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Take
Me Out to the Ball Game—In DC
Major
League Baseball hadn’t even announced its decision to
locate the Montreal Expos to the District of Columbia
when recriminations over the failures of Virginia bids
for a team began.
Marc
Fisher of the Washington
Post saw two mistakes in the Northern Virginia
efforts. First:
Those
involved in the years-long relocation soap opera say
that Northern Virginia would have won this cross-Potomac
competition -- if it had held firm to the Pentagon City
stadium site.
Instead,
the Arlington County Board and a well-organized
opposition snuffed that proposal, eliminating Virginia's
central, transit-friendly site.
Secondly:
In
the final stages, both sides played the race card.
Virginia raised doubts about whether suburbanites would
take children into the District for a night game, and
the District group asked Major League Baseball to
consider the public relations dimension of choosing
"lily-white" Loudoun County as the new symbol
of baseball's future.
Apparently,
the District group’s race card worked, especially in
light of huge regional transportation problems
associated with a Loudoun site.
In
Hampton Roads, where the chance of landing a team was
always a long shot, pundits were actually relieved. Roger
Chesley of the Virginian-Pilot
felt Norfolk had a solid financing plan for a stadium,
although a number of other costly projects were also
under consideration for the city. In the end, “Instead
of being crestfallen, though, Norfolk should count its
blessings. Even with the collective defeat, our migraine
quotient will be a lot lower.”
Also
in the Pilot, Dave
Addis suggested that “Tidewater po’-boys” get
a chance to name the new team as consolation for their
losing bid. His
entries included the “Washington Brake Lights,” the
“Washington Filibusters,” and the “Washington
Loopholes.”
Political
Wrap-Up
In
successive Richmond
Times-Dispatch columns, Jeff Schapiro examined the
dynamics between former Governor
Doug Wilder and Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine and those between
Kaine
and current Governor Mark Warner. Shortly after Schapiro’s first column, Kaine
endorsed Wilder for Richmond Mayor, with Wilder
insisting there was no “quid pro quo” for a 2005 gubernatorial endorsement of Kaine. Schapiro will doubtless get several future
columns out of Wilder’s expected flirtation with the
GOP candidate before he winds up endorsing Kaine.
Ed
Lynch of the Roanoke
Times looked at how Attorney General Jerry Kilgore
should react to efforts led by Grover Norquist to
punish Republican legislators
who voted for Governor Warner’s tax plan.
Lynch offered this “see no evil” formulation
for Kilgore:
Politicians
work for their constituents; we are their bosses. We
have the right to threaten electoral retribution for
betrayal. It is appropriate for us to do so. It is not
appropriate for Jerry Kilgore to do so.
Also
in the Roanoke
Times, Republican Delegate and columnist Preston
Bryant speculates on a possible standoff in the 2005
General Assembly between the Senate and the House.
In a role reversal, the House may want to use
additional monies in the General Fund for
transportation, while the Senate might seek to
accelerate cutting the sales tax on food.
Highway
Blues
Northern
Virginia commuter Sam
Young trashed high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes for
I-95 and I-495 in a Potomac
News commentary. He favored continued use of high-occupancy
vehicle (HOV) lanes.
n the Roanoke
Times, insurance executive Oscar
Bryant trashed proposed tolls on I-81. He recommended an increase in the gas tax.
Grayson’s
Pundit Watch
In
a Washington Post
piece urging John Kerry to concentrate on winning West
Virginia, former sharp-tongued Virginia Democratic
Delegate George
Grayson reviewed the editorial page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
The
Richmond Times-Dispatch, which prints 141,000 daily
copies and 242,000 copies on Sunday, penetrates the
south-central area of the state like the Union Army did
in 1865. The major difference is that Gen. Ulysses S.
Grant treated his foes as decently as possible during
wartime, while the Times-Dispatch editorial page writers
use their pens to bayonet "crackpots, academics,
Massachusetts Democrats" and anyone else they deem
to be to the left of the Rotary Club.
Our
Underfunded Universities
George
Mason University made national news, including a mention
in James Taranto’s Best
of the Web, when it extended, then cancelled a
speaking invitation to anti-Bush activist and filmmaker
Michael Moore. Moore
was to have received a $35,000 speaking fee paid out of
university funds. Conservative Republicans protested the
“overtly political event,” while Democrats hinted
that the cancellation was an attempt to silence a point
of view. The
real issue should have been the money, especially given
the constant refrain from Virginia’s universities that
they are woefully underfunded. Certainly, GMU didn’t need to pay that kind of
money to expose students to Moore’s point of view.
Northern Virginia blogger and anti-Bush obsessive Robert
Griendling probably would have spoken for free.
Cell
Phone Issues
A
motorist talking on a cell phone apparently caused a
horrific accident on I-64 in Hampton, sparking outrage
from Kerry
Dougherty of the Virginian-Pilot. She railed against driving while distracted:
“Knock it off before you kill someone. Stop doing
stupid things like stuffing your faces, chatting on the
phone and cutting your hair.” Much further west along I-64, Bob
Gibson of the Charlottesville Daily
Press observed that current polls might not be
accurate because pollsters cannot reach potential voters
who use cell phones. On I-64, that might be good news.
A
Fine Fellow
A.
Barton Hinkle, the Richmond
Times-Dispatch columnist whose observations on
Virginia’s passing scene are always refreshing, has
been awarded the 2004 Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for
Editorial Writing.
Hinkle will use the stipend to research the role
of mega-churches in America. If the past is any guide, he will probably manage
to upset both the secular and the faithful with his
reporting.
High
Point of the Campaign
Running
against Virgil Goode, R-Rocky Mount, in Virginia’s
Fifth Congressional District, isn’t easy, but Bob
Gibson of the Daily
Press is giving Democratic challenger Al Weed high
marks for his energetic efforts to unseat the incumbent. Not surprisingly, yard signs favoring Weed are
plentiful in Charlottesville, where some students might
think his signs “look like funny dorm room ads for
pot.”
--
October 4, 2004
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