In a recent interview at his transition office, Mr. McDonnell – who crushed his opponent Creigh Deeds by a 59 percent to 41 percent majority, attracting sought-after independents by a 2 to 1 margin – said that while he emphasized bread-and-butter issues like jobs, transportation and taxes during the campaign, he hasn’t forgotten social issues that are near and dear to the Republican base: “I am a social and economic conservative and have made no bones about it. I have an 18-year record as attorney general and as a legislator of not only supporting, but leading on a lot of those issues … but what I understood people were most concerned about … were quality-of-life and pocketbook issues: jobs, economic development, taxes and federal intrusion into the free-enterprise system.”

…..

Message: If you have a good platform that can improve the economy and promote job creation, independents will give you a pass on your social agenda. That is a reversal of traditional Republican thinking of putting social issues front and center. “I try to [attract Independents] by reaching out and embracing people, not having a covenant of limitations that excludes people.”

Certainly Mr. McDonnell has set up a winning playbook for Republicans to use to their full advantage in 2009, and his team deserves the plaudits it has won over the past few weeks, including at the recent RGA conference. But the time is drawing down for that: now is the time for governance, a task that Mr. McDonnell is fully up to. I have no doubt in my mind that he’ll lead by his guiding conservative principles–indeed, he’s doing his homework as we speak–but let’s give them some time to go into effect before we start throwing the man into the national spotlight as a “contender”, alright? He’s got a Commonwealth to run, and the last guy made a pretty big mess of things…..

My thoughts below the fold

–Bob Goodlatte gave the invocation. The event has been held in Bath County, part of his district, in three of the last five years. He got a fairly warm reception, but he continues to be on the most underrated members of our delegation (And why not, when the Minority Whip is from the Commonwealth), so its nice to see him get some limelight. Goodlatte is likely a shoe-in to chair Judiciary if we take back the House in 2010.

–NOVA is back in a big big way. Incoming Delegate Jim LeMunyon gave the pledge of allegiance, and most of the individual plaudits that went out where to NOVA people–indeed, Glen Caroline, LCRC Chair, won Chairman of the Year, and Fairfax won best unit. Even though Bob McDonnell thanked many, MANY people, NOVA was first up for recognition. There won’t be a big statewide fight until 2012–and even that may be preempted if Allen jumps in for a rematch against Webb–so it’s too early to tell just what NOVA’s strength is, but I suspect there will be at least one Northern Virginia leader on the statewide ticket in 2013.

–Also back in a big way–RPV itself. Mullins himself noted RPV’s turnaround, Tim Murtaugh’s efforts on behalf of the campaign were highlighted, and Northern Virginia field rep (and I mean that in a broad way–his territory stretches all the way to Shenandoah County) Frank Puelo, one of the hardest working men in Virginia politics, was personally singled out by Bob McDonnell. The Advance itself took in over $160k–and Pat Mullins was sure to note that when he rode into town RPV was barely able to pay the bills.

–Highlighted during the lunch–the infamous Dirty Deeds video, which was taken down from YouTube (presumably over copyright issues). Though it was only up for a short time, the video and the meme went a long way in framing Deeds as a desperate candidate sticking to divisive issues and devoid of positive ideas for Virginia.

–Ken Cuccinelli got a warm welcome–particularly from Augusta County, who he singled out. Though Augusta County’s grassroots activists are still split over local intraparty squabbles, the unit continues to be a powerhouse and was a key reason that the 6th went big for Ken Cuccinelli at the 2009 Convention despite it ostensibly being John Brownlee’s stomping grounds. Ken’s speech was mostly a thank you, and he yielded the spotlight in favor of a private session later in the day with activists discussing the reasons for our big wins this year.

–Bill Bolling spoke next and got an equally warm welcome. It’s too early to start any speculation on early jockeying for 2013, but one thing is clear: Bill Bolling is NOT going to let anyone forget that he made an amazing sacrifice by sparing the party a fight by not running in 2009.

–One critique for Bolling–be careful quoting “The Candidate.” It is a beautiful film about politics, but not beautiful in the way that Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is. Rather, it takes a scathing satirical look at the devolution of politics into soundbites, spin, and personality–years before the advent of the 24 hour news cycle and bloggers. It’s a cautionary tale for idealistic people running for office–and maybe not the sort of film we want to reference right now.

–The final speech was from the big guy: Governor-elect Bob McDonnell. McDonnell’s speech was again long on thank yous, but he also spent some time analyzing the reasons behind the team’s victory. He unveiled a new code word for the principles that he ran on: results oriented conservatism, or ROC. Will this catch on as a big new catchphrase? Doubtful, but McDonnell laid out perhaps the most eloquent explanation of his view of conservatism and how we can win again in 2010.”Conservatives can win elections in competitive states if they stay true to their principles while addressing the concerns that everyday….voters care about,” McDonnell said.

–McDonnell made clear, to this crowd, that he was going to be a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-family, pro-property rights governor–but he noted that while we should never forget these principles, we should also never forget that citizens need results

–McDonnell also provided a bit of the bold policy agenda he will pusure as governor by highlighting what he hopes people will remember when he leaves office in 2014. Consider this his pre-inaugural address:

• Balanced budgets that respect taxpayers and prioritize economic development
• Education reform via charter schools
• True privatization, consolidation, and reform
• A transportation plan that gets things done
• Privatized liquor stores and open rest stops

–McDonnell reached out for people to help. Might we see those massive email lists switch over to the Opportunity Virginia PAC to serve as an Organizing for America-esque pressure group?

Ok, enough of my insane ramblings. On to my very real thoughts about the coming weekend. First, some background on the event. It was started by former Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Donald S. Huffman, who served from 1983 to 1992. The event is an annual gathering of Republican activists to both discuss the past election’s results (there’s one every year in Virginia) as well as to prepare for the coming year. One would think this of this as a retreat, right? Well, Huffman and the original organizers were of the mind that the GOP should never retreat but always “advance.”

Quaint, yes, but the event has become an annual affair where people are always on the lookout for who is jockeying for position. The hospitality suites themselves have become the stuff of news, as who hosts them (and their respective crowds) is seen as a marker of who’s up and who’s down. Also noticed are the various speeches which have a tendency to set the tone for policy debates about to occur in the coming General Assembling session.

SWAC Girl has her thoughts up, pointing out that homeschool activist Mike Farris will be speaking at the breakfast on Saturday and that the luncheon on Saturday will play host to Governor-elect Bob McDonnell’s first public speech since his election November 3rd. She is one voice I’ll rely on for coverage, along hopefully with Krystle Weeks of Crystal Clear Conservative.

The Advance has come under fire in recent years for being an exclusive event long on glitz and short on training. Indeed, three of the last five have been at the posh Homestead Resort in Bath County–quite a drive for Northern Virginians and out of the pocketbook of many activists. Much of this rests is due to the constant merry-go-round of chairmen that has beleaguered the party since the early part of the decade. Indeed, current congressman Randy Forbes is the last party chair to serve his four year entire term, and that was back in 2000. Although this year’s Advance still comes with a steep price tag, the event seems to be long on education.

There’s going to be five, count ‘em, FIVE seperate discussions of New Media. The names are not just any random bloggers, either. They include Lynn Mitchell, who has probably one of the most influential blogs in the region, with her words having both digital and real world impact; the minds behind ProjectVirginia, whose guidance helped a number of small races across the state make great use of social networking; Tim Murtaugh, RPV’s communications director who brought us often hilarious and always stinging videos about Creigh Deed’s ghost-like campaign; and Vince Harris, the mind behind McDonnell’s stellar efforts this year and the extremely popular blog Too Conservative.

There will also be two round tables discussing the results, one with AG-elect Ken Cuccinelli and another with Speaker Howell. Perhaps most importantly, there will also be workshops on three items that should be the cornerstones of any Unit Chairman’s knowledge: legal, data collection and storage, and fund raising. The legal workshop is particularly notable for some of the luminaries it will feature, including Chris Berg, who was my liaison with the legal department during the closing days of the campaign and who has an amazing amount of knowledge regarding the “death by a thousand cuts” approach of the Unions and Democrats. Also on tap: Cameron Quinn, a former Chair of the State Board of Elections.

Also notable: the hospitality suites. As expected, three candidates for Congress in the Second district will host receptions. This is natural, given that the event is right next door to the district and will likely draw a larger proportion of its crowd from the region. The only thing curious about this is who ISN’T hosting a suite: Chuck Smith, who has been gunning hard for the seat since late 2008, to the point where he was shaking almost every hand at the RPV State Convention (and actually had to be asked to leave the lunch pick-up area to keep the crowd moving).

More curious: Feda Kidd Morton is hosting a suite the day before the Fifth District Committee selects its nominating method. Certainly, Morton is picking up a great deal of statewide support, but why put all that money and time into an event not even in the district? Certainly this race is going to become the focus of a great deal of statewide attention, but endorsements from Pat McSweeney and Kathy Hayden Terry only get you so far. It’s going to be up to the activists to decide this one, particularly if it ends up being a convention.

Her presence may very well be due to McSweeney himself. McSweeney is speaking on fighting ObamaCare at the Virginia State PAC suite at 9 P.M. on Friday. I did a little bit of research and discovered that the Virginia State PAC was created out of the leftover funds of former Delegate Richard Black’s campaign committee, who lost to now Former Delegate David Poisson in 2005. Black may be best noted for being an incredibly outspoken opponent of abortion, going so far as to once handing out plastic fetuses to colleauges. So far the Virginia State PAC has no receipts outside of the leftovers of Black’s PAC, and so far the only donations it has made has been to Ken Cuccinelli and Bob Marshall, certainly two candidates that meet McSweeney and Black’s criteria. Could this be a sign of new organizing efforts on the social conservative front (along with the ostensibly non-political Restoring the Founder’s Vision group, also headed by McSweeney)?

Intrigue abounds this holiday season.

Nearly three weeks after Election Day, the recount in the race for Nassau County executive is expected to conclude on Monday. Edward P. Mangano, the Republican challenger, has a slight lead over the Democratic incumbent, Thomas R. Suozzi.

Although Mr. Suozzi held a 237-vote lead on election night, out of about 245,000 ballots cast, he has trailed Mr. Mangano since the recount began on Nov. 9. As of Wednesday, with all but a handful of the ballots counted, Mr. Suozzi trailed by 217 votes. Tallying was halted for Thanksgiving and will resume on Monday morning. But the results may not be conclusive.

Although the race certainly didn’t draw a great deal of national attention, the outcome is one to pay attention to as Republicans consider how they will win back the suburban voters they won in the 80′s and 90′s but dawdled away in the earlier part of this decade. As I mentioned earlier, Nassau is one of the ten richest counties in the country, putting it in that same lofty territory as Loudon, Prince William and Fairfax counties here in our own commonwealth. For the Virginia-centric, it is also analgous to Prince William to Fairfax. Just as with Prince William, Nassau was reliably red until the dawn of the tech age*. Nassau has seen its Republican State Senators erode, and county council control shifted to the Democrats. It went for Barrack Obama with 53%, lower than Prince William’s 57% for Obama but still a solid win.

Yet, this year, like Prince William, Nassau County has gone for a candidate (though by smaller margins) that ran on core Republican principles of cutting government waste, fixing tax problems, and generally efficient government. The same can be said for all of the aforementioned exurban counties, along with the urban county of Fairfax. If Republicans want to win in 2010 and 2012, there’s something to be said for the results in Nassau County and Virginia.

*Nassau went for Clinton in 1992 but just by a slim plurality. 1996 was the first year it went solidly for a Democrat, a trend it has continued since.

The underlying problem for Deeds may have had little to do with strategy and tactics, however; at times the Deeds campaign appeared incompetent. Groups reported great frustration in trying to set up meetings and forums with Deeds. The candidate himself proved inept when working crowds. The Democrats dispatched mediocre surrogates to events where Deeds’ presence was required. Appointments that should have been scheduled in a day or two took several days or more.

The McDonnell effort never faltered. The candidate and his team stayed on message. If someone were to ask aides who would win the Notre Dame game, the snap answer would say, “Bob’s for jobs.” “Honey, what’s for breakfast?” “Bob’s for jobs.” And so on. McDonnell arrived early at breakfasts, lunches, and dinners — and lingered. He did not rehash old stories about setting out for college with $80 in his pocket but would address issues of immediate concern to his audience. He explained the state implications of Obama’s far-out agenda. His staff promptly returned calls and e-mails.

There’s also some commentary on the brilliant handling of the thesis issue, and notes that while Obama may have had some effect, ultimately campaigns matter.

Meanwhile, McDonnell’s ticket mate Ken Cuccinelli is getting to work. Also from the RTD:

Ken Cuccinelli sits at the head of an empty table in a large conference room at the Virginia attorney general’s office in Richmond — a fast-food cheeseburger in one hand and an open binder, thick with office briefings and organizational charts, in front of the other.
He intends to devour both.
As the attorney general-elect, Cuccinelli — a 41-year-old lawyer, fa ther of seven and Republican state senator from Fairfax County — inherits a statewide office formerly occupied by Bob McDonnell, who leveraged the high-profile post into a successful run for governor this fall.
“The first priority really is to get a team in place here that can continue, and we’re always seeking to improve the professional quality of the work done in the AG’s office,” Cuccinelli said.

The article also features praise from, of all people, Ken Willis, state director of the ACLU. It also features some of Ken’s trademark good humor and humility:

McDonnell, who turned the office over to Bill Mims in February to run for governor, said Cuccinelli has good people to work with in his old office.
Said Cuccinelli: “He emphatically told me I was getting a good office, by which he meant very knowledgeable and professional, very capable, doing a good job, even while struggling with the budget.
“He finished with: ‘Don’t screw it up,’” Cuccinelli added. “So I’ll try not to screw it up.”

Finally, via Bearing Drift, comes a remarkable video showing some of the hard work and dedication of people behind the scenes. It also features some heartwarming scenes of the Governor-elect himself being, well, a real person and the good natured, dedicated man that so many of us on the Victory staff were extremely proud to work for.

“The focus should be on bread-and-butter, kitchen-table, quality-of-life issues,” said Robert F. McDonnell, the Republican who was this month elected governor of Virginia, a seat that had been held by a Democrat, and whose victory is being held up as a formula for Republican reconstruction. “I think that really helped us. We ended up with a two-to-one margin with independent voters because of our focus on the economic problems.”

And tactics:

“Looking at President Obama’s campaign last year, he did a phenomenal job using social media, Twitter, text messaging, any number of other things in order to reach people,” McDonnell said.
More than 30,000 supporters signed on as Facebook friends, and McDonnell aides said they worked to he site fresh and responsive to issues.

The campaign also spent 7.5% of its overall media budget on online advertising – a far higher portion than most political campaigns these days.

That included banner ads on Google, ads overlaying YouTube videos, and even a new tactic of targeting voters throughout the day with ads appearing on their screens at work in Washington, D.C., then later that night on their home computers in the suburbs.

“We bought banner ads on virtually every major site with a demographic that we were trying to reach with the independent voters,” McDonnell said. “You couldn’t go to those sites without having a popup with my name on it.”

A less visible piece of the online strategy came in the behind-the-scenes cultivation of conservative blogs, aides said.

A number of conservative blogs have focused on LL Cool J’s classic line “Don’t call it comeback,” but given this advice to the guvs:

“They are going to face Deeds’s problems, where they really have two options going into their re-election: Do they stand with Reid and Pelosi on issues like national health care and appease their base or do they stand with taxpayers in their states unhappy with this plan,” he said.

I think we should be focusing on the title of the song instead. The Govs races are going to take on a much different hue from the congressional races (with the possible exception of California, where conservatives are rallying around Steve Poizner over the media darling ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman), and the RGA is locked and loaded for action.

The team will be stopping at Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport just a little bit before noon. Make sure to be in the Airport Lobby by 11:45 A.M. so that we call all gather to greet our winning team. To RSVP either click here or email me at corndorff@rpv.org. If you are interested in covering this event for a media outlet, please let me know.

Bob McDonnell is up on the air across the state, from Roanoke to Norfolk and from Charlottesville to the tri-cities. 

Meanwhile, I’m spending this week getting to know my territory and my unit chairs and settling in to my new digs in Harrisonburg. We’ll have more information on the HQ soon, so be sure to check back soon. 

Bob McDonnell stopped by Winchester’s 82nd edition of its Annual Apple Blossom Festival, one of the Commonwealth’s oldest and largest civic festivals. Over a quarter of a million people flock to the city of 30,000 each year for a wide variety of food, tons of events throughout the weekend, and a grand feature parade with over 150 units that is second to none. The festival originated as a celebration of the arrival of blossoms on the thousands of trees that used to cover the area. Although the orchard industry isn’t what it used to be, the city remains proud of what remains its primary agricultural export. 

Although Bob was not part of the parade as he no longer holds office, he couldn’t miss a chance to be part of the festivities. This was not his first stop of the day, however, and would not be his last–he left around 3:30, with a fundraiser in Richmond and plans to campaign at the race in Richmond. 

I would say that Bob is bar none the hardest working man in this race (Terry McAuliffe may come close, but he seems to work hardest when he’s outside of Virginia). When it comes to spreading his message of prosperity and free enterprise to the people he’s actually running to serve, nobody can outwork Bob McDonnell, who’s already working 18 hours a day. 

UPDATE: Krystle has a report from where Bob was earlier yesterday: Delegate Tim Hugo’s kick-off. Goes to show you that Bob is working for Republican victory across the board. He even walked part of the Apple Blossom route with Ann Burkholder, candidate for Commissioner of Revenue in the city. 

Last week also saw the release the financial reports from all four campaigns for Governor. VPAP has posted (as always) some really great maps and charts for all the candidates. Bearing Drift has made some interesting notes abot just where the money is coming from: 

Looking at the top donors by zip code, Brian Moran’s top ten are all Virginia, while Creigh Deeds is all Virginia but Washington DC in 7th and Bob McDonnell has DC first but all Virginia for the rest of the top ten.

Terry McAuliffe, on the other hand, has only FOUR Virginia zip codes not just in his top ten (three of which are McLean) but these same four are the ONLY four in his top TWENTY FIVE localities.

….

Long term, Bob McDonnell is not asleep at the wheel and certainly not content to just let the Democrats beat each other up while developing their own statewide operations.  His fundraising from throughout the state shows the statewide support and operations he’s pulling and should enable him to set up early and campaign well, even in Northern Virginia.

Something that Bearing Drift did not point is that while 14 of Bob McDonnell’s top 25 zip codes for donors are outside of northern Virginia, just 7 of Brian Moran’s are (no need to even discuss McAuliffe here–most of his aren’t even in Virginia–and Deeds was always going to be the candidate of rural Virginia). McDonnell is showing that he has a strong base all across Virginia, from Shenandoah to the Eastern Shore. It’s a long way to November–but right now, McDonnell has the momentum, and RPV would be foolish to squander it on internecine battles between now and then.