On the Western Banks of the Shenandoah

Homer: “C’mon, where’s your freak bus
Seth: “I drive a Saturn”
Homer: “A Saturn?”
Munchie: “We used to have a bus. In a way, the sixties ended the day we sold it–December 31, 1969.”
–The Simpsons, AABF02, “Doh-in’ in the Wind”

I know, I know, the decade isn’t officially over. We all heard it at the “not quite” end of the last decade, century and millenium. There was no year zero, A.D. versus B.C., blah blah blah. But let’s face it–a year of 365 days (366 every four years, unless it can be divided by one hundred, unless it…..uh….whatever) beginning on Janurary 1st and ending on December 31st is a Western Convention, one subscribed to by many people. Psychologically that one change in the third digit means a great deal to a good number of people. And so we have a year end flurry of best of/worst of/most important, and every ten years that turns into an orgy as the world’s scribes attempt to give the past ten years some sort of definition that society at-large can agree on.

For a little bit there in early December it seemed as if the media was going to let this one slide. Then Time had to wade into the mess and dub the Oughties, Zeros, double os, whatever “The Decade from Hell.” Perhaps this was a foregone conclusion from the minute the clock struck midnight on Janurary 1st, 2000 and nothing happened, minus an accidental nuclear alert in Japan and a few slot machines going down in Delaware. Total buzzkill after all the lead up to the end of the world. And so wordsmiths were left struggling to dub the decade long hangover. So far, our best lingusitic minds have yet to agree on a standard.

Read more…

Folks, everyone here knows that I worked on Victory this year. You all also know that I am an avid collector of historical political items. So what more fitting way to close out the year than with a pictorial review of the items I picked up along the helter skelter trail, from my unemployment to coming on board to the exhillirating convention to a troubled summer to my auto wreck, all the way to a bittersweet victory. Enjoy.

Bolling and Cooch shirt with just a small sampling of the veritable Baskin Robbins that was the McDonnell bumper sticker effort

Close up with some of the locals

More coalition stickers

More locals and coalitions

Even more coalitions stickers

8x10s of the statewide candidates that hung in the Page Co booth, along with a ubiquitous Bobs for Jobs sign

Items from the convention plus the morning after the election

Close up of my credentials, plus a signed folder from Mark Moseley

Invites to inaugural festivities, plus celebratory buttons

More buttons (note that I didn’t have enough for this box, so a few ’05, ’08 and even a Chuck Smith button slipped in)

A few official buttons, some by seconday vendors and committees, and two I had commissioned myself (Maureen for First Lady and Dukes for McDonnell)

And my prized posession: a framed photo of the infamous barn next to 81 in Augusta County, signed by all the local delegates, the statewides, Congressman Goodlatte, and Michael Steele

My New Year’s wish to my former colleagues: my all of you see as much success in your new gigs as we did together as part of the Virginia Victory effort.

And to those I worked with, both staff and volunteers: It was an honor and privellege, and a fitting capstone to my professional political career.

From the Washington Post we hear that Dave Rexrode, formerly Deputy Campaign Manager for Coalitions at McDonnell for Governor and currently running community outreach for the transition team, is headed down Grace Street to take over for currrent Executive Director Allison Coccia.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with Dave quite a bit over the years, beginning with when he ran Senator Obenshain’s first campaign. My fondest memory of that race is jumping into the back of a pickup with Dave just as the skies began to pour down at the end of the New Market Fourth of July. The Fourth has always been somewhat of a specialty of Dave’s, since whoever he’s working for at the time (Be it Mark or Congressman Goodlatte) usually does three or four parades that day, and Dave does them all. But that’s certainly not all he does. Dave’s always struck me with his professionalism and political ingenuity. He did an amazing job with coalitions this year, and he and his staff were always available to help integrate coalition volunteers with the field operation. I can’t think of any better hands for RPV to be in right now.

So congrats, Dave, and know that we’ve got your back out here in the Valley.

OWBS is back (more on that later), but we begin our week with a retrospective of those important people animals we lost this year.

Endal
Beloved service dog to Gulf War veteran Allen Parton
World’s Most Distinguished Service Dog

Sybil
Pet of Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling
Briefly Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office
Removal rumored to have fueled Gordon Brown’s decline in polls

India the Cat
First Cat During Bush Administration
Name said to have fueled poor Indio-American Relations
Working on anti-Ms. Beazley bio at time of death

Gidget the Taco Bell Dog
Most offensive mascot since Frito Bandito
Rumoured to have caused hundreds of unexplained homocides in late 90′s

And last but certainly not least

Socks the Cat
No simple summary will suffice

Requiescant in pace

I hate to disappoint old and new fans alike, but my job hunt (combined with a little burnout) has taken a brave new turn, so I’m going to be light on posting, if at all, over the next week. I cannot reveal any details right now, but expect a change in direction (one that I already projected but have not had much movement on since, well, I’ve had plenty to talk about on the political front but not much else) over the next month. I am happy to report, however, that I’ll be taking some courses in education through Shenandoah University’s lifelong learning department starting in January.

Expect new posts, political or otherwise, starting late next week.

Via the Cato Institute we learn that the Senate’s often provocative fiscal watchdogs, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Senator John McCain of Arizona, have released a new 100 page report detailing some of the sadly goofy uses of stimulus funds. Some of the lowlights of your (and your children’s, and their children’s) tax dollars at play work include:

• “Almost Empty” Mall Awarded Energy Grant ($5 million)
• Water Pipeline to a Money-Losing Golf Course ($2.2 million)
• Grant to Fund Search for Fossils . . . In Argentina ($1.57 million)
• Bobber the Water Safety Dog Costumes ($21,116)
• Developing the Next Generation of Football Gloves ($150,000)

And so much more.

The always hilarious Norm points out that some of the projects lead to this being a “stimulus” in more ways than one:

The National Institute of Health (NIH) is using stimulus funds to pay for a year-long $219,000 study to follow female college students for a year to determine whether young women are more likely to ― “hookup” — the college equivalent of casual sex — after drinking alcohol. Researchers will recruit 500 female students prior to their first year of college and contact them monthly over the course of a year to document sexual hookups, noting when there is alcohol involved. It is part of the $7.4 billion the NIH received in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support ―scientific research.

Maybe with all that TARP money rolling back in U.S. Senator Mark Warner and his Dem cronies can set up yet another package to help me get a date….

One of my dad’s favorite stories about local culture is of a local preacher who was convinced of a number of conspiracy theories. These included a mass plot to round-up all civillians on 1/1/2000 (brought on by arrows painted on the road that turned out to be a bicycle race) and that man never landed on the moon. He also spoke of the Russians having a weather machine that would doom us all. Well, it turns out that he sort of right on that one. From the LA Times:

In the snow-hushed woods on Moscow’s northern edge, scientists are decades deep into research on bending the weather to their will. They’ve been at it since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin paused long enough in the throes of World War II to found an observatory dedicated to tampering with climatic inconveniences.

Since then, they’ve melted away fog, dissipated the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl and called down rains fierce enough to drown unborn locusts threatening the distant northeastern grasslands.

…..

In Russia, nobody rains on the parade — because the Russian government doesn’t allow it.

“Victory Day is the most sacred holiday for us,” says Bagrat Danilian, deputy chief of cloud seeding at the observatory. “When veterans go out to celebrate in Moscow, we create good weather for them.”

All it takes, he says, is sacks of cement — 500-grade, to be precise. Drop the powder down into the clouds, and they vanish.

A fascinating read, particularly for those growing weary of the winter weather that is gripping the Shenandoah Valley

Far away from our own commonwealth, word that an incumbent congresswoman in Kansas will be seeing a primary challenge from the right. From CQ Politics:

A Kansas state senator announced Tuesday that he is considering challenging Republican freshman Rep. Lynn Jenkins in the GOP primary in August 2010.

“When Lynn was elected, there were a lot of Republicans who were suspect of how genuine a conservative she was,” Pyle said in his announcement. “But most of us decided to take a wait-and-see approach. With her record before she was elected to Congress, and just a few votes while in Congress, it is abundantly clear that Lynn is not a conservative.”

What’s interesting about this case is that this not some lone activist mounting a challenge against an “impure” Republican. The candidate is a sitting official, so they already have a platform and an activist base. Additionally, Jenkins has not exactly been a breakaway figure in the House–she stuck with her fellow Republicans on the stimulus and health care. Her biggest sin is the same one former Congressman Jim Ryun brought up when he faced off against Jenkins for the nomination in 2008: Jenkins is pro-choice to the point where she publicly allies herself with fellow pro-choice Republicans.

As it should be pointed out whenever we talk about primaries, all politics is local. Kansas has a long and storied history of fighting within its GOP between moderates and conservatives. Indeed, the state’s current Governor is a Democrat who bolted the GOP to run with now HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Still, this is not the first challenge to a sitting GOPer, nor will it be the last. The brand is in such bad shape that there’s a brewing conservative movement to boot as many moderates and “soft” conservatives as possible in favor of starting over again with principled candidates. Indeed, this has reached our backyard in the visage of a challenge against Frank Wolf (though I suspect this gu will do no better than the last one, who barely cracked 10%). There’s even been word of a challenge to Congressman Goodlatte, who voted against the intitial TARP package last fall. If that’s not a true conservative, than I don’t know what is–though again, Goodlatte’s is a case of local interests meshing with national movements.You can bet your bottom dollar, though, that I’ll do everything in my power to keep Goodlatte in the House.

My guess: pretty much any Republican with less than a 80% lifetime score from the American Conservative Union will see a challenge, though the strength of the candidates will vary widely.

Perhaps one of the most controversial aspects of Barrack Obama’s adminstration so far has been just how many cabinet level and lower level appointees have very shady pasts. A number have had tax trouble–some made it through Congress, some didn’t. What’s far more troubling, though, is how many individuals with radical views were shepherd into government by the administration by making them “czars.”

One such controversial appointment was that of Kevin Jennings as School Safety Czar. Jennings already got in some hot water in September when it was revealed that he had advised an underage student of little more than safety when engaging in sex with an older man. Jennings was in a position to do something legally but did not–as a gay man himself, this is understandable, given that (rightly or wrongly) few teachers act legally on the older boyfriends of straight girls. Jennings gave good, if not misguided, advice in that instance.

Far more disturbing, however, is a conference that his organization GLSEN hosted at Tuft’s University in 2000. This conference went far beyond basic sexual safety and covered a variety of dangerous sexual techniques. I won’t go into detail, but Virginia Virtucon has the scoop. This is very disturbing. I happen to think that sexual safety has its place in modern education, though focus should be placed on abstinence. However, openly sharing sexual techniques with minors is not only ludicrous but in very poor taste.

And that’s not all–the same report that VV cites notes that GLSEN promotes and sells a number of near pornographic titles through its bookstore online. Again, I am all for the youth of America learning about sexuality, but this is not a place that public schools need to be involved. And don’t get me wrong–I think that it is just as inappropriate for libraries to have straight romance novels available for students. The composition of a library should not be to simply get students to read anything but to enlighten their existence. If a book doesn’t do that, it has no place in a public school library.

It would appear, however, that right now the Obama administration feels that “throwing it all out there” is a much better solution to the very real problem of bullying. Instead of teaching students to accept each others lifestyles, despite any personal misgivings, they’d rather it all be on the table to create further confusion and fear.

I find the tea parties that sprung up around the country last spring an absolutely fascinating exercise in political involvement. Though the media and left-wingers are quick to denounce it as “astroturf,” but the fact of the matter is that, regardless of who came up with the term and who puts what events together, run-of-the-mill activists across the country have made it into something much bigger than anyone could imagine. Right now, many groups are getting involved in congressional primaries to turn out a candidate close to their values. Indeed, in our own backyard tea partiers are promising to have a series of debates in Virginia’s Fifth District.

“Our intent is to make the process fair and accessible to all viable candidates and give them the opportunity to prove themselves to the citizens of the 5th District,” Lynchburg TEA Party leader Mark Lloyd said in the release.

Lloyd noted that many TEA party members are independent from the GOP. “…Nevertheless, as Americans we intend to make our voices heard and we intend to be part of the political process.”

Lloyd points out correctly that the are a number of independent conservatives in the effort–however, in speaking to some of these people I find that many are former Republicans who just couldn’t tolerate the party’s full fledged support for certain types of candidates. However, these people appear to have still come out in droves for Bob McDonnell this past year. Therefore, they are drawn to the Tea Parties first as a way to get involved then jettison again if they get burned. The label is so potent that Rasmussen did a poll that discovered that an actual Tea Party would beat the Republican Party in a congressional match-up:

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.
Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.
Among Republican voters, 39% say they’d vote for the GOP candidate, but 33% favor the Tea Party option.

Obviously, dissatisfaction with the Republican label remains so high that nearly a third of people who call themselves Republicans would consider a third-party. No wonder state Republican parties, such as Colorado and Virginia’s, have taken great care to listen to the tea party movement and co-opt its focus on individual liberty and fiscal issues.

I still maintain that the Tea Party is more of a re-branding and re-ignition of a staid conservative movement that became unprincipled early in the decade. The Republican Party can defuse the threat of conservative independents bolting or staying home by a) keeping leaders like Sarah Palin from seeing hope in a third party and b) by not only promising but delivering on issues key to the identity of tea party activists.

As Norm pointed out over at TQ:

It may indicate that Republicans, if they hope to be successful in 2010, would be wise to pay attention to the activists back home who are protesting, organizing, forming PACs, lobbying for legislation and more under any number of tea party banners.

Or they could ignore it. In which case, they had best hope they packed along an extra pair of socks…because it gets mighty cold and damp in the political wilderness.