Bacon's Rebellion

“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.

I’m not one to regularly quote the Washington Post, but Sunday’s editorial by Melanie Scaborough really draws the distinction in the ideologies of the Political Parties and clearly shows why the Democrats have lost their majority status in our State.

This Op-Ed examined the legislative bills proposed by both Democrat and Republican members of the Northern Virginia Delegation. It gives credit to Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R- Fairfax, for having “sponsored some of this year’s most common-sense legislation – including a bill that would tie the growth of state spending to population plus inflation.” (Emphasis added)

This is commonly referred to as the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) and it’s modeled after the Colorado law that is widely credited for controlling government spending in that state and for returning billion of dollars to the tax payers in the form of permanent tax cuts. Of course such legislation is anathema to the tax-and-spenders in the State Senate, including a good percentage of the Republican majority, as it would deprive them from the ability to squander taxpayer dollars on pork barrel from which they derive their political power.

The article concludes by making this very insightful observation:

If Northern Virginia liberals believe it is a moral imperative to pay high tax rates, why not live in Washington instead of lower-taxed Virginia?
They send to Richmond representatives who vote for the sort of policies that ruined the District — and from which Virginia suburbanites have tried to escape.

The Daily Press has a big story today on the pay of the Executive Director of the Virginia Port Authority. The General Assembly alloted $127,615 for the post but Gov. Warner and the Port Authority Board set the pay at $275,615 without following procedures outlined in state law.

This is not a big deal–it’s a big job and the salary is apparently competitive–but it’s another example of the tin ear some in the Warner Administration have about pay and perks. It’s the “we took a pay cut to join state government” mentality. The Port Authority Board has now promised it will hold public hearings on future pay raises for the Executive Director.

Del. Vince Callahan, R-Fairfax, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, got it right: “I don’t have any problem with the board paying him a competitive salary, considering what these football and basketball coaches are making. But we have created certain guidelines and provisions. If they don’t follow them, they’re on tenuous ground.”

Becky Dale pointed me to this news story in the Manassas Journal Messenger. Despite all the talk about rising real estate assessments and homeowner unrest, Prince William County has apparently not seen any increase in the number of calls to its assessment office. Could this be less of an issue than either Kaine or Kilgore imagined?

If you’re into media watching and substance, you can read One Man’s Trash right now or you can read Virginia Pundit Watch tomorrow in the new issue of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine. Or you could do both.

When bloggers aren’t chasing the same political story, they’re gazing into their collective navels on the subject of blogging.

Prolific Chris Graham of the Augusta Free Press recently did a widely linked story on Virginia blogging’s potential impact on this fall’s election, including interviews with John Behan and Rick Sincere. A companion piece should be this Jack Schaefer article in Slate. Schaefer, who’s been in the media criticism business longer than any blogger, praises blogs for opinion writing and compares them to mainstream journalists this way:

To stretch a manufacturing analogy, unsalaried bloggers represent low-cost Chinese laborers, professional journalists the well-paid-with-benefits American workers. Given the right tools and infrastructure, low-cost Chinese labor can produce work that is every bit the equal of the high-price kind. What the Web has done is remove the barriers to entry from opinion journalism, much to the benefit of readers.

GOP gubernatorial candidate George Fitch has finally garnered some ink in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, although the lead of today’s article by Tyler Whitley could not be what he was hoping for: “Fitch struggles for recognition in his GOP bid to be governor”.

Fitch has loads of ideas for cutting costs and taxes, Whitley wrote, but he can’t get them out because he lacks money and a campaign organization. The Warrenton mayor “soldiers on, usually driving by himself in his Ford Taurus, talking with whomever will listen about ‘the Warrenton miracle.’ While Kilgore has raised more than $5 million, Fitch has raised only $140,000 — mostly from his own pocket.

Given the anti-tax fervor of the Republican rank and file, I’m amazed that Fitch has attracted so little support. It does seem likely that Fitch will get on the primary ballot, at least, so Republicans will at least be able to register a protest vote against the Business As Usual wing of the GOP.

Dear Bacon’s Rebellion Bloggers,

I have been gratified by the response to the Bacon’s Rebellion blog. It has more than fulfilled my hope that it would become a forum for the exchange of perspectives on issues of importance to Virginians. The quality of the commentary has been high, and participants have largely honored the spirit of collegiality that I would like to maintain. Even though we often disagree–and disagree vigorously–we can debate facts and logic without engaging in ad hominem attacks.

The Bacon’s Rebellion blog started as an experiment, just to see what would happen. In just a couple of months, the blog clearly has become something worth building upon. Unfortunately, as popularity has increased, we seem to be running into bandwidth problems. A number of participants have experienced difficulty posting and commenting on the blog. Blogger is fine for a free service, but, let’s face it, you get what you pay for. My first priority is to migrate to a superior blogging platform.

If anyone can suggest a superior blogging service that charges reasonable rates, please let me know. Also, if any of you can recommend particular features that a good blogging service should have, please let me know.

Jim Bacon
Publisher
Bacon’s Rebellion