President
Reagan … and the Usual Fare
As
Virginia
joins the nation in celebrating the life of President
Ronald Reagan and mourning his passing, it is difficult
to underestimate his legacy. On May 30th, Virginia
Republican Party Chairwoman Kate Obenshain Griffin
offered Richmond
Times-Dispatch
readers a commentary
on the party’s principles and a rebuke to Democrats.
She opened it with a tribute to the man whose
message still stirs the party’s soul, unaware of the
sad news that would be announced on June 5th:
One
of the greatest Republicans of our time, Ronald Reagan,
was elected President of the United States
on a campaign promise that he would restore "the great, confident
roar of American
progress and growth and optimism."
In
his first Inaugural Address, President Reagan said:
"It's not my intention to do away with government.
It is rather to make it work - work with us, not over
us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back.
Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother
it; foster productivity, not stifle it."
Reagan
guided our nation under the principle that government
must be smaller and taxes must be kept low. Americans
embrace these principles that still epitomize the modern
Republican Party. They also have a fervent commitment to
quality education for our children, a strong military,
free markets, and an underlying devotion to individual
responsibility.
If
only she had stopped there, instead of launching into an
attack on Virginia Democrats. As attacks go these days, it was mild, but it
inadvertently pointed to another legacy of President
Reagan, one that has been largely forgotten by today’s
full-throated partisan spin machines.
It is his legacy of disagreeing without being
disagreeable, of spending more time promoting his own
ideas rather than tearing down those of his opponents.
As
President Bush said, “God bless Ronald Reagan.”
May Republicans and Democrats alike in Virginia
reflect on the personal qualities that made him a
beloved figure. May
they aspire to match his grace and optimism even as they
compete in the marketplace of ideas with different
visions for the same great goal, that of doing what is
best for the Commonwealth.
*****
The
major pundits weren’t much interested, but this
Tuesday’s 8th District Democratic
Congressional primary was the hot spot for Virginia’s
political junkies. Polstate.com
was ground zero for charges
and countercharges from
embattled incumbent Jim Moran and untested challenger
Andy Rosenberg. Polstate
correspondent Bob
Griendling went ballistic when a former Moran
staffer charged the Congressman with making an
anti-Semitic remark but would not specify just what was
said. Griendling called it “Modern McCarthyism.”
Washington
Post
columnist Marc Fisher, a long-time Moran critic, was
balanced in his last online
chat before the primary, offering this:
Nay
to both Rep. Jim Moran and his challenger in Tuesday's
Democratic primary, Andy Rosenberg, for ugly campaign
tactics late in the game. A holiday parade last weekend
was marred by a
Rosenberg campaign worker
handing out anti-Moran brochures while calling out,
according to Moran, "Beats his wife, beats his
kids."
Rosenberg
admitted that his
aide did wrong and said the aide wrote an apology.
Moran, for his part, has been playing unfair, too,
attacking Rosenberg, implying that Teddy Kennedy
endorsed Moran and never heard of Rosenberg, when
Rosenberg actually worked for Kennedy on the Hill.
Fisher
agreed with a reader who predicted “Moran will win in
a landslide,” but asked, “What's wrong with our
system that even a Jim Moran does not attract a powerful
challenge?”
Gov.
Mark R. Warner is off to
China
on a
trade mission, leaving behind a new wave of
“mentioners” who see him as possible VP pick for
Senator John Kerry. Former Democratic Delegate George Grayson made
the case for Warner in the Washington
Post, calling him a “man of the 21st
Century,” extolling his “savvy” for embracing
bluegrass and NASCAR, and claiming that young people
respond to his “passion” and “ideas.” Warner
also made VP speculation lists in Slate,
CNN.com,
and in a Marsha
Mercer column.
One
Alexandria
reader of Marc Fisher’s online chat not only saw
Warner as a possible VP choice, but also offered up a
line of attack should he be nominated.
The reader linked Warner to a campaign advisor
who helped secure a controversial loan for Congressman
Jim Moran. Fisher,
acknowledging that Warner was the Democrats’ “Flavor
of the Month,” discounted Warner being hurt in a
potential vetting process by “anything that might slop
over from Moran's many troubles.”
Virginia’s
Surplus
None
of the pro-tax columnists had much to say about the
budget surplus announced after the General Assembly
gavel went down, but Ed
Lynch of the Roanoke
Times did.
He
criticized Secretary of Finance Bennett for not making
the coming surplus known, charging, “It is inconceivable that he had no inkling
that the state’s economy was growing so fast in 2003
until mid-May 2004. Sales tax revenues alone should have
given him a clue….” Lynch went after Gov. Warner
even more strongly, saying, “Warner may have defrauded
the people of Virginia
by
underestimating tax revenues, or by sitting on the good
economic news during the legislative session.”
Sensing
a Pattern Here
In
another column, Lynch lambasted
Gov. Warner for vetoing HB 675, a measure dropping the
mandate that parents homeschooling their children must
have a college degree. According to Lynch, “Warner
claimed in his veto message that his amendment was to
uphold standards. The governor has this matter of
educational standards exactly backwards.”
The
Prevailing View
While
Lynch lambasted, Daily
Progress columnist Bob
Gibson took back all the mean things he ever said
about Gov. Warner, summarizing where the governor
stands:
With
20 months left in his term in office, Mark R. Warner has
shown that slow and steady can win the race, shape the
budget, save the state’s valued AAA bond rating and
survive with enough bipartisanship to blunt and beat
back super-partisans of any stripe.
Gibson
represents a conventional wisdom that has gathered
momentum since Warner won his tax battle with the
General Assembly. This new conventional wisdom is best
described in Shakespearean terms: “He doth bestride
the narrow world like a Colossus.”
Outrage
Tempered by Skepticism
If
any dark cloud floats near the Warner Colossus, it would
be the revelation of shocking conditions found in
Virginia
adult homes by a Washington
Post investigative series. Gordon
Morse, in a Post
op-ed, compared assisted living in Virginia
to Iraq’s
Abu Ghraib prison and, predictably, blamed Republicans.
One can only imagine where Morse’s outrage would be
directed if a Republican occupied the Governor’s
Mansion, but toward Warner, Morse manages only the
slightest of skepticism: “The governor says he has
folks working on it. We'll see.”
Take-Down
Artist
Jeff
Schapiro of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch took on two top Virginia
pols,
linking and skewering them. He called former
Governor Jim Gilmore “the L. Douglas Wilder of the
Virginia Republican Party” and the “Cassandra of the
GOP.” He cast doubt on former Governor
Wilder’s commitment to running for Mayor of
Richmond, claiming that the mercurial elder statesman
only wanted “a forum from which he can needle his
enemies.”
The
Great Development Hope
An
A. Barton Hinkle Richmond
Times-Dispatch column on downtown
Richmond development could have been written for
many areas of Virginia where a planned development was
hailed as a savior, but later regarded as a mixed
blessing, if not a failure. He was unsparing in
reviewing the naïve “gushing enthusiasm” of
boosters and his own employers for projects in downtown Richmond
that
turned out to be
much less than advertised. Of grand
development plans, he offered this sage truism:
“Supporters predict great things will flow from them.
Supporters always do.”
--
June 7, 2004
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