fundraising operation is sound, but they don’t have the brand and it’s too late to build it at this point,” said a Virginia Republican.

Again, it is CRUCIAL that gays, women, minorities and those who do not want a Christofascist inquisition state government turn out in mass and vote on election day.  Cucinelli, et al, need to lose by a landslide.s

More GOP Hysteria Over Boyd Marcus Defection from GOP

The Republican Party of Virginia has nominated the most extreme - and my opinion mentally ill - slate of statewide candidates in Virginia's history thanks to Ken Cuccinelli's maneuver to have the nominating process done through a state wide convention dominated by Christofascists and Tea Party lunatics.  Anyone sane should have seen that many long time Republicans simply would not be able to hold their noses and vote for individuals better suited for incarceration in a mental institution that state wide elected office.  Among those fleeing this GOP created nightmare is Boyd Marcus (pictured at left), a long time GOP operative who simply could not stomach the thought of Ken Cuccinelli in the Governors mansion.   The fall out of this notable defection continues as noted in a column in the Richmond Times Dispatch.  Here are column excerpts:

To Virginia Republicans, he is the “Prince of Darkness.” To veteran reporters, he is the “smiling assassin.” His watchwords, from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” were framed on his office wall: “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.”

Boyd Marcus runs Republican campaigns. He can run opponents into the ground with tough talking points and slasher direct-mail. He ran state government as Gov. Jim Gilmore’s chief of staff. He ran off allies as partisan enforcer of the budget-busting no-car-tax plan.
 

Marcus is on the run from a Republican Party he no longer recognizes.  He is doing the unthinkable: crossing over to the Democrats. He’s taking a job, paying up to five-figures a month, as a strategist for gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe. It follows a months-long courtship, direct and indirect, that accelerated after the fight over new road taxes.

Marcus, a reflexive Republican, said in a written statement he is supporting McAuliffe, a reflexive Democrat, because the candidate is a pragmatic bipartisan. Marcus also cited McAuliffe’s business credentials . . . .

The Marcus defection is no laughing matter.  For Republicans, it feeds a troubling narrative about Ken Cuccinelli that he, alone, composed: The Republican candidate for governor — heartthrob of tea partiers and Rand Paul-ites who have no use for suburban, business-oriented R’s such as Marcus — does not work or play well with others. This is a dominant feature in the broad-strokes portrait Democrats are painting of Cuccinelli in their nonstop television and online advertising.

Cuccinelli depicts the Marcus break as a grab for cash by a guy who could use some. Further, Cuccinelli says Marcus is motivated by spite, having seen Bolling, who was waiting in line to run, lose the nomination to someone who jumped in front.

“If there’s one thing people don’t like, it’s a Benedict Arnold,” said Chris LaCivita, Cuccinelli’s lead adviser. “You’re either a sore loser or a sellout. Boyd Marcus happens to be both.”

Cuccinelli can spin all he wants.  The bottom line is that he's a detestable individual who is unfit to be governor.  Marcus sees this and it drives Cuccinelli crazy (or at least crazier).

Why Ken Cuccinelli and the Virginia GOP Are Bad for Virginia

As Ken Cuccinelli continues to bring negative publicity to Virginia through his quest to reinstate the sodomy statute which has been twice ruled unconstitutional, Bob Witeck, the president of Witeck Communications who provides consulting services to Fortune 500 corporations and nonprofits on LGBT issues, has an op-ed in the Virginian Pilot that lays out why Cuccinelli and the Virginia GOP's anti-gay agenda is bad for Virginia and its economy.  Here are some excerpts:

Virginia has been among America's economic leaders and why so many successful multinational and high-tech firms find their welcome here.

Last month, however, that welcoming reputation darkened when Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli overreacted to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. Declaring that for 400 years Virginians have defined marriage as between one man and one woman, Cuccinelli then insisted that the repeal of DOMA had no relevance for Virginians.

Such a mindset creates a chill for the state's leading companies and multinational businesses because they walk the walk on nondiscrimination and fairness. Many have earned high scores from the Human Rights Campaign for their equal treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers.

Volkswagen, Hilton Corporation, Rolls Royce and 32 out of 50 of Virginia's top employers have workplace nondiscrimination policies that include LGBT Virginians. Those companies also include SAIC, Dominion Virginia Power, Lockheed Martin and Capital One - all competing for the same pool of highly educated talent.

This appetite for talent explains why 278 U.S. corporations and employers, including many with workers in Virginia like Marriott, Xerox, Cisco Systems and Starbucks, also urged overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. They know that treating all employees equally is good business - and now that the federal government recognizes same-sex marriages performed in 13 states and Washington, D.C., they can also save money and streamline their own complex payroll and administrative systems.

Consider the greatest irony. Virginia has the nation's largest concentrations of women and men serving on our combined military and federal payrolls. With Don't Ask, Don't Tell lifted, thousands today may also serve openly and proudly regardless of their sexual orientation. And with DOMA consigned to the dustbin, married same-sex couples - even those living in Virginia serving in uniform - will be recognized as married by their employer, Uncle Sam. They will be treated equally under federal tax laws and with health benefits. But not yet by our backward-looking commonwealth.

The competition for superior talent goes hand in hand with appealing communities and welcoming cultures. Very few openly LGBT executives and managers eagerly await job transfer, with spouses and children too, to states like Virginia that insist on denying equal legal protections and stability, or whose leaders neglect the changes that our dynamic economy will bring.

Increasingly, in post-DOMA America, same-sex married couples will align their ambitions with their best interests in choosing to live and work in states that offer them the full respect and equal treatment under the law they need and want for their families. They will find refuge in states where well qualified, openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people today hold civic offices, among them senators, representatives, judges, mayors and council members. They will see that most Americans judge us on the content of our character and not by whom we love.

[D]iscrimination extracts a price too high for any global competitor. Leading companies expect nothing less from their public leaders.

As noted in the past, I regularly receive calls from LGBT individuals considering a job transfer or promotion that would bring them to Virginia.  Many turn down the jog prospect so that they can remain in more gay friendly states.  I encourage them to tell their employers or prospective employers, as applicable, why they will not be taking the offer.  If these companies hear this story line often enough, they can and will put pressure on politicians prostituting themselves to the Christofascists and hate groups like The Family Foundation.

Terry McAuliffe Condemns Anti-Gay Rhetoric of Ken Cuccinelli and E. W. Jackson

As Blue Virginia is reporting, Terry McAuliffe, Democrat gubernatorial nominee apparent has condemned the extreme anti-gay statements of both his opponent, Ken "Kookinelli' Cuccinelli and the truly mentally disturbed GOP candidate for Lt. Governor, E. W. Jackson.  As previously noted, until nominated by The Family Foundation and other theocratic types   the Virginia GOP at the Republican convention last weekend, Jackson was best known for providing a black face for anti-gay hate groups  such as FRC and NOM.  In the U. S. Senate priamry last year, Jackson garnered only 5% of the primary vote.   Here are highlights from Blue Virginia:

Terry McAuliffe's campaign denounced the extreme anti-gay rhetoric of Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson on Wednesday, saying the attacks “do not represent Virginia values and have no place in political discourse.” The statement is in response to numerous anti-gay comments by Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli and newly-nominated Lieutenant Governor candidate E.W. Jackson, such as Cuccinelli's remark that the "homosexual agenda" brings "nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.

McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin stated, “While we can have earnest disagreements about public policy issues, the manner in which Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson have demonized fellow Virginians who happen to be gay is divisive, dangerous and is damaging to the Commonwealth.”

Schwerin added, “While Terry McAuliffe is focused on important issues like growing Virginia’s economy and creating jobs, Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson have focused much of their careers on waging divisive, social battles, that will alienate mainstream Virginians, and deter families and businesses from locating in the Commonwealth."
The statements from Cuccinelli and Jackson have drawn heavy scrutiny from across the political spectrum, including Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, who said Jackson’s anti-gay statements were “indefensible.”

The piece also has a summary of the anti-gay venom and hate previously spewed by Kookinelli and Jackson.   If Democrats - e.g. women, gays, blacks and rational people do not turn out in November, I shudder to contemplate what these hate filled three stooges might do to Virginia.

Bill Bolling Announces Formation of The Virginia Mainstream Project - A Challenge to Cuccinelli?

It's no secret that Lt. Bill Bolling and GOP gubernatorial nominee for governor Ken Cuccinelli hold no lover for one another and that Bolling is likely still livid that Cuccinelli sabotaged Bollings aspirations by changing the nominee selection process from a primary - where Bolling might well have won - to a convention peopled by the most extreme elements of the GOP base in Virginia who salivate at the prospect of an extremist like Cuccinelli in the Governor's mansion.  Now, Bolling may be counterattacking for revenge by establishing the Virginia Mainstream Project which aims to elect "mainstream" Republicans to office.  No matter what lies and contortions he might engage in, Cuccinelli will never qualify as "mainstream."  Not outside of the Spanish Inquisition.  Blue Virginia looks at this surprise development.  Here are excerpts:

I'm not sure it was Bill Bolling's intention to highlight how OUT of the mainstream Ken Cuccinelli is - just 3 days before the Republican Party of Virginia nominating convention, no less - but this sure does the trick.  

Anyway, I for one am happy that Bolling will be a conservative, Republican voice out there highlighting how crazy Republicans like Cuccinelli, Mark Obenshain, Pete Snyder, and Corey Stewart truly are. As an added bonus, hopefully Bolling will suck up a little money that would otherwise go to the crazies.

Finally, perhaps (if we're lucky) Bolling might help to encourage a serious schism within the Republican Party of Virginia, between the traditional pro-business Republicans and the Pat Robertson/John Birch Society wing that we see with the Cuccinellis, Obenshains, and Snyders of the world. Can Bolling lead the Republican Party of Virginia back from tinfoil-hat extremism to sanity? Doubtful, but I'm glad to see he's going to take a shot at it.

Bolling's press release states this as the organizations goal:

Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling today announced the formation of the Virginia Mainstream Project.  The Virginia Mainstream Project is a state-based political action committee that will focus on electing mainstream Republicans to public office and promote responsible policy solutions to the most important challenges facing the Commonwealth.

Lieutenant Governor Bolling stated, “I’m proud to announce the creation of the Virginia Mainstream Project.  As I’ve said many times over the past several months, there is a growing need in the Republican Party in Virginia to recruit and elect mainstream, conservative candidates to state and local office and promote responsible policy solutions to the most important challenges facing Virginia. The Virginia Mainstream Project will work to address these issues while encouraging bipartisan cooperation and compromise on the major issues facing the Commonwealth.  I am excited about this opportunity to continue to serve Virginia and remain actively involved in the public debate.”

The primary missions of the Virginia Mainstream Project include:

1. Recruit, advise and support mainstream Republican candidates for state and local office, with particular emphasis on the House of Delegates in 2013 and the State Senate in 2015.
2. Provide a platform to continue discussing the need for mainstream approaches to governing in Virginia that put policy ahead of politics and seek to promote compromise and bipartisan cooperation to solve the most important challenges facing the Commonwealth.
3. Develop and promote responsible conservative policy solutions to the most important issues facing Virginia, with an emphasis on fiscal policy, economic development, tax reform, education reform, transportation and health care.

In short, Bollings organization claims to support everything that is diametrically opposite to Kookinelli's position on virtually everything.  Cuccinelli wants to give control of Virginia the the Christofascists and Tea Party extremists.  The man is a menace to Virginia's future.

The Myth of Cuccinelli the “Straight Shooter”

The all but crowned GOP nominee for Governor of Virginia, Keen "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli likes to tell the Tea Party crowd and far right Christofascists who attend his book signings and campaign gatherings that he's a "straight shooter" and that he tells them it like it is.  Except, of course he doesn't.  Inconvenient facts simply get edited out of his biography as do previous statements for his past pronouncements.  Kookinelli's behavior in this regard is all too in keeping with the incessant lies disseminated by the far right Christian elements of the GOP base and the untethered from objective reality Tea Party Neanderthals.  A piece in Bacon's Rebellion provides a few examples of Kookinelli's intentional dishonesty.  Here are some excerpts:

Ken Cuccinelli spends a lot of time admiring himself. He’s long on portraying himself as a heroic figure fighting federal over-reach and short on the self-deprecating humor that evinces a certain level of humility. This habit is particularly notable when it comes to being a “straight shooter.” At the recent CPAC conference Cuccinelli gave a keynote speech. He almost threw his shoulder out of joint patting himself on the back and congratulating himself on being a “straight shooter.” But is he?

 There is little doubt that Cuccinelli and his henchmen short circuited the democratic process in order to make sure he was the Republican nominee for governor. Cuccinelli used a deal from the smoke-filled back rooms of the Republican Party of Virginia to avoid an open primary in favor of a convention. Cuccinelli knew that the extremists who frequent Republican conventions would put him on the ballot. Apparently, he was less sure of the rank and file Republicans who would have voted in an open primary. 

Cuccinelli’s web site, on the education section of the issues page, has this sentence:”I was raised in Fairfax County and attended public schools.” One is led to believe that Mr. Cuccinelli’s views on education in Virginia are well formed since he is a product of Virginia’s public school system. Not so fast. Which one of Fairfax County’s many fine public high schools counts Cuccinelli as an alumnus? None of them. He went to high school at a very private, very expensive school in Washington, D.C.: Gonzaga College High School. Interestingly, the reference to Cuccinelli graduating from Gonzaga has been removed from his official biography.

One of Cuccinelli’s rare victories against the federal government came from a case where the Environmental Protection Agency wanted to force Fairfax County and Virginia to cut back on sediment pollution caused by runoff into the Accotink Creek. Cuccinelli derisively accused the EPA of trying to regulate water as a pollutant. That statement is an outright lie.  .  .  .  .  I guess “straight shooters” can take a little liberty with the truth when it suits their needs.

Then there's this nice summation:

Cuccinelli is as slippery as a greased eel. He uses back- room deals to stab members of his own party in the back. He ignores the teachings of the Jesuits at Gonzaga High School and lies through omission about his own educational background. He knowingly lies about the EPA in his comments regarding the Accotink case. Cuccinelli a straight shooter? 

The man's not only clinically insane, in my opinion, but he's also a pathological liar.

GOP Extremists Seek to End Party Primaries in Virginia

While the Christofascists at the national level may realize that the sun is setting on their power, here in Virginia, the extremists - many of who have ties to dens of bigotry and racism such as The Family Foundation, Liberty University and a plethora of right wing organizations in Northern Virginia - are on a new offensive which seeks to bar primary elections and purge the Virginia GOP of non-Kool-Aid drinkers.  The dust up between Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli and Bill Bolling over how this year's GOP gubernatorial candidate is to be nominated could be just the beginning of a wave of extremism.  Hopefully, it will drive moderates away from the GOP and harm Kookinelli whose finger prints can be found on the offensive.   A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the internecine war now under way.  Here are excerpts:

Last year, a loose coalition of Republican activists - Tea Party members, libertarians and supporters of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli - orchestrated a takeover of the GOP committee that sets the rules for how the party chooses its nominees for governor and other offices.

They secured enough seats to switch this year's process from a primary election to a convention. The change had a big impact: It wound up forcing Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling out of the contest after he determined that he couldn't win the nomination under that format, leaving Cuccinelli with no competition as his party's candidate.

Since then, some of the same factions that pushed for that change have been discussing a strategy that would take that to the next level - though no one has been willing to talk about it publicly - aimed at purging officeholders they consider too moderate, people they derisively call RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only.

Their goal: to get rid of primary elections altogether or severely limit them, a fight that has been waged in the Virginia GOP for years. That would give Republican insiders even greater sway over the selection of General Assembly nominees, leaving many voters with a voice only in general elections.

Some conservatives, though, worry that pushing too aggressively to restrict primaries could provoke a backlash - that establishment Republicans upset at being out of power would try to regain control of the process by pushing to eliminate conventions as an option.

A fight over the rules at the May 18 convention in Richmond would be undesirable for Cuccinelli, who benefited from the switch to a convention but is in a different position now that he is the GOP's presumptive nominee for governor.

Political conventions are choreographed affairs, and Cuccinelli's people want to avoid having the pomp and circumstance of his crowning moment marred by party infighting.  "If they do this," said one veteran Republican strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity, referring to a potential floor fight over the rules, "it would be an unmitigated disaster for Ken."

Publicly, people on both sides question whether an attempt to eliminate primaries will materialize or fizzle before candidates are nominated in May.  "It seems clear that, despite what the attorney general has been saying at least since December, there are folks who are intent on trying, anyway," said Mike Thomas, first vice chairman of the state GOP.

One alleged plot to end primaries is sketched out in a Jan. 29 email, purportedly written anonymously by a conservative activist, that has made the rounds among Virginia Republicans.  "We must get control of the convention... in order to do what must be done," reads the email, which was obtained by The Virginian-Pilot. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and we must get our people to the convention and change the Republican Party and destroy the Republican establishment forever. I have been waiting for most of my life for this moment. With only a few more votes we will be in full control."

The GOP establishment cynically invited these nutcases into the party over the last 20 years and they may be about to pay the price for their short sighted cynicism.  The Christofascists and their Tea Party cousins may yet end up being the death sentence for the GOP as a national political party.

Conservative Columnist Lays Into Cuccinelli

Most of the carping that the GOP must change by pundits has focused on the GOP at the national level and its growing inability to compete in a nation with rapidly changing demographics which include the dying off of the hard core Christofascist disproportionately concentrated in the 65+ crowd.  Now, Jennifer Rubin - typically not among  my favorite columnists - lays into Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli and the danger he poses to the GOP ticket herein Virginia in the 2013 statewide elections in the Washington Post.   As regular readers know, in my view Kookinelli belongs in an insane asylum rather than being a contender for the Governor's mansion.  It is perhaps a positive sign that even someone like Rubin recognize that Cuccinelli is toxic.  Here are some column highlights:

Cuccinelli faces a few challenges of his own making. Whether or not Bolling runs, they heighten the unease with his candidacy that led Bolling to reconsider a run and some major business leaders to call for an alternative.

First, Cuccinelli has decided to stay on as attorney general, defying state custom. The Post reports, “Cuccinelli broke with a tradition started in 1957   .  .  .  .  Cuccinelli fired back that he’d be criticized if he left his position early, but the move put him on defense. Moreover, for a candidate accusing opponent McAuliffe of being a carpetbagging national pol who doesn’t understand the state, it’s unwise to fuel the perception that he also is not adhering to the Virginia playbook.

Second, Cuccinelli wrote a book and began promoting it on talk radio shows. Again, this plays into the perception he’s no more Virginia in temperament and style than McAuliffe and really has is eye on national office or at least a higher national profile.

And lastly, as I have written here at Right Turn, he has no discernible agenda or specific policy items.    Why is he running? What does he want to accomplish? If he opposed Gov. Bob McDonnell’s transportation plan, would he seek to repeal it? His staff gives the assurances that more detail is coming, but the longer he waits the more the news vacuum gets filled with negative stories.

There are several things he could do in short order. First, he can pledge to enforce existing anti-abortion laws but not add to or change them. As attorney general he can credibly say no more legislation is needed or constitutional. His reassurance of protecting the status quo would give some measure of comfort to those wary of him launching a social issues crusade.

He can also come out with an actual agenda. What does he want to do on education (especially the over-crowded state university system.)? If he doesn’t like McDonnell’s transportation plan, what is his idea? How is he going to handle the challenge of sequester .  .  .  .  (Speaking at CPAC this week, he would be smart to show some restraint and show how his conservative values will fit into Virginia.)

Finally, he would be wise to start giving the voters a sense of who he is and convincing them he isn’t a scary extremist

[U]unless Cuccinelli gets his act together quickly, he will find himself in an endless string of accusations and attacks, never getting to lay out a positive message of what sort of governor he wants to be. The next month or so will be critical for him.

Of course, the truth is that Kookinelli IS A SCAY EXTREMIST.  He will not leave the abortion laws alone and will likely launch other lunatic attacks on the rights and liberties of non-far right white Christians.

Will Bill Bolling Play Spoiler in Virginia?

Candidly, I do not like either Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli or Bill Bolling.   Both are extreme far right candidates when it comes to the issues of gay rights, women's rights, voter disenfranchisement generally,immigration and many other issues.  However, unlike Kookinelli, Bolling is not certifiably insane or - in my opinion a self-loathing closet case who channels his own self-hatred against normal gays - utterly detached from objective reality.    Naturally, since Bolling is (A) not an insane religious fanatic and (B) supported the recently passed transportation funding legislation, he is anathema to the Christofascists and Tea Party loons who worship Kookinelli.  Should Bolling decide to run as an independent for governor of Virginia, the impact could be complicated, but all things considered, I suspect the Democrat candidate will end up benefiting the most.  Bolling may be trying to position himself as a moderate Republican, but his voting record shows otherwise. A piece in Politico looks at the complicated electoral impact of a Bolling candidacy.  Here are highlights:

You’d think Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling’s ongoing flirtation with an independent bid for Virginia governor would be setting off alarms in GOP nominee’s Ken Cuccinelli’s world.
But it’s not necessarily a given that Bolling would sink the Republican nominee and throw the election to Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Experts say, and polling in the race shows, that the effects of a Bolling candidacy could be more complicated than that.

“The assumption at first was that Bolling would simply split the Republican vote and help McAuliffe, but now I think that’s seen as very simplistic,” said University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato. “Both of these candidates, McAuliffe and Cuccinelli, have big vulnerabilities … so for Bolling, the trick is going to be to pull [support] equally from both of them.”

While it would be premature to put much stock in polling at this stage of the race, early surveys show Bolling drawing support in roughly equal measures from Cuccinelli and McAuliffe.

Though they’re reluctant to say it, Democrats believe that as more voters start tuning in to the race, moderate Republicans will be turned off by Cuccinelli’s positions on social issues and look to Bolling instead. If Bolling could siphon enough support away from Cuccinelli on the right and among independents, it would leave ample opening for McAuliffe to win the race with support from Democrats.

Bolling has worked in recent months to position himself as a moderate Republican, criticizing Cuccinelli’s rhetoric and even casting the tie-breaking vote with Democrats in the state senate on voter ID legislation last month. As a result, he’d appeal to Republicans who like current Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell but may see Cuccinelli as too far to the right.

But for Cuccinelli backers, polling so far of a hypothetical three-way race suggests that Bolling would also pull support from moderate Democrats who have doubts about McAuliffe – and thus be less of a threat to Cuccinelli. In that case, Bolling’s entrance into the race could be a wash or even help Cuccinelli, if Bolling took more support from moderate Democrats than he does from moderate Republicans.

Guernsey speculated: “If Bolling were the candidate, you’d probably see the business community come out very aggressively on his side.”   Bolling could also appeal to suburban voters who are turned off by Cuccinelli’s positions on social issues but might not be sold on McAuliffe as an acceptable alternative.   “It’s really those high-income, highly educated suburban and exurban voters who would be open to [Bolling],” Sabato said. “They don’t agree with Cuccinelli’s social issue positions, but they don’t really take to McAuliffe.”

Bolling, for his part, says he’s not sure for whom he’ll cast his ballot if he doesn’t run. But speaking with POLITICO recently, the lieutenant governor suggested that McAuliffe’s message is closer to the one Bolling would deliver if he were a candidate.

“I think [McAuliffe] is attempting to run a mainstream campaign and I applaud him for that,” Bolling said. “His challenge is that people don’t know him and he’s going to have to define himself in this campaign. Mr. Cuccinelli faces a different challenge. His challenge is that people do know him and unfortunately, a lot of them view him as being too extreme.”

Sabato said he expects Bolling’s decision to come down to money and whether he can raise enough to compete – something Bolling has actively been exploring since the end of the state legislative session.  “If the response is cool with donors I don’t think he’ll run,” Sabato said. “If he’s hitting the jackpot with some of these donors, I think he will.”

Regardless of what Bolling does or doesn't do, for the sake of Virginia's future, it is imperative that Ken Cuccinelli be defeated.

GOP Fratricide in Virginia?

I have commented recently on the potential civil war brewing in the Republican Party of Virginia and the party's all but the coronation ceremony in which the, in my view, mentally ill and possibly closeted homophobe, Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli will be the GOP's 2013 standard bearer in the race for Governor of Virginia.  Today, the Virginia GOP bears little resemblance to the party in which I was very active (for 8 years I was a City Committee member for Virginia Beach) at a time Christofascists and Tea Party extremists did not rule the party.  Indeed, to be a Republican in Virginia nowadays requires that one (i) be insane, (ii) have had a lobotomy, (iii) be a fire breathing Christofascist seeking to establish a theocracy, (iv) be utterly untethered from objective reality, (v) be a white supremacist, (vi) hold one's noise and chug gallons of Kool-Aid, or (vi) exhibit some combination of the foregoing.   Now the Washington Post comments on the ongoing lunacy within the Virginia GOP.  Here are excerpts:

REPUBLICANS IN VIRGINIA have been busy downsizing their tent for some time, mainly to their own detriment. Despite some success in state legislative elections, which owe much to gerrymandered districts, they have lost three straight elections for the U.S. Senate, two for the presidency and two out of the last three for governor. Not coincidentally, that anemic record coincides with the party’s sharp tilt to the right, which has made centrists feel unwelcome.

So it was that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, a right-wing firebrand who has flirted with birtherism, denied climate change, bashed gays and waged a jihad against abortion, managed to outmaneuver Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling. By any measure, Mr. Bolling qualifies as a rock-ribbed conservative. But his pragmatic streak and mild demeanor paled in comparison to Mr. Cuccinelli’s flame-throwing appeal to tea partyers and other GOP radicals. On Wednesday, Mr. Bolling announced that he was bowing out of contention for the Republican nomination for governor.

[T]he method by which Mr. Cuccinelli secured the GOP’s nod — by forcing a nominating convention instead of a primary, thereby excluding most of his party’s voters from the process — is a reminder of the internecine bitterness that has gripped the Republican Party in Virginia for years.

Limiting voter participation in elections is anti-democratic; it’s also frequently self-defeating. Republicans in a number of states, including Virginia, tried to obstruct voting by minorities, the young and the old by means of tougher voter ID rules in this year’s presidential elections. It didn’t work. But it certainly reinforced the impression that Republicans are hostile to those voters.
 
Little wonder that Mr. Bolling, in withdrawing from the GOP contest, has refused to endorse Mr. Cuccinelli.

Is the Virginia GOP Headed Toward Civil War?

Numerous posts on this blog have looked at the growing disconnect between the insane Christofascist/Tea Party element of the GOP where ideological extremism and a push for theocracy are now the norm and what's left of the so-called party establishment who don't need commitment in a mental institution like their far right brethren.  The strained relations between these two elements is brewing at the national level but so far the establishment Republicans are refusing to stand up to the extremists in the party.  The going nowhere "fiscal cliff" negotiations are an indication as the GOP controlled House hangs on to a "no new taxes" agenda even though some 70% of Americans want tax increases for the wealthy.  Here in Virginia, it now looks like the first battle of the coming intra-party civil war is may be beginning as Bill Bolling is hinting at an independent run for governor which would almost assure a Democrat victory next year.  Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling's exit from the governor's race could tear a chasm within the Republican Party between conservatives and moderates just weeks after the party suffered disappointing losses at the polls and just ahead of next year's high-profile gubernatorial contest.

Even if Bolling doesn't pursue an independent candidacy — a prospect he has left conspicuously open — he can do plenty of damage just by withholding his endorsement from the likely conservative GOP standard-bearer, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

And already, that possibility has led to some finger-pointing within the party.  Tea party leader Jamie Radtke, a Cuccinelli supporter, says Bolling and "establishment Republicans" such as Gov. Bob McDonnell who are accustomed to having their way in dictating nominations aren't happy that conservatives elbowed Bolling out.

Bolling supporter Brandon Bell, a moderate two-time Republican state senator from Roanoke County who lost a 2007 primary to conservative Ralph Smith, said he fears Bolling's exit illustrates a rift within the GOP where moderates are exiled.   "This is not the time you want to be coming apart at the seams," said Bell, who lost an independent comeback bid for his old Senate seat in 2011.

"We've got to decide: Do we want to be a party that engages in the great ideological debates of the day or do we actually want to be a party that wins elections, earns the right to lead and then leads effectively," he[Bolling] said.

That was a jab at the socially conservative mission Cuccinelli has assumed as an activist attorney general since he was sworn in three years ago. He was the first state attorney general to challenge the "Obamacare" health coverage reforms, sued the federal government over clean-air regulations, launched a two-year inquest into a former University of Virginia climate researcher and backed down the state Board of Health's effort to soften the building standards on abortion clinics.

I hold no love for Bill Bolling who in many ways is a far right extremist himself.  The difference is that unlike Cuccinelli, he's not certifiably insane.  If Cuccinelli turns out to be the GOP nominee, he MUST be defeated.  I shudder to envision the lunatics he'd appoint to positions across Virginia.

Get Ready for a GOP Cat Fight between Bolling and Cuccinelli

With Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli's announcement yesterday that he's running for governor of Virginia in 2013, the stage has been set for a monumental cat fight among Virginia Republicans. One the more deranged side will be Kookinelli and the forces of Christianist evil, if you will, and on the other will be Bill Bolling and his mentor Governor Bob McDonnell. While Bolling will try to "out conservative" Kookinelli, I suspect that McDonnell realizes that Kookinelli is simply too crazy and extreme to win in the 2013 general election - especially if the Democrats field a well financed candidate who is NOT from Southwest Virginia. Here are highlights from the Washington Post on the coming contest:

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who has said for years he would support Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling for governor in 2013 said Thursday that he plans to continue to do so despite news that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli would jump into the race.

“Since early 2008, I’ve been clear that I will strongly support Bill Bolling for governor in 2013,’’ McDonnell said in a statement. “Bill is a trusted adviser and a close personal friend. As lieutenant governor, Bill has been a key member of our administration. Serving as our chief job creation officer, Bill has been tireless and successful in his work to bring more jobs and economic opportunities to the commonwealth. I look forward to supporting Bill in his campaign for governor.”

Meanwhile the snipping has begun among conservative blogosphere. Too Conservative has this to say about Kookinelli's "narcissism":

The timing of this “announcement” by Cuccinelli is disgusting and extremely self serving and selfish. He does this right before The Advance when people would have been otherwise fawning all over Bill Bolling with his new found power as the Senate tiebreaker. Or maybe Bob McDonnell and his election as RGA Chair. Instead Cooch takes this particular moment to upstage Bolling so people will talk about this all weekend and fawn all over Cuccinelli. Cooch has always been all about Cooch before anything else, so this really shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Think about it, he leaks out a non-announcement “announcement”, saying he’ll make a more formal announcement later after all these other things happen so as not to divert attention from those important things. And in doing so he creates a media frenzy surrounding himself right before the big annual state GOP GTG. Completely narcissistic self promotion. But that’s the Cult of Ken Cuccinelli for you.

On the other side of the GOP spectrum - the side even less in touch with objective reality - Mason Conservative unleashes a broadside at Bolling:

The panic spreading across the social mediaverse I've been watching the last 24 hours is frightening if you hope to support Bill Bolling. The Bolling people clearly were not ready for this to happen this early and have been caught flat-footed and have not thought before expressing their reactions.

Just as a little history lesson for those out there who don't know. The deal brokered by McDonnell and Bolling in late 2008 was between them and nobody else. Ken wasn't part of that . . . in fact, he has reason to hold it against them. It was McDonnell and Bolling that got John Brownlee in the race for AG to *keep* Ken off the ticket because they thought he would be a drag. For proof I point to both logic and Phil Cox was Brownlee's consultant throughout the campaign. So for these guys to suddenly express "regret" that Cuccinelli has changed his mind is laughable. Secondly, for the line of McDonnell and Bolling showed us how to win is only a half-truth. Ken was a key to that sweep, and he got more votes than Bolling statewide, by about 15,000.

Bolling comes out of the Richmond machine of Tom Bliley that has given us Jim Gilmore, Eric Cantor and a plethora of state legislators and I would expect better from them. They need to take a deep breath, inhale . . . exhale . . . inhale . . . exhale. Its a long way away and I can't believe they weren't ready for this because it was always going to happen. They've had six years of preparation for this run, if not one person ever gave thought and had a plan in place for a primary challenger then they all need to be fired.

The coming drama, back stabbing and back biting is going to provide high entertainment value. With luck, Kookinelli and Bolling will greatly damage one another and ultimate help their Democrat opponent. And with the two of them trying to be more conservative - read reactionary and insane - than the other, there should be a lot of batshit craziness flying around that will make for great Democrat ad material.