Bacon's Rebellion

When the Washington Post editorial board starts having misgivings about a major rail transportation project, it’s time to start considering an exit strategy. The estimate for the first phase of the project–Falls Church through Tysons Corner to Reston–has ballooned from $1.5 billion to $2.4 billion.

Update: Road to Ruin has more.

I publicly challenge Tucker Watkins, George Allen’s aide and Kilgore surrogate at the Cantaloupe Festival, to a Blue v. Red “Belly-Bump” at the Virginia Peach Festival in Stuart, Virginia on August 12.

Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder doesn’t think so. Here’s what he said in his column published this morning in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Those who continually cry about lack of funding won’t acknowledge that Richmond is the best-funded system per pupil among its peers (Roanoke, Hampton, Lynchburg, Newport News, Portsmouth, Petersburg, Hopewell, Danville, Norfolk), and sits among the top 10 of all systems in Virginia.

Richmond is at the top of the list regarding truancy and drop-outs. Average daily attendance is well below the state average, even though many schools don’t take roll call until after 11:30 a.m. The student population is in steady decline, falling from 26,136 in 2002-03 to an expected 23,400 in 2005-06. We’re spending twice as much for half the student population that once numbered 50,000 students. Even allowing for inflation, that makes no sense at all.

I cannot merely say, ‘Leave it to others to see the job through.’ It is your job and mine. Every part of our society must demand what is right and criticize what is wrong. We must instill the pride in the community, the professionalism in those who teach and administer our children, [and] recognize and … instill in our youngsters the intrinsic value of education.

As long as we define the “problem” with public schools as a lack of money, we’ll never solve the problem, and we’ll never have enough money.

Recently, some Virginia bloggers have been busy commenting on a WashingtonBlade.com story about Chris Craddock, the Republican candidate for the 67th Delegate District who recently defeated in last June’s primarry the former RINO incumbent, Gary Reese.

The WashingtonBlade.com story, entitled “Republican Candidate Defends Anti-Gay Primary” quotes Craddock as saying “Christian and gays despise each other.”

I’m not surprised that a publication like the Washington Blade would go out of its way to libel and misquote a conservative candidate. After all, they are on a mission: Promoting an extreme gay agenda, tearing down family units, and the moral fiber on which this country was founded.

What is surprising, however, is that professed serious Virginia bloggers would give any credence to the propaganda coming from the extremists at the WashingtonBlade.com.

Folks, here is Craddock’s entire quote, which the WashingtonBlade.com utterly misquoted by taking it entirely out of context:

“Many people say that Christians and gays hate each other, but I think we need to treat each other with respect.”

Obviously, the WashingtonBlade.com is only interested in promoting their agenda and will go to great lengths to distort a conservative candidate’s record. Candidates shouldn’t waste their time talking to so-called reporters from organizations like the WashingtonBlade.com who are only interested in promoting their biased, extremist agenda.

My recent absence from this blog was due to my increasing commitments on a number of fronts: Family, business, and other political activities as they relate through my involvement with the Virginia Club for Growth.

Although blogging is a lot of fun, it also requires a lot of time. Faced with a limited number of hours that can be devoted to this activity, it becomes necessary to take some extended breaks from time to time.

I also can’t help but wonder whether blogging can have a serious positive impact on changing the course of Virginia politics. The number of regular bloggers is rather limited and those that participate are already committed to a particular political philosophy.

In other words, the likelihood of changing any minds through extensive blog discourse is rather unlikely. So given my increasingly diminishing availability—after all there are only 24 hours available in a day—I have to consider whether blogging is an effective medium for reaching out to the greatest number of activists and voters in general, with the goal of convincing them that we must bring back some sanity to our state government—a government heading to fiscal ruin, given the unprecedented growth in government spending programs over the last decade.

As my friend John Taylor of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy likes to say: It took Virginia 386 years to reach a $30 billion bi-annual budget, yet it took only one decade to double it to $60 billion! Folks we simply cannot afford such an out-of-control, burgeoning government. We need to instill some discipline in government spending and control the size and growth of government—otherwise, we’ll simply end up as another economic basket case, like California.

In the debate over K-12 education, Virginians often forget that the Old Dominion is afflicted with one of the most centralized, top-down school systems in the country. Nowhere is the ossified nature of the bureaucracy more evident than in the paucity of charter schools. With only five charter schools in 2004-2005 (one of which is no longer operating), Virginia has fewer than almost any state in the nation.

That may change. The U.S. Department of Education has awarded $450,000 to support three charter schools in Virginia: on each in Norfolk, Richmond and Charlottesville. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the charter school in Richmond, the Leading Edge Academy, would serve 40 to 60 students who are behind academically.

Said Paul Goldman, senior policy advisor to Mayor L. Douglas Wilder: “This should be seen as a breakthrough in Virginia, which has been very slow to look at [charter schools] and see tremendous potential. This is an additive, another way to reach students and maximize their potential.”

Good for Wilder and Goldman. It’s fine to poor money into K-12 education, but money alone won’t solve what’s ailing Virginia’s school systems. We need some creative thinking and experimentation, too.

Gay rights advocates must be tasting blood after the pasting applied to Del. Bradley P. Marrs, R-Chesterfield, for a fund-raising letter that coarsely alluded to the gay sexual orienation of a Richmond businessman who gave money to his opponent. It’s hard to explain otherwise why they now would be attacking him for writing the offending letter on stationery that “mimics official House letterhead.”

According to Jeff Schapiro with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, gay-rights leaders are calling for a legislative ethics panel to investigate whether Marrs violated House rules. “The average person might reasonably understand this lettter to be an official communication from Delegate Marrs in his capacity as a member of the House of Delegates,” senior officials with Equality Virginia, the Log Cabin Republicans of Virginia, and the Lesbian Democratic Club wrote to House Speaker William J. Howell.

Noting that it is common practice among legislators in both parties to send political mail on official-looking stationery, Paul Nardo, Howell’s chief of staff, said there would be no inquiry.

Bacon to gays: Quit while you’re ahead. Gays achieved a remarkable victory in the Marrs brouhaha: Nearly every major political figure in Virginia condemned Marrs’ gay-baiting language. The incident established an important standard for Virginia politics: There is no place for gratuitous references to an individual’s “homosexual” orientation. Don’t obscure this step forward with a controversy over Marr’s choice of stationery.

The day laborer center controversy in the Town of Herndon has taken an ugly turn according to the Washington Post, with a talk radio show inciting anti-center phone calls to town hall and the town shutting down its phone system.

This comes after the Planning Commission voted 4-3 against the proposal. The Town Council will vote later this month.

I was in the gift shop at Monticello today and could not find one item made in the U. S. Not one. And I spent nearly an hour looking. Even the quill pens and the Houdin bust replicas are made in Taiwan or China. And now we’ve passed CAFTA? (No, I didn’t spend a dime. I was tempted–those quills were nice ones.)

Not Larry Sabato has his scenarios and some of them might strike fear into partisans on either side, but there’s nothing scarier than the implied scenario Chris Graham offers in the Augusta Free Press: Russ Potts wins the governor’s race and has to govern.

Senator Potts, of course, has thought this through, and offered these encouraging words to the electorate: “Well, governing is the least of my worries. I know we can govern.”

Given the Democratic blogger triumphalism manifested after the Mason-Dixon poll, which showed Tim Kaine running neck-and-neck with Jerry Kilgore, I’m surprised that GOP denizens of the Bacon’s Rebellion blog haven’t brought attention to the latest Rasmussen poll, which shows Kilgore maintaining a six percent lead.

Other Virginia bloggers have taken note of the poll, however:

Commonwealth Conservative: Noting that nine out of 10 polls have shown Kilgore ahead, John Behan is more convinced than ever that Mason-Dixon is an outlier.

One Man’s Trash: Norm Leahy doesn’t critique the poll, but he does predict that the MSM won’t give it the same attention that it gave to the Mason-Dixon poll.

Given the margin for error and possibly different methodologies, the differences between the two polls may not be as significant as they seem at first blush. But if I had to go with one based on its past track record, I’d go with Mason-Dixon. In my recollection, Mason-Dixon has consistently outperformed the national polls in picking the margins for presidential races here in Virginia.

(This blog entry has been edited since the original post.)

The good news for environmentalists is that three lawmakers won 100 percent ratings from the Virginia League of Conservation voters, based on votes cast during the 2005 session of the General Assembly. The bad news is that two of them — Del. Viola Baskerville, D-Richmond, and Del. Chap Peterson, D-Fairfax — both stepped down from their seats to run for Lieutenant Governor. Oh, well, at least Del. Adam Ebbin, D-Arlington, is sticking around.

Ten Republicans rated “Zero,” three in the Senate and seven in the House. View the rankings here.

Here in the dog days of August, political junkies know that a good fix is hard to find. A snippet of email or a few ill-chosen words in a fundraising letter just do not slake the thirst.

Our friend Not Larry Sabato has decided to muscle into the junkie supplier business, declaring August “scenario month.” Freed from the constraints of actual activities on the ground, imaginations can run wild as scenarios are constructed that resurrect the Democrats in Virginia or extend Republican hegemony.

After yesterday’s close call in Ohio for a Republican congressional candidate running against an Iraq War veteran and Bush-Basher, Not Larry’s first scenario superimposes the Ohio model onto Virginia. It’s interesting stuff, delivered just as the shakes and cold sweats were taking hold.

The vacancy rate for houses in Virginia Beach is running about one percent, while the vacancy rate for apartments is 2.5 percent, compared to a five percent rate deemed necessary to provide a range of consumer choice. Virginia Beach is experiencing an intense housing shortage that threatens to price out the teachers, policemen, shopworkers, carpenters and others earning less than $50K a year who are so indispensable to a functioning society. So notes an editorial in today’s Virginian-Pilot.

It’s nice to know that there’s something that the Pilot‘s editorial writers and I agree on. Accessibility to affordable housing is a real problem — not just in Virginia Beach, but throughout much of Virginia. We just disagree about the prescriptions.

“Developers blame regulation for the shortage,” says the Pilot. “They say that they are so burdened with expensive governmental oversight — about what they can build, where, and when — that affordable housing is impossible to do profitably. Their answer is to allow the market to govern such things, and affordable housing will come.” Relaxing regulations to encourage more economical solutions — more housing units in less space, for example, mixed in with stores and offices — might not be a bad idea, the Pilot concedes, but “unfettered development” — especially opening up agricultural zones — is what caused Virginia Beach’s problems in the first place.

What really gets the Pilot’s juices flowing is the prospect of more regulation, favorably citing a proposal by Empower Hampton Roads: If the city has to give zoning approval for a project of more than 50 units, require developers to throw in some “affordable” housing.

I like the Pilot‘s first notion better: Peel away the rules and regulations that make it impossible for developers to build affordable housing units. In particular, strip away regs that make it difficult for developers to re-develop old subdivisions at higher densities. Then stand back, overrule the NIMBYs who invariable object to the development of any housing less valuable than their own, and see what happens. If the market fails to respond to the demand for affordable housing, then try something different. But don’t start out with the presumption that the market doesn’t work.

These boys I have with me this week, city-slickers all, have proven to be natural horsemen. We live on a small farm just off the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP)and just adjacent to Rock Castle Gorge (BRP milepost 178, or thereabouts) and though yesterday was the first time two of them had ever sat a horse, we rode to the bottom and back without incident. We entered and departed on the southern portion of an eleven mile hiking loop described here, on-line, in a 1996 copyrighted article by Frank Logue:

“Sheltered within the deep, narrow confines of Rock Castle Gorge is a surprising variety of plant life. There are 200 species of wild flowers, 45 species of trees and 28 species of ferns alone along the 10.8-mile loop trail. The Gorge also has a stunning wildflower display boasting nearly 200 species from April through early May, all within day hiking distance of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The loop encompasses high, open meadows with an impressive panoramic view as well as the narrow confines of the Gorge itself, making for a strenuous, but rewarding day hike.

“A .8-mile section of the Rock Castle Gorge Trail shares the footpath with the Hardwood Cove Nature Trail. Self-guiding booklets can be picked up from a leaflet box on the trail. The booklet identifies 26 trees and two vines along the trail.

“As you hike down the sometimes steep trail, you might be tempted to think of this botanical haven as a slice of wilderness left untouched by man, but that idea quickly vanishes as you begin to see old home sites along the trail. The banks of Rock Castle Creek were once home to the more than 70 families who farmed the land and harnessed the stream to power their mills.

“This steep trail is less strenuous if hiked from the Blue Ridge Parkway’s Rocky Knob Campground downhill to the creek. The trail drops more than 1,000 feet in its first three miles. The predominately oak-hickory forest also features maples, tuliptrees, bigtooth aspens, basswoods and mountain laurel.

“At mile 3.2 of the hike, you will reach the sight of a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp, now a designated backcountry campsite. The only remains of the CCC camp are the foundations of old buildings. The required camping permit for this site is available at no charge from either the Rocky Knob Campground or Visitor Center.

I have done this loop on foot any number of times. The official guides list it as “strenuous” and “difficult,” but it is not that big of a deal. Stunning, yes, but not “difficult.” In the matter of horses in the gorge, I have hereofore practiced a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” A sign at one end prohibits them–and firearms, and alcohol,and several other of life’s pleasures, including live bait–but the sign at the other end does not. And, yes, I have been caught red-handed with all of these–except live bait, the lowest of trout-inspired accoutrements–and have managed to pass each time with little more than an exchange of pleasantries.

The BRP stretches 469 miles between the Shenandoah National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and grew out of Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act of June 18, 1933, after Virginia’s Harry Byrd brought Roosevelt down on a tour through the Shenandoah Mountains. One common misconception is that the parkway somehow “preserved” the area as it was in the 1930s. Nothing could be further from the truth. By then, these mountains had been clear-cut repeatedly, the farms were worn out, the streams were gullied, etc., etc. This massive land-grab project is basically the creation of a slew of government-paid landscape architects. It is beautiful, though, no doubt about it. Enough of this. Read about it elsewhere, if you’re interested.

We spent the afternoon swimming and loafing at Fairystone State Park (another guv’ment project), and ended the day like we began, on horseback, a dusk rideabout along the dirt roads of my neighborhood. Today, it is the Virginia Museum of Natural History, in Martinsville. What’s the Virginia Museum of Natural History doing in Martinsville? Can you say, “A. L. Philpott?” Get the chalkboard and I’ll draw you a picture.