Bacon's Rebellion

Our very own Gov. Pinocchio has set a new record in returning voting rights to more felons in our state’s history. He also leads the nation in restoring felons’ rights. For the full story click here.

This communique comes from Steve Baril in response to comments appearing in this blog asking why a candidate for Attorney General is making transportation a major platform in his campaign. — Jim Bacon

Some of your readers and others across the State have asked about the Attorney General’s role in transportation. The question has arisen in connection with my Marshall Plan for transportation. Aside from Jerry Kilgore, I’m the only statewide candidate offering a long-term, comprehensive plan to solve Virginia’s transportation problems. So, I’d like to answer the question head-on.

There are three good reasons why an AG candidate should speak out on transportation: litigation, legal advice and leadership.

1. Every major transportation project hits its first roadblock when the anti’s of one stripe or another file a lawsuit to block the project. Who’s going to defend VDOT and the Commonwealth? The AG’s office. It makes sense to have the best qualified lawyer in this race representing Virginia to advance these projects as quickly as possible.

2. It is also the Attorney General’s job to advise the Governor and VDOT on public-private partnership initiatives, privatizing and outsourcing VDOT’s traditional functions, including maintenance work. It makes perfect sense to arm our next Governor, Jerry Kilgore, with an Attorney General who is completely wired-in to one of the most critical challenges facing the Commonwealth — transportation.

3. Finally, statewide office is a bully pulpit for leadership. There is no shortage of politicians. What we lack is statesmanship. The Republican Party should produce as many leaders as possible who can champion issues like transportation. For example, Jerry Kilgore did it with domestic violence, though he was criticized for not tending to his knitting. The fact remains, Virginia is better off today because Jerry took up this very important issue, sought legislative action, and won the day in the General Assembly. I am offering the same leadership today on transportation. It is an area where I have a proven track record of success, having spearheaded the completion of Route 288 around Richmond, a road that the so-called experts said couldn’t be built in my lifetime.

If you want politics as usual, then I won’t be your guy. If you want straight talk and honest solutions to real problems like transportation and keeping Virginia safe, then I’m your man!

That’s why I’m receiving such a tremendous response to my Marshall Plan for transportation. Virginia has had enough career politicians who say one thing, yet do another. They want honest, straight talk, and a can-do attitude to get things done! I did it with Route 288. I’ll do it for transportation across Virginia.

— Steve Baril

I know Tim Kaine, and I know him to be a thoughtful man. I had a chance to speak to him at some length about education reform several months ago. Back then, before his campaign began in earnest, he articulated some interesting perspectives on education. He’d visited literally every single school jurisdiction across the state to get a sense of the varied challenges schools face across our diverse Commonwealth.

I recall that Kaine was especially concerned about the impending teacher shortage and what it would take to address it. (Addressing the teacher shortage, as coincidence would have it, was the main topic of Jerry Kilgore’s recently announced education initiative.) What impressed me about Kaine was that, although he clearly thought the education system needed more money, he also acknowledged that the system needed to be changed as well.

Judging by his latest campaign salvo, however, all education needs is more money. “Join teachers in the fight for full education funding,” he urges readers of his campaign e-mail blast. He attacked Kilgore for diluting his commitment to education funding. “Under a Kilgore administration, education’s funding would compete with big road project campaign promises, and Virginia’s school children would lose.” So much for nuance.

Question #1. What’s this about “full education funding”? I thought Gov. Mark R. Warner’s 2004 tax increase, which (as my fallible memory serves) raised about $600 million per year for Virginia schools, was supposed to bring Virginia up to the Standards of Quality. In what sense, pray tell, are Virginia’s schools not fully funded?

Question #2: What’s this about Kilgore’s commitment to funding big road projects? I didn’t detect that from the Kilgore transportation plan (detailed on this blog). What big road projects is Kaine talking about? … Can we presume from his comments that Kaine opposes pouring new money into “big road projects”? Can we have his commitment that, if elected governor, he will veto a tax hike for the purpose of funding more big road projects?

NorthernCrown, that is, and he’s already caught up on transportation and development issues from his neck of the Northern Virginia “woods.”

The symbiotic relationship between Russ Potts and the press has taken a new turn. Now, not only does the press feed off of Potts’ pot shots, but Potts is feeding off of the press’s pot shots.

Jeff Schapiro reports in today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch that “Independent Republican” Russ Potts has compared his opponents to “two kids in a sandbox,” pretty much parroting a line that several major pundits have pushed over the last two weeks.

Where Potts made his remarks is a mystery. Was it in a major policy speech somewhere? Or was it in a phone call or cozy conversation with Mr. Schapiro?

Update: Addison answers my questions in the comments. Norm outs me as a serial or inveterate thesaurus user.

Now I’m wondering why the headline wasn’t, “Maverick Republican Whitman Fails to Endorse Potts.”

The price of doing business in the Democratic Party of Virginia is bordering on indiscriminate secrecy resulting in the “old hack” approach which spells ignorance and abuse for those who choose to tell the truth. Such vitriol these politicos display.

The average democrat in Virginia has no idea how much money is being raised since so much of what is being spent is classified and used for ‘secret ops’ and ‘misinformation’ to discredit their political opponents from both sides of the aisle. The quality and quantity of independent oversight by the Valley Blue Dog threatens the Democrat Party appearance as being hospitable, and instead it reveals corruption, and mere incompetence.

Today in the RT-D, reporter Tyler Whitley reveals Gov. Warner’s hardball approach to his political foes. Because current House of Delegate candidate, Donald McEachin, is being treated like DIRT by the DPVA and the Joint Democratic Caucus.

TimesDispatch.com Democrats’ voter files for ayes only

If not for AG candidate Donald McEachin’s black voters in rural and urban Virginia in 2001, Democratic candidate Tim Kaine would have lost that close election to Republican Jay Katzen. That’s a fact and furthermore, Kaine needs the black community to win in 2005 as well.

The Blue Dog can’t honestly believe Tim Kaine and other Democrats are going to sit back and act like nothing is happening. Donald McEachin has earned the right to have the Democratic voter files to run for elected office.

The Blue Dog says the DPVA can either release the voter files to Donald McEachin — OR — I’ll be tempted to sell my Democratic Joint Caucus & DPVA “2003 Candidate Workshop for Candidates and Managers” booklet on Ebay next week to the highest bidder.

The booklet includes “how to” Democratic fundraising, polling, vendors, campaign plans, budgeting and more.

Are you listening Mollycoddle, because I’m betting Ray Allen and Scott Howell have their checkbooks ready.

~ the blue dog

An anonymous contributor posted some fascinating data under the “Kilgore Releases Transportation Plan” thread, and it was just too good to keep buried there. So, here it is, paraphrased from Anonymous, who takes it from the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance website:

Here are the increases that local governments are requiring the average single family homeowner to pay in local property taxes in just one year — 2005 as opposed to 2004.

Arlington County…. $482
City of Alexandria…. $760*
Fairfax County…. $364
Loudoun County…. $484
Prince William County…. $174 *
Recommended for adoption May 2nd

Now, cutting back to my personal commentary…. Let’s see. Lawmakers enacted roughly $750 million in the state sales, income and other taxes by last year. Soaring property values are pushing up the actual tax burden of real estate, especially in Northern Virginia. And higher college tuitions are pushing up the cost of attending public college at the rate of 7 to 8 percent next fall.

To top it all off, Sen. John Chichester and assorted allies still thinks Virginians are undertaxed and wants to increase the gas tax.

Can you say “tax revolt”, anyone?

A few days ago, Professor Larry Sabato was breathlessly telling NBC 12 about Tim Kaine’s “hands down” victory at the Shad Planking. Apparently that wasn’t enough of a weathervane for the Sage of Charlottesville to give us a definitive status of the race. He’s teasing us.

Michael Shear of the Washington Post reviewed the Kaine-Kilgore debate about debates today. Betraying a “good copy” mentality, Shear speculated on the impact an “irascible” Russ Potts would have in a three-way gubernatorial debate.

Now here’s an idea for Tim Kaine: if he’s anxious to debate and thinks Kilgore is ducking him, why doesn’t he ask Potts to debate him and an empty chair?

The latest issue of “The Cuccinelli Compass” takes Sen. Warner to task for failing to side with the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate that wants to uphold the Constitution by confirming President Bush’s nominees by a simple majority vote and stop the Democrats from filibustering these nominations. In this issue, Sen. Cuccinelli provides a brief history of the filibuster rule in the Senate, and some comments on Senator Warner’s error.

This issue of Sen. Cuccinelli’s newsletter is an exceptionally good read. To read the entire issue, click here.

Transportation, as many would agree, is shaping up as the No. 1 policy issue in Virginia this year. Yet when presumptive Republican nominee Jerry Kilgore publishes his comprehensive strategy for addressing the Commonwealth’s transportation needs, it warrants two bullet items at the tail end of an article buried on the inside of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I guess we’re doomed to have the gubernatorial campaign treated as a horse race with the emphasis all on process–campaign signs, polls, debates, etc. What a shame.

Kilgore has proposed some good ideas and some bad ones. They all deserve to be debated. Here are the highlights:

Regional transportation authority. Kilgore will enable metro areas to create authorities to address transportation on a regional basis, empowering them “to issue bonds, hold referenda to involve taxpayers in certain financing decisions, sign private maintenance contracts, enter into public-private partnerships, and use other financing mechanisms to fund new road, bridge and mass transit projects over and above existing funding from the state. “

Transportation trust fund. Kilgore will push for a constitutional amendment that would prevent the gas taxes paid into the transportation fund to be raided for other purposes.

Public-private partnerships. Kilgore will streamline the process for establishing public-private partnerships for the purpose of funding new transportation projects, and would direct VDOT to seek out such partnerships.

Intelligent transportation system. Kilgore will”seek private sector proposals to create the most comprehensive, state-of-the-art, statewide traveler communications network in the nation. In addition, he will employ technology to improve mobility by converting all toll facilities to electronic tolls by 2008, synchronizing traffic signals, and use of modeling to improve our access management strategies.”

I have problems with this platform: Public-private partnerships make me queasy, and the plan ignores the critical connection between land use and transportation demand. On the plus side, Kilgore is pushing solutions that don’t require a statewide increase in taxes. And he’s serious about employing techology to increase the capacity of the existing transportation system. All in all, these are serious ideas and they deserve a serious airing. Read the full platform here.

Suddenly, everyone is jumping through hoops to get the dump at False Cape State Park cleaned up.

The Virginian-Pilot goes into Earth Mother mode in this editorial about the dump. They ought to just be asking why it took their reporter, Jason Skog, to discover this dump and the shameful lack of any action over the course of years to clean it up.

Skog deserves an award.

Grading legislators is an inexact science practiced rigorously by interest groups. The latest organization to try and make a splash by rating General Assembly members is Virginia21, an “action-tank involving young people across the Commonwealth in the political process by providing information, directing advocacy and coordinating political action on a non-partisan issue agenda.” As with any group, some might quarrel with the “non-partisan” claim.

Virginia21 graded legislators on “student and higher education issues.” On the Dean’s List were such notables as Delegates Vince Callahan (R), Frank Hall (D), Joe May (R), and Democratic Lt. Governor candidate Chap Petersen. They received a score of over 4.0.

At the bottom of the list was Del. Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania. He received a 0.7. Predictably, he challenged the “non-partisan” issue ratings: “I consider it a badge of honor, considering Virginia 21. In general, I think Virginia 21 has a very liberal bent to it. So I bet they scored very liberal General Assembly members higher than they did the conservative ones.”

Del. Viola Baskerville, also running for the Lt. Gov. nomination, received a 4.0. Del. Robert McDonnell, running for the Republican AG nomination, got a 1.7.

Senators weren’t rated, apparently because they’re not running for re-election this year.

The Kaine campaign, as with most campaigns that are behind, is fixated on debates. Because Jerry Kilgore hasn’t agreed to any specific debates, they are trying to get mileage out of the theme that he is “ducking” debates.

Lots of organizations probably would like to host a debate among the candidates and naturally one would think that candidates would be selective about which debate venue proposals they will accept. I haven’t seen a list of all the debate proposals that might be floating around, but it occurred to me that the UVA Center for Poltics might be a strong contender, either as a host and or with their leader, Professor Larry Sabato, as moderator for someone else’s debate.

I asked Matt Smyth, Director of Communications for the Center, if they had submitted a proposal. His answer: “With regard to the VA GOV debates, we’re actually working on that right now. We’re in the early stages of developing plans, and certainly hope to play a role in the debates that take place, but as of yet we haven’t determined or specifically proposed what role that might be.” What this tells me is that if the Center for Politics doesn’t have a proposal ready, it’s awfully early to be worried about debates. We don’t know how many proposals are out there for the campaigns to consider right now or how many more will be submitted. Maybe Jerry Kilgore is “ducking” some proposals that are on the table now, but he also might be waiting to pick the best from the widest array of alternatives.

I will make one prediction: no matter how many debates, no one will compare them with Lincoln-Douglas. The pundits are already bored with these candidates.

Jeff Schapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a by-lined story on Tim Kaine’s early use of television ads, plus what will probably be regular feature, “Campaign Spot Watch.” “Spot Watch” examines each ad in detail, here and here.

I find the difficult role of Kaine’s wife, Ann Holton, to be interesting. As a district court judge, she is banned from participating in election campaigns, but she got permission to appear in one of the ads as long as she did not speak. I wonder if there will be other strained situations for her down the road.

While his wife could not speak, Kaine’s children do vouch for their Dad. I’m uncomfortable with a candidate bringing his/her family too much into the campaign and I hope to see the ad to gauge whether it trips my comfort meter. Mark Earley did an ad with his kids and Ukrop grocery bags in 2001 that I don’t think did him any good.

Update: Norm at One Man’s Trash, the go-to guy in the Virginia blogosphere on all things advertising and message related, has his take here. I incorrectly attributed both “Spot Watch” write-ups to Schapiro; Norm, showing much more attention to detail, noted that Tyler Whitley evaluated the biographical ad. Schapiro evaluated the tax reduction ad.