Bacon's Rebellion

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.

I got an email this afternoon from the Chesterfield County Republican Committee. The lead was “The Deception of Jeff Schapiro …” and below it, in slighty less bold type, was “Jeff Schapiro Should Stop With His Opinions.”

Schapiro, of course, is being attacked for his Richmond Times-Dispatch news story on the Brad Marrs fundraising letter. The attack is wrong-headed and could likely make things worse.

Attacking Schapiro for “liberal bias” might be a good fundraising tactic, but Mr. Schapiro’s hands are clean on this one. He reported the news–and the news he had was hot. During a campaign, everything is scrutinized more closely. Partisans are ready to strike out at any opportunity. What might have been an unnoticed line in an off-year fundraising letter gets fine-tooth comb attention in a contested race. The Marrs campaign should have been more careful, especially knowing the atmosphere in which they were working.

Wow–defending Jeff Schapiro. Am I still an “Ass of Evil?” My diabolical backside buddy Norm Leahy has a slightly less charitable take on Schapiro and further thoughts on the controversy here.

The Blue Dog has only been blogging on his own for one week, but that’s already too long for the Kaine campaign. When emailed this post, Mo Elleithee replied, “Please remove me from your email spam list. Thanks.”

Ouch. Even the “Asses of Evil” don’t get treated like this.

Update: I have it on good authority that at least one prominent Democrat has already gone to bat for the Dog with the Kaine campaign.

National CrossTalk is a publication of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Their summer issue features a story on Virginia’s university system and, in particular, the “charter university” bill that morphed into broader university management legislation during the 2005 General Assembly.

The set-up for the story is interesting. We’re lucky our state universities still exist because things were so bad before this legislation:

Virginia’s reputation as a nurturer of excellence in higher education teetered on collapse.

The despair expressed by education officials was notable. One college president described the state as delivering “grievous wounds” to the campuses. The director of the state’s Council on Higher Education departed his post, saying any more time on the job would amount to “cruel and unusual punishment.” A dean at the University of Virginia said the starving of public institutions represented “insane, ideological, odd thinking” in Richmond.

While this article is a useful discussion of the potential impact of the legislation and includes an interview with Gov. Warner, it is more noteworthy for what it says about the way the higher education establishment views the world.

Jeff Schapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch got a forwarded email from Jerry Kilgore’s campaign that contained “confidential electronic messages” between the candidate and a staffer. Schapiro tells us breathlessly that this campaign “oops moment” provides a “rare glimpse of its inner working.”

I guess it is August.

On Monday, Kilgore’s deputy spokesman emailed Kilgore some thoughts on a New Republic story about Doug Wilder. Kilgore responded, apparently using his hand held computer, with this:

“How about sending this to the press?? Get others to ask, what was Kaine’s role?? This could get us on offense on rt issue.”

Whoa! This is big. You don’t often get an unscripted moment like that. It’s as close as we might ever get to Kilgore in his pajamas, blogging. No profanity, no dirty trick suggestions … just the “rt” shorthand instead of “right.” Hmmm, what does that say about Kilgore?

Of course, the Kaine and Potts campaigns jumped on this failure to delete as evidence that the Kilgore campaign is unraveling. Perhaps they should release a few of their guy’s emails. Let’s compare grammar and spelling!

If you’re interested, Norm Leahy and John Behan covered the New Republic story. Were they part of the “press” that Kilgore mentioned? Were they unwitting dupes of a sinister plot? Could be the missing link in this conspiracy ….

If you can’t get the gubnernatorial candidates to debate face to face, at least you can line up their faces on the same web page and issue video messages on the same topics. That’s what the Virginia chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars has done. Not Guy Incognito has the goods here.

I am spending the week with two nephews and the son of a Duke classmate from Charlotte–ages 11, 13, and 15–camping here in the mountains in my own version of “get a life”. We begin each day with a two mile hike, breakfast, and then a series of scheduled adventures. I have insisted that they keep journals (get your kids a pocket Moleskin) and read aloud to each other in the evening from their summer reading lists. Herewith, an update:

They arrived Saturday, the camp is squared away and we’re into the routine completely. Did our first 2 miles in the rain Sunday, had a big breakfast, then spent nearly 6 hours in the sun at Floydfest. With little prompting, they have taken to regular journal keeping, and make entries together as a group, and individually on the sly. We began the out-loud readings Sun. night.

They all stumble with about the same frequency during the evening readings on word pronunciations and meanings and I stop them and we go ever them without embarrassment or judgment, but with frankness, until we get them right and understand not only the meaning but the context of the usage. I am insisting that they all do their part in meal preparation, clean-up,
laundry, etc. and all are responding like galley slaves.

Exhaustive day Monday. About 13 hours without down time. Morning walk, breakfast, couple of hours rigging for afternoon fishing, then driving lessons on the tractor, followed by litter pickup along the roads for 5-8 miles. Then a hard, heavy hike in to the river and out through country that would give Army Rangers pause. Spent five hours on the water, thoroughly wet start to finish. And caught several nice trout–Browns. Our asses were dragging, though, and after the evening reads all fell into quick and heavy slumber. Breakfasted in Floyd yesterday, made Natural Bridge by 10:00 and had a nice look around–including a tour of a Monacan Indian village replica.

Took the tour of Stonewall Jackson’s House, on Washington Street, in Lexington. Delightful lunch at the 1820 Walker-Wilson House on Main Street. The two Ians had duck fajitas and Grant and I had good beef and shrimp kabobs. Of course, the three of them knocked back a few Shirley Temples.

From there we went over to the George Marshall–VMI Museum. That is truly worth a look–the Marshall Plan, in retrospect, makes our foreign policy since then look childish, mean, and small. Not to forget ‘Little Sorrel,’ Jackson’s favorite horse, which they have mounted there. Not holding up nearly as well. Shot some photos of the Jackson statue in front of the VMI barracks, whereupon is inscribed his words to the cadets as they approached New Market in one of the early skirmishes of the war–boys the age of these three I have with me: “Gentlemen, the Virginia Military Institute shall be heard from today!” The school has an illustrious history. Marshall graduated in 1901. General Patton–a line of them–went there–and it claims a dozen or so Medal of Honor winners.

From there we went to the Lee Chapel, where Marse Robert himself is buried in a white marble tomb beneath a magnificent, full-size marble sculpture of him in death repose that is so life-like that I halfway expected him to raise up and bid us greeting. Here’s the thing: Among some people, his burial site–inside an absolutely beautiful and flawless chapel–is the most sainted, revered piece of real estate in all of Virginia–and it was completely, utterly empty today. Even the guards and curators were absent–I have no idea why–but sensing a rare opportunity to engage in a little civil disobedience in the matter of the ‘NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED’ signs, I ordered my troops to fire at will, and at close range–and they all unlimbered and did just that.

This morning, it is horses into Rock Castle Gorge, lunch at the bottom of the gorge, and sporting clays this afternoon. Tomorrow it is the Virginia Museum of Natural History, in Martinsville, and a horse-pack to an overnight on one of the high peaks here. Friday is Fairystone State Park. Saturday is Charlottesville and Monticello. Sunday is a tour of the area by airplane and the week will be done. I may keep you posted.

The new president of William and Mary, Gene Nichol, has made an early policy pronouncement to the editors of the Newport News Daily Press. Nicol told the paper he will encourage “socioeconomic diversity,” defined as increasing the number of students from low and moderate income families receiving Pell grants. Right now, 8% of William and Mary undergraduates meet that criteria.

“In terms of racial and economic diversity, we have more work to do,” Nichol said. “We are educating the privileged.” The article did not give the racial breakdown of current Pell recipients at the college, so it’s hard to tell if Nichol expects racial diversity to be expanded as a by-product of socioeconomic diversity, or if some separate program will be used to increase racial diversity.

Tom Jackman of the Washington Post has more on why Richard Goemann, executive director of the Indigent Defense Commission, was pushed into resigning on Friday, but it’s still a murky situation. Steve Minor had asked, “Where’s the beef?” over at Commonwealth Conservative, then posted an item about the controversy on his always useful SW Virginia Law Blog.

From Jackman, we learned that “some public defenders complained that Goemann’s executive offices in Richmond expanded while resources were denied to struggling public defender offices in the field.” But then he quoted Sen. Kenneth Stolle, R-VA Beach, as saying Goemann’s departure was “not based strictly on budget issues — it just had to do with what was best for indigent defense.” Stolle couldn’t say more because of “confidentiality rules on personnel matters.”

Commission member Steven Benjamin said “This is not directed at Richard. The commission has made bad decisions about the allocation of taxpayer money. More should be going to the field or public defenders, and less should be going to administration and frills in the central office.”

There you have it. The commission made bad decisions, so Goemann had to go.

In the comments section of my Hawaii post, Scott asks if Bacon’s Rebellion is going to take on the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, especially in light of the revelations published by Save Richmond.

Contrary to blogosphere rumors, Jim Bacon does not summon us in the middle of the night to issue the “party line.” For my part, I’m going to join the opinion of Norm Leahy over at One Man’s Trash. It’s time to pull the plug on this organization (“put a stake through this boondoggle”) and try to salvage something for the city. The first priority should be to bring back the Carpenter Center.

County officials are back from a national conference in Hawaii and Will Jones of the Richmond Times-Dispatch checked in with them. In a sign that citizen and media skepticism before the trip had an effect, officials Jones spoke with gushed about specific things they learned that will help their localities.

What they really learned was that vague claims of “hard work” at these conferences just won’t cut it anymore. At least the skepticism accomplished something.