Bacon's Rebellion

The estimable Norm over at One Man’s Trash has some insightful thoughts on radio’s present and future, inspired, of course, by his Jeff “Good Copy” Schapiro reporting.

That knuckle-dragging, right-wing Richmond Times-Dispatch is at it again. They’ve added a new feature to their op-ed page: profiles of letter to the editor writers. Now they can highlight editorial page editor Ross Mackenzie’s most extreme accolytes breathlessly parroting his wing-nut nostrums.

Ah, but Mackenzie is crafty and calculating.

Today’s first profile is of Jerilyn Fay Collier Kelle whose pet peeve about Richmond is “anti-democratic elitism.” You might expect Ms. Fay Collier Kelle (may I call you Jerilyn? I’m not sure where your last name begins)to discuss education in her letter to the editor, for her career is “Teaching teachers.” Indeed, if she were Governor or Mayor, she would “Not attract businesses whose sole imperative was short-term profit, but provide for the education of our people at any cost.” Can’t tax those short-term profits, can we?

But no. Jerilyn’s jeremiad attacks the very foundation of Mackenzie’s belief system: capitalism. Responding to an obviously Mackenzie-inspired editorial cartoon of the Ten Commandments being hauled off in a trash truck, she writes:

Capitalism, when allowed to become “savage,” trashes the esteemed values both of our democratic public and private lives. When left unbridled, capitalism gives rise to greed and the need to gain ever more by any means necessary, at the expense and impoverishment of others and of our own spirits.

Moreover, it corrupts government decision-making, which destroys the people’s faith in our ability to govern ourselves.

Wow. Mackenzie and the conservative cabal have set this profile feature up magnificently for their own nefarious conspiracy purposes.

The Richmond Times-Disgrace. You need to rant about stuff.

Our friend Snoopy at River City Rapids has written an excellent defense of the Greater Richmond Partnership (GRP), inspired mostly by Jim Bacon’s comments to a post I wrote about the organization. Jim and I share a deep interest in economic development, though we come at it from different angles. We both wish economic development had the blog snap, crackle and pop of a Blue Dog post, but we’ll take what we can get, and that’s Snoopy.

Snoopy leaves the impression that he thinks I’m somehow opposed to GRP, possibly because I’m a resident of Chesterfield County. Chesterfield is thinking of withdrawing its support to the GRP, a $390,000 annual contribution. The City of Richmond is also thinking of withdrawing, leaving only Henrico and Hanover in this award-winning regional organization. Half the members leaving would effectively kill the GRP.

I’m not opposed to the GRP and I’m certainly a fan of effective regional cooperation. I am, however, a believer in honest accounting and efficiency. The GRP says it “helped” bring in 71 companies to Chesterfield. Yes, I’m curious about the level of “help” they provided for each project. Did they make a cold call on an executive in Germany or did they receive a phone call from a consultant? I suspect that if you checked, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership also has those 71 companies on its “helped” list, as does Chesterfield County’s own economic development organization. Shouldn’t we rationalize all this “help?” How many layers of help do we really need? How much double and triple counting is going on to justify the layers?

Some of the 71 companies on the “helped” list have since left the County or laid workers off. Has that negative impact been subtracted from the investment figures given? Are any incentives the state/county paid been subtracted out?

Jim has written about changes that have swept the economic development field and how the Greater Richmond Partnership has been a leader in reacting to those changes. I agree that the GRP has been a nimble innovator, but at least one little thing bothers me. The internet is now the tool of choice for many company and/or consultant relocation efforts. Go to Google and do this search: “locate a business in Richmond, VA.” The GRP’s website does not come up on the first two pages! Heck, the City of Richmond’s economic development office and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership don’t come up until the second page. Maybe there’s a good explanation for that, but I think I’d buy a sponsored link on Google before I went to a trade show in China.

I’m opposed to any jurisdiction just pulling the plug on its participation in the GRP, but I can’t say that I’m in favor of blindly continuing to fund it without asking some questions.

George Fitch, the Don Quixotian seeker of the Republican Party nomination for governor, has delivered petitions with 14,000 signatures to the State Board of Elections — enough to ensure that he gets on the June ballot for the state primary.

Eighty-two volunteers around the state collected names to get Fitch on the ballot. These volunteers came to him through the George Fitch for Governor website. Fitch, the fiscally conservative mayor of Warrenton best known as the promoter behind the Jamaican bobsled team, gathered more than 2,000 of those signatures himself.

Ignoring Fitch as always, the Kilgore campaign issued a press chortling at the relatively low number of signatures submitted by Democrat Tim Kaine. Noting that the Kaine campaign had set a goal of submitting 30,000 signatures, Kilgore’s press secretary, Tim Murtaugh, noted that Kaine had garnered only 18,776 signatures.

There was no indication in the Kilgore press release, nor on the Kilgore website, how many signatures the former Attorney General submitted. But if Fitch, despite a near black-out in press coverage for his campaign, managed to bring in 76 percent as many signatures as the undisputed Democratic nominee, it may indicate that his anti-tax, anti-spending message has more traction than commonly recognized.

Then again, those 14,000 signatures may mean that if you go to a shopping mall, you can get people to sign almost anything just to get you to leave them alone.

In comments to Jim’s post below, our friend Paul claims that savings from the Virginia Information Technology Agency, VITA, have always been claimed to be future savings.

According to this link, it appears the future is now.

Peter Bacque with the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports this morning that the Virginia Information Technologies Agency wants to increase the rates it charges state agencies “Our agencies are going to experience a hit,” state CIO Lemuel C. Stewart Jr. told the Virginia Information Technology Investment Board yesterday. The higher charge, he conceded, amounted to a “backdoor budget cut.”

Lemuel contended that Virginia’s public computer systems are not adequately protected againt cyber attacks. Upgrading systems to comply with state requirements will cost more $6.5 million over the next two years. Including other mandated projects, VITA needs a total of $20.8 million. Rates must be approved by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.

The purpose of creating VITA was to cut costs, not add to them. Charges to state agencies ought to be going down, not up! Where are the savings? VITA is supposed to be one of the great legacies of the Warner administration. What the heck is going on?

Yesterday, the big blog buzz was a Blue Dog dust-up with Scott Hanger that spilled into comment sections throughout the Virginia blogosphere.

Today, I suspect the buzz will be all about the release of state-wide political fundraising numbers.

As usual, Commonwealth Conservative has the big picture, but Addison of Sic Semper Tyrannis, in an apparent bit of screaming baby blogging (2AM time stamp!), has the most fascinating story–the big individual contribution made to the Russ Potts campaign.

Will this huge donation give Potts more credibility, or will it just open him up to more derision? Listen to the buzz ….

“Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them” ~ Abraham Lincoln, 1865

“The Politicians Guide To God’s Galaxy”

From high up-top the Blue Ridge Mountains, sitting in the Blue Dog’s evangelical cheap seat section, I observed this past week:

Former President Bill Clinton last week comparing his legacy to the late Pope John Paul II.

Congressional source, ‘Dry Throat’ wrote the Blue Dog: “Clinton’s pious bias is a hope that Hillary can continue his legacy after his death. Clinton’s comparing his mixed legacy to Pope John Paul II is his way of repairing his negligence as a father and husband through generous gifts for his library as well as his aiding the financing of her campaign.”

US News & World Report wrote: Former President Clinton, discussing John Paul II’s papacy with reporters as he and the first family traveled to Rome for last week’s funeral said,

… “He’s like all of us – He may have a mixed legacy.”

Blue Dog NOTE: Holy Smokes! How do you spell, P-I-O-U-S? Bill Clinton and Tim Kaine must have swapped Faith-based cliff notes at the DNC convention.

Last month, Tim Kaine told the American Prospect: “I think that John Kerry demonstrated much more comfort talking about windsurfing and hockey than he did talking about his beliefs,” says Kaine, admitting that he does have a limited amount of sympathy for the Massachusetts senator’s reticence.

“There is clearly a Christian New Testament tradition that warns against praying loudly in the front of the temple where everyone can see you,” he says. ” … I think there are devout religious people who are on guard against false demonstrations of piety, and that is an appropriate thing to wonder about. But it always strikes me as a little unusual when a candidate can talk easily about relatively peripheral or minor things but not talk with the same enthusiasm about what is the central belief system of their life.”

Blue Dog NOTE: Unless Tim ‘the choirboy’ Kaine gets smart and fires his faith-based campaign staff — this election is over and out. Do you copy? Roger that, Blue Dog!

The Republican candidate running for lieutenant governor, Sean Connaughton, proposed yesterday a statewide faith-based initiative to help needy families.

According to the RT-D: “Although the Virginia Department of Social Services has a faith-based program, there is no statewide program that would allow the state or localities to coordinate with faith-based organizations, Connaughton said at a news conference in Richmond.”

Blue Dog NOTE: I hope and pray there’s not a big taxpayer cost associated with Sean’s new government program of the month. But I do like Bush’s Faith-based initiatives.

And from the good Senator (not the senile one). It looks like George Allen has finally found peace and solace on the Commonwealth with his new chief of staff.

As reported in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: His communications director, John Reid, said he has urged the senator to talk more in public about his faith, and that Allen is trying to “make sure people know how much he cares.” Reid has been working for Allen for a year.

“He’s a private person and never wants to be seen as a preacher at all; it’s important to remind people of your moral grounding and basic faith,” Reid said.

In the speech to the Cathedral Club, a group that supports charitable efforts of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, Allen said, “There are four things that endure in me: faith, family, football and freedom.”

Whoa Nelly, Cowboy George in a member of the Christian version of the ‘Four-F’ Club! It must be time to round up them liberal Democratic donkeys in the Commonwealth.

As the Charlottesville Cowboy has said in the past, “Let’s enjoy knocking their soft teeth down their whiny throats.”

Blue Dog NOTE: Pundit Larry Saba-dodo questioned Allen’s sincerity with his religious values in the RTD column. Hey Coach Allen, can you say touchdown!

Give that political pundit a job on your future presidential staff, S-e-n-a-t-o-r … err, Gov. Mollycoddle!

For campaign 2005 and beyond, this is a battle for who can put more ‘religious decals’ on their election surfboard before the Red-state Evangelical Tsunami hits Virginia’s shores.

It’s Red State Blue State madness! But please stay tuned for another adventure of ‘God and Politics in the Commonwealth’ as high tide rolls in.

~ the blue dog

Over at Commonwealth Conservative, Scott Hanger, son of Senator Emmett Hanger, defends his Dad and lambastes our own Blue Dog, Steve Sisson, in the comments section.

I know John Behan is the Instapundit of Virginia, with big page view numbers, but I’m still surprised at the placement and timing of this outburst. Check it out–thanks, Paul, for the pointer.

Update: Hmmmm. Scott Hanger also posted his comment here on Sic Semper Tyrannis. Maybe he’s working his way to getting it on Bacon’s Rebellion ….

Recently I semi-promised to track Mayor Doug Wilder’s budget cutting proposals in the City of Richmond. One of the items Wilder proposed to cut was the city’s participation in The Greater Richmond Partnership (GRP), a regional economic development group that includes Chesterfield, Hanover, and Henrico counties. The annual savings to the city would be $390,000.

Before Wilder’s formal budget submission, some in Chesterfield County also proposed withdrawing financial support. The GRP has just released their response to Chesterfield. Snoopy over at River City Rapids says the response is a slam-dunk justification of the value of the GRP: $195 returned for every dollar Chesterfield spent.

Not so fast. The GRP response is a sharp, glossy document, as befits a first-class organization. Such an impressive format lends credence to its main point: “All told, in ten years in Chesterfield, GRP has been involved in bringing 71 companies, 6,700 jobs, and $651 million in taxable capital investment.”

What does “been involved” really mean? Time and again, the GRP says it “helped” or “assisted” in all this economic development activity. Just what was the nature of all this “help” and “assistance?” The GRP doesn’t say. There are no examples of what the “help” was for any individual project, so it’s hard for anyone outside the insular world of economic development to judge if the “help” could have been provided at a lesser cost. The awards touted by the GRP were mostly bestowed by economic development organizations; the accolades from economic development consultants with a vested interested in praising the GRP.

My point is that if the GRP provides a similar document to the City of Richmond in an effort to retain city funding, I would expect the wily Wilder and his sidekick Paul Goldman to be a little more incredulous than Snoopy. There’s a case to be made for all Richmond localities to continue providing financial support, but it needs to be more than “good things happened, we helped.”

The larger question, for the state as a whole, is this: “Would economic development occur without economic developers?”

We all know that Professor Larry Sabato hosts officeholders and office-seekers in his University of Virginia political science class; his Center for Politics puts out press releases and invites the media. Lt. Gov. Kaine has already appeared with Sabato; Jerry Kilgore appears tomorrow. Less well-known and less-reported are appearances in other Virginia classrooms.

One of my day job colleagues, the delightful Heather McDonough of Mechanicsville, is taking a night class at VCU. When she told me Jerry Kilgore had addressed the class yesterday, I asked her to give me her impressions of him as a candidate. She agreed to dash something off and I present it here, unedited except for some paragraph breaks, as a non-blogger’s take on the presumptive Republican nominee:

As part of my Political Science class at VCU (Virginia Government and Politics-POLI 323), taught by Bob Holsworth and Don Baker, Jerry Kilgore stopped by last night to discuss his political career and the current Governor’s race. Maybe it was the university setting, but he seemed a bit ill at ease when he first arrived. Despite his seeming wariness, he did warm up to the class and came off as a genuinely nice guy.

We did discuss his accent in class, and how it would play in the campaign, and we couldn’t reach a consensus. Several classmates thought it would hurt him, especially in Northern Virginia. Others thought it would actually help him, myself included. Even though I’m a pretty staunch Democrat, I’m a Southern girl first, and there’s something about a Southern twang that strikes me as appealing and trustworthy.

I was quite impressed with Kilgore’s skill in maneuvering the discussion back to his main issues – the “10 days of reform” he’s been announcing on the campaign trail. He talked about the “better pay for better teachers” initiative, and he explained that it was a way to reward those “impact teachers” that everyone recognizes as the best (which would also be much cheaper than a sorely needed across-the-board pay raise). Besides, what teacher is going to say no to a guy who wants to give them more money? He’ll be tackling domestic violence as well, with an initiative of mandatory jail time for those who violate protective orders, ranging from 5 days for the first violation to 90 days or more after 3 violations.

While the class seemed impressed with his vision, several students did raise the question of how he was going to pay for all these new programs. This launched Kilgore into several minutes of explaining his plans for economic development in the Commonwealth, as he told us that he had signed a “no tax” pledge before his campaign for Attorney General which was “still in effect” and that he did not think we would need to cut programs provided the Commonwealth could strengthen economic development. He mentioned his plans for partnerships between research universities and private enterprise to gain access to federal dollars for research, which would help both the universities themselves as well as economic development in the surrounding region.

Overall, I really liked Kilgore and thought he seemed like a nice, down-home guy. I really hope he can overcome some of the stiffness and seeming unease in front of a crowd, because he has some really good ideas. I also hope that his campaign doesn’t put out any tv ads in Northern Virginia that feature him talking. I just don’t know how his accent is going to play up there. I guess it just felt like he was really on his guard and in “campaign mode,” and I’d rather have seen him let his guard down a bit.

Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts, Lt. Gov. Kaine won’t be able to speak with Heather’s class, so I won’t be able to offer equal time.

Update: Commonwealth Conservative has a report on what Jerry was doing before his appearance in Heather’s class.

Loudoun-ize: verb meaning to overrun an area with residential building because you are an elected GOP official in the pocket of developers. H. Clark Leming, a land-use attorney, discusses charges that Stafford County is being “Loudoun-ized” in this Free-Lance Star op-ed.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

–Edmund Burke, British Statesman and Political Thinker

[Kaine]responded to a student’s question about corruption on Richmond City Council, on which he once served, by saying that it was chiefly caused by the refusal of people in the city’s big law firms and major companies to run for City Council.

–From Patrick McSweeney’s latest in Bacon’s Rebellion

Margaret Edds’ Virginian-Pilot column went online too late for today’s Virginia Pundit Watch. Ms. Edds offered her take on the General Assembly veto session dust-up over Sen. Russ Potts. That dust-up led to Phil’s RINOS on Parade, producing one of the most interesting and voluminous comment threads ever seen here on Bacon’s Rebellion. It included contributions from one of the legislators at the center of the action, Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax.

Edds makes no bones about where she stands:

Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, aligning with moderate Republican senators, saved the Virginia GOP from embarrassment at the hands of its anti-government ideological wing.

Potts’ reprieve may have disappointed party activists understandably miffed at the Winchester renegade’s run for governor as an independent Republican. But the alternative, in my view, meant elevating Potts to martyrdom while trumpeting a philosophical split.

She goes on to quote several Potts pot shots, including his calling the car tax relief plan (that he voted for!) a “cockamamie idea.” She also weighs in on the possible Potts effect:

My guess is that Potts’ straight talk will wind up costing both Kaine and Kilgore votes, probably somewhat equally. Every time irate Republicans burnish his maverick image, they add to the tally by illuminating his platform and his campaign.

If Potts had more of a platform and a more visible campaign, I might agree with her. The Potts campaign I see is only about his “maverick” press clippings.

Update: No one person can keep up with the Potts juggernaut. Norm over at One Man’s Trash links and comments on a Chris Graham mini-interview in the AFP with Virgnia’s most dangerous candidate.