On the Western Banks of the Shenandoah

The House GOP is at The Homestead in Warm Springs this weekend to talk policy and strategy in the wake of Steele’s accession to the RNC Chairmanship and a solid front against the pork laden stimulus package. The conference featured a number of Republican stars. One, however, was conspicuously absent. From The Note: 

Retreat organizers tell ABC News that Palin politely declined, giving a perfectly understandable reason.  According to the Congressional Institute, which hosted the conference, Palin said she simply could not make it to the retreat because pressing state business made it impossible for her to leave Alaska this weekend.

So where is Palin this weekend?  She’s in Washington, D.C., attending the super-elite Alfalfa Dinner.

…..

The House Republicans seemed to do just fine without Palin. Their list of speakers included Republican stars Michael Steele, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich.

Asked about Palin’s no-show, House Republican leader John Boehner shrugged.

“Whatever,” Boehner said.

Snubbing the Congressional leadership to attend a high-profile but closed event is not exactly the best way to set-up a run for the top spot in 2012. I’ll write more about that later, but more important is what was said by those who did speak. More below the fold. 

The RNC provides the complete recorded remarks by Michael Steele, where he notes that re-capturing the 20th New York Congressional Seat and the NJ and VA gubernatorial races are the top priorities for 2009. 

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney’s PAC has his full remarks. If the economy remains an issue for the next few years, expect Romney to become a leader on this issue. Also to watch: Will Romney dominate at CPAC? If he does, it’ll become clear that he’s taking the Reagan path to victory–become a conservative leader over a period of time, then cash in. 

God, 2012 has already started. Anybody have any extra Xanax?

There’s plenty of reaction across the blogosphere to the election of Michael Steele as Chairman of the RNC. One particularly interesting take come from an open letter to the Chairman by Matt Moon over at The Next Right. Of particular interest to me are two reccomendations:

Hold campaigns and local parties accountable. Patrick and Mindy give specific goals for Congressional and Senate races when it comes to raising money and recruiting online activists. Here’s what I would like to see. Ask every state and local party to give specific grassroots, electoral and fundraising goals. Publish those goals online. Reward parties that exceed expectations. Hold accountable those parties that fail to meet their goals. Shame works just as well as potential victory when it comes to incentivizing hard work and smart strategy.

Amen! While I am a bit skeptical that the RNC is going to be able or even want to reach all the way down to the county level, I think it is high time that someone hold county parties responsible, and at the VERY least provide clear directions and goals to the parties. My best idea at the moment: make it very clear to surrounding units what the goals are and publish whether or not those goals are being met. This will mean that not only internal but external pressure will be placed on chairs to shape up. Too often units become the equivalent of Republican Clubs in metro areas, and I bet you even many of them do more grassroots work than some units in the country. The excuse that committees are simply administrative bodies charged with holding a Lincoln Day Dinner and nominating candidates and that they should not be held accountable when goals are not met should be absolutely unacceptable in Steele’s RNC. 

I also wholeheartedly support the idea that the RNC should pursue a “vineyard” strategy to start at the very local level to produce not only good candidates but good ideas. Too often this is where troublesome politicians get their start. Take the case of Emmett Hanger, who started at the bottom and work his way up through the ranks based on his popularity and not on his ideas. We now have a Senator in that seat that is often extremely unresponsive to the ideas and suggestions of principled activists. However, we cannot expect the RNC to provide all the momentum here. I call upon all conservatives to PAY ATTENTION to local politics. These people will want to move up some day, but you need to be in the game to see if they are deserving of our support based on their principles, not just on their social network. Remember: Not everything that affects you and your family happens in Congress.

In a setback for the movement to decrease the size of government in Virginia, the Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee voted 13-2 to pass by indefinitely Senator Obenshain’s bill to privatize the state’s ABC (liquor, to you out of staters) Stores. The vote is here; it’s rather unfortunate that only two Republicans voted to keep the bill alive, but thanks go out to Senators Cuccinelli and Vogel. The Daily News Record has coverage here. Naturally, Emmett Hanger, who never saw a government program he couldn’t find a tax hike to save, voted against the bill. 

So where do we go from here? Well, Senator Obenshain has pledged to keep the fight going, as well hundreds of Virginia citizens who have rallied around the idea:

A Facebook group Sen. Obenshain created for supporters of privatization efforts currently boasts over four hundred members, and in a recent survey available on www.markobenshain.com and mailed to thousands of voters across the district, seventy percent of respondents favored privatization, with nearly 85% supportive if they were assured that the Commonwealth could reap a considerable profit by the conversion. The numbers ran still higher if voters were assured that the Commonwealth could impose restrictions on the location and advertising of distilled spirit retailers. “The people of the twenty-sixth district understand what some in Richmond just don’t get,” commented Obenshain. “They aren’t ready to give up on this bill, and neither am I.”

Former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele won the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee yesterday afternoon with ninty-one votes on the sixth ballot. It was a harrowing contest, though Steele started out in a good position just a few votes behind incumbent Mike Duncan. Duncan ended up being the first to bow out, as by the third ballot eight of his supporters had peeled off and Steele  and in a surprise most of his support shifted to South Carolina Chair Katon Dawson, thrusting him into the lead with sixty-two votes to Steele’s 60 on the fourth ballot.

Conventional wisdom going into the vote was that former Ohio Secretary of State and social conservative activist Kenneth Blackwell would stand the most to gain from Duncan’s departure; however, by the fourth ballot it was clear the Blackwell was losing support, leading to his departure. Blackwell endorsed Steele on his way out (an important move, given that Steele was viewed with skepticism by conservatives from the beginning), giving Steele 79 votes on the fifth ballot, just short of the six votes needed to win. 

At this point, Michigan GOP Saul Anuzis was still in the game but way behind. Standing with twenty votes, he was in a position to be a kingmaker. Twitter updates indicated that both candidates conferred with Anuzis. In the end, though, Anuzis left the race but endorsed neither candidate. At that point, Dawson had sixty-nine votes, meaning he needed over 3/ths of Anuzis’ supporters to break his way. 

Didn’t happen. Steele picked up twelve votes and carried the day with ninety one votes. 

So we have a chair; now what?

Read more…

So that’s why they took our the birth control money….because they just couldn’t find the words to explain how handing out free condoms would help create 3 million jobs.

I suppose they could have hired people to deliver them door to door……

Following Bill Kristol’s unceremonious removal from the New York Times, there’s been alot of speculation and suggestion about who should replace Kristol as the paper’s leading conservative columnist. Some have suggested someone of the ilk of Rush Limbaugh. However, Jon Henke over at The New Majority points out what’s wrong with this thinking:

We have a small army of showmen, agitators, bomb-throwers, partisans and hacks.  Enough.  It is a measure of the health of the Right that we have gone from Bill Buckley to Bill O’Reilly,  Our goal should be to develop and promote our best public intellectuals, our smartest writers, and our most perceptive analysts.   Like those mentioned above,

Dead on. In these dark days, we need to be putting our best foot forward and building a new breed of intelligent, principled, open-minded conservatives who are able to carry our message not only in the halls of power but in the traditional media. Certainly figures like Ann Coulter have their place in energizing the base and carrying forth certain messages, but do we really expect to ever be taken seriously if our top figures write books with titles like “How to Talk to A Liberal (if you must)”? Isn’t the point to talk to those who THINK they are liberal and show them their misguided ways?

Or are we honestly content to sit back, argue about who’s the most conservative, and reinforce our own messages as our audience dwindles?

Patrick Ruffinni makes an interesting point about the values of primaries over conventions in terms of identifying voters. He does this in the context of next Tuesday’s special election for Fairfax’s Board Chairman. 

I’ll be out of town, so I requested an absentee ballot, which came in the mail yesterday. That same day, I got a hand addressed piece of AB Chase mail from the Fairfax County Democrats, along with one anti-Herrity mailer from the DPV and mail from a third party candidate running on a platform of low taxes.

 

What’s wrong with this picture? Two mail pieces from Democrats, one a hand-addressed AB chase piece. One from an independent low-tax candidate, who for all I know, could be a Republican (we don’t have party listed on our ballots for county offices — causing confusion if you don’t have a sample ballot from your county committee).

Why do I get more Democratic mail than Republican mail? On a couple of occasions, I have availed myself of the opportunity to help select the Democratic nominee when we had no contested primary. But I have also voted in Republican primaries, including the extremely low-turnout VA-8 primary last year.

The bottom line: There is no reason that as a past primary voter who is a supervoter in both primaries and generals should not be getting Republican mail. I also got very little GOTV mail from Republicans in the general election last year — though I did get robocalls from John McCain in the primary.

Read more…

From Too Conservative, we hear that Delegate Joe May has submitted a bill that would allow localities to work with power companies to mine for methane in our landfills. From Delegate May: 

This bill originated because of my participation in the Climate Change Commission. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas and landfills are a large untapped energy source. By making methane mining eligible for public-private partnership methane can be used to produce electricity for local communities. In Maryland several companies have entered into contracts with Baltimore Gas and Electric to supply electricity from methane mined from large landfills. These companies mine methane gas from local landfills, burn it and use the energy produced to supply electricity to local communities. This bill will reduce greenhouse gas, produces energy and has the potential to save the Commonwealth millions of dollars. A win-win for everybody

I don’t agree with some of May’s votes, particularly his actions in 2004. However, he is a very affable guy, and probably one of the brightest in the statehouse, holding more patents than Thomas Jefferson himself. His failed 2005 LG bid was a real shame, but he’s really proving his worth in the house these days.

On the actual policy, what a great idea. Not only would localities benefit from the sale of the gas, helping to offset the amount of aid needed from the state, but it would also cut down on emissions from the landfill and remove a public hazard (no kidding, they actually have to have pipes all around our county landfill to vent the gas in order to avoid explosions).

FCC Member Robert McDowell warns that the Obama administration is getting serious about bringing back the fairness doctrine, which requires equal time for opinions on the airwaves and is almost guaranteed to greatly roll back, if not silence, talk radio:

McDowell warned that if the doctrine were revived, it might not “wear the same label. That’s just Marketing 101: if your brand is controversial, make a new brand,” he told his audience.
He suggested the doctrine could be woven into the fabric of policy initiatives with names like localism, diversity or network neutrality. “According to some, the premise of any of these initiatives is similar to the philosophical underpinnings of the Doctrine: the government must keep electronic conduits of information viewpoint neutral,” he said.
McDowell suggested that a stealth version of the doctrine may already be teed up at the FCC in the form of community advisory boards to help determine local programming. McDowell says he is fine with those boards if they are voluntary–some stations already seek such input. But that if they are required, as the FCC has proposed, “Would not such a policy be akin to re-imposition of the Doctrine, albeit under a different name and sales pitch?”

Perhaps even more frightening is what McDowell is hearing about how the Fairness Doctrine may be extended to other forms of media:

McDowell also said that efforts to reimpose the doctrine could stretch to cable, satellite, and even the Internet. “Certain legal commentators have suggested that a new corollary of the Doctrine should be fashioned for the Internet, on the theory that web surfers should be exposed to topics and views that they have not chosen for themselves,” adding: “I am not making this up.”

H/T Instapundit

From Bearing Drift we have word that the district chairs had a come to jesus meeting with some of our senators in Richmond. However, it seems that they’re only willing to accept half of a deal:

From the meeting, senators promised that they will work to support candidates for statewide office and the House of Delegates, but made no commitment to working with the House Republicans on key legislation.

It’s always upsetting to see elected officials who essentially have to be begged to even lift a finger for their fellow Republicans, but its even more disheartening when they make it clear that, on the issues, they’ll disregard the principles of the people who granted them their nomination in favor of “pragmatism.” 

The oddest thing is that this seems to get worse the lower you get on the totem pole. Just yesterday RPV Chairman Jeff Frederick twittered from the Finance Committee how surprised he was that local government officials were money hungry and dying to increase taxes. To which I asked “How many of these are controlled by Republicans?”

So sad when government officials become so obsessed with the notion of “good government” that they forget who put them there in the first place.