MASON CONSERVATIVE

Good News In VA Congressional Elections

According to Riley at VV; Scott Rigell, Robert Hurt, and Keith Fimian are all up; and Morgan Griffith is screaming up feild behind Rick Boucher.

I'll comment on the Fimian numbers because that's the race I'm most familiar with.  This poll has Keith up 42% to Connolly's 37%, while close to 21% are undecided.  This has to be nothing but bad news for Connolly.  The man has been running and winning elections for 20 years within this district and if there are still 21% undecided that means he's lost a lot of voters and its just up to Fimian to close the show in the next month.  There is speculation in the comments section that Fimian has gotten to 50% in his own polling, but I have no idea if its true.  Connolly has comimssioned an internal poll and hasn't released it.  It tells me, given the circumstances of this election, that what they got back wasn't good.  I know not everyone releases internal polling for various reasons but you would think Connolly would want to prove he is surviving the GOP wave and has momentum.  Its telling that his every move hints that he knows he's down. 

My only pause is, as Greg notes, Connolly's money.  I just gave some, I hope you all will as well to get Fimian across the finish line.  There are a ton of undecided voters and Fimian needs help to get all of them and it will take money to do it.

"Freedom Is Fabulous"

This is great! 

So I guess Judy Garland is the new Judy Garland?  I'm seriously not trying to be a smart-ass, this is really a good thing if you ask me.  Conservatism can work for everyone and while clealry there will be problems with many social conservatives, its clear the conservative economic message resonates with everyone.

40 People Show Up To Horinko "Event"

Ugh. 

And half of them were either elected Republicans or professionals.  I hope Marianne can put together a real chairman's campaign and I hope Republicans in Fairfax FINALLY get serious about this race.  Is she a candidate who is going to really REALLY run for this post, or is she just a candidate who can spend a ton of money and is being used to keep Sharon Bulova busy?  

I hope there is some real outreach to the grassroots and tea party folks out there who are starving for new leadership at every level of government committed to small government.  And if there is ANY entity in Virginia that needs a message of fiscal restraint and limited government, its Fairfax County.  I'm just the same old usual suspects from the Davis/Herrity campaigns will be running this show and we'll have another consultant-driven campaign based on too much polling, ignoring the grassroots, and thinking that having money is everything. 

But I want to hear what Marianne Horinko really believes in, not canned political cant that she might get fed by the professional Republicans around her.  Get real, be honest, and don't be afraid to be your own candidate. 

DeMint's Quest

He's looking for a combination of Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill.

Sadly, not one single candidate so far talked about on the GOP side matches this descrpition, or even comes close.  Well, exceopt for the junior senator form South Carolina himself.  He's unquestionably right about his claim that the party will be dead if it once again falls from its conservative principles.  We are getting a rare second chance, thanks to the gigantic overreach of Barack Obama, to prove to the country we are what we say we are.  We aren't Charlie Crist or Arlen Specter or Lisa Murkowski . . . we are Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey, and Joe Miller.  We are a diverse group that are coming together if we are allowed too.  Look at the GOP's slate of candidates up and down the ballot, never has it been more diverse.   

Latest Addition To The Rumor Mill

 . . . hearing that Chap Petersen will be running for attorney general in 2013, and not govenror.

Will Republicans in Fairfax be serious and try and find a real candidate to run against him for the state senate?

"The Constitution's AG"

The American Spectator shows its love for Ken Cuccinelli.  The biggest little nuggett that I liked was this:

If Cuccinelli is the GOP nominee for governor in 2013, and if he gets the same enthusiastic support from a popular McDonnell that candidate Tim Kaine got from the popular Gov. Mark Warner in 2005, he might very well win. And swing states, which Virginia has become, are prime places to choose nominees for president or vice president. At a minimum, Cuccinelli is a leading candidate to challenge Sens. Warner or Jim Webb.

I just don't think, again, that the things Ken wants to accomplish in politics can be done as a governor, as someone who loves the making of the sausage that is exectuvie politics.  Ken isn't the kind of politician that is a leader of coalitiom building and better practical government.  His beliefs and conservative principles are what he wanst to build law and government around, and being governor of Virignia robs him of the tools he has to do that.  The position isn't that powerfull all things considered, and for the issues and fights that Cuccinelli picks being AG and, possibly, a senator cannot be accomplished as governor.

If Ken Cuccinelli were to decided to run for the US Senate, it would send earthquakes across the GOP in Virginai and, I think, he would sail to the nomination.  I've talked up others, notably Corey Stewart, but if Ken runs that changes everything.  It would become a national races for conservatives across the country and I don't think Jim Webb would know what hit him.

Another Vanity Campaign By GOP Moderates

First we had Charlie Crist, hero of moderates across the party, leave the party to try and defeat it.  Then Mike Castle refuses to endorse Christine O'Donnell.  And now its Lisa Murkowski, defeated Senate legacy, who appears to be mounting a write-in challenge against Joe Miller and Scott McAdamns. 

Here we go again.  So-called "moderates" take their medicine at the polls because they voted against the wishes of their constitutents, and then blame "out-side infleunce" when their own party says "thank you, no" to another term for these jelly-backed go-along-get-along Republicans.  So for all the ink, passion, and paragraphs wasted on proclaiming Christine O'Donnell a joke, a sure loser, and hurtful to the party; I want to know if you are all going to be as passionate about this.  Joe Miller won fair and square.  Who's really trying to hurt the party and prevent us from winning the Senate?

Meanwhile, for a little class I suggest some of my friends straddling the partisan fence should look at this video of New Hampshire conservative Ovide Lamontagne as he forcefully endorses Kelly Ayotte and see, as RedState put it, how its done.

Surest Sign Yet Keith Fimian Will Win

Brian outlines the story that Preisdent Obama came to Fairfax County for a backyard grin-n-grip with Gerry Connolly.  While the Post story Brian links too makes it seem all fun and happy, like everything with Obama it looks good on the outside but really is just completly fake.  From my intel, of about the 30 or so people there it included most of the Democrats on the BOS and other activists and high-level donors who, chances are, tend think Obama is still the messiah.  Not exactly changing minds.

But the larger point remains that for Gerry Conolly to have Barack Obama in his district, he has to hid in a private residence's back porch.  Pretty sad.  I think perhaps over this year I've overestimated Rep. Connolly's true strength in this district, and really he's going down in flames.  Friends of mine, though conservatives, who I trust are telling me they really think Fimian is going to win this.  You would think if this district really was a Democratic stronghold Connolly would be having a four-thousand man rally at the Patriot Center or something like that.  Nope, instead Connolly is hiding out.  In fact, he's been hiding this entire campaign thus far.  Have you seen any tv ads?  Radio ads?  His campaign signs no longer say "Democrat" on it.  Its September 16th, for god's sake. 

Connolly has been oddly undisciplined this entire race, lurching from being agaisnt Obama to for him over and over.  He seems to know something bad is coming and completely helpless to stop it.  This Keith Fimian is not the one from two years ago, the novice who eveyrone knew would lose but was giving it the old college try.  Instead we have a focused and disciplined Fimian, hardened by an impressive primary victory that did a ton of good for him, who is relentlessly hitting Connolly every day just as aggressivley as Connolly hit him two years ago.  I don't know, maybe Connolly still wins but this race is the exact opposite of where it was two years ago.

Yep.  While the Post and Connolly spin this event as something nice where the president decends from his throne to spend time with some of the regular folks . . . you know, top Democratic donors and local officeholders.  But this is a man who accepted the Democratic nomination in a football stadium.  Somehow slumming it in Providence seems, I don't know, a real sign of weakness.  Maybe?

McDonnell For President? A Case For Thinking About It

There is a curse to being Virginia governor.  You get one term and that's it.  And in that one term, your first budget is largely outlined by your predecessor.  Its hard to make a lasting impact on the office unless you find a signature issue.  George Allen had truth in sentencing, Jim Gilmore had the car tax, Mark Warner had the transportation tax increase, Tim Kaine had free Pre-K, and McDonnell now has ABC privatization.  This is will be key issue now for his legacy as governor, his chance to leave a lasting impact on state government and finally make a mark on transportation.  This is more important than budget surpluses.  If McDonnell can pull this off, it'll define his governorship and basically fulfill most of his campaign promises.  And honestly, I suspect he will get his way.  McDonnell is very popular, and business groups across Virginia are lining up behind this.  His sway is deep enough among the General Assembly to push this thing through, and I think the pressure on Senate Democrats - especially in Northern Virginia - to finally accept a form of transportation funding not attached to tax increases.

But what then?  I've heard chatter that McDonnell would be a great VP candidate but then I look at all the other candidates talked about right now and wonder what makes them better than McDonnell?  He could run for the US Senate against Jim Webb, and if he did he would destroy him.  He could wait and challenge Mark Warner, who has impressed exactly nobody in his time in the upper chamber.  But McDonnell seems to want to be a leader, a table-setter so to speak.  As Warner is finding out, being a senator isn't all its cracked up to be for some.  By 2012, McDonnell will have completed 3/4 of his term but, should the ABC issue go his way, more than likely he will have done all he's wanted to do.  Right now he's an in-demand Republican . . . fund-raising for Rick Perry and Susanna Martinez and Carly Fiorina among others.  In this era of tea party vs the establishment, McDonnell is one of the very few Republican politicians who seems to be able to swim from one side of the pool to the other in this party.  And there might be the key to his popularity and potential as a national candidate.  I both word and deed, McDonnell has always been and always will be a conservative.  He'll never be someone like Ken Cuccinelli, but that's not his style.

Virginia is a perfect state breed a president and a Republican nominee.  Its diverse both socially and geographically, its big, and requires a serious candidate to win.  Rural, suburban, and urban; Virginia's problems are a microcosm of the country  - infrastructure issues, taxes, bringing in jobs and business.  McDonnell if in this year can successfully navigate these waters, he could have as impressive a record in only two years as anyone else.  He is everyone's friend right now, and I can see Republicans dying not to have a huge nomination battle and looking desperately for a candidate who can bridge the gap and remain both conservative and electable. 

Thoughts?

Toll Road Virginia?

I understand the need for some toll roads, for instance 267 from Dulles to DC . . . or in the case of private roads like the Dulles Greenway.  But this article from InsideNOVA that my finance sent me is a frightening look into a future where every single major Virginia highway will be a toll road, a burden that would hurt Virginians every day as people need those roads to get around the area on a daily basis.  Roads like 66 are used in regular traffic, not as some special shortcut.  Tolling these roads would be an absolute overreach that would stretch people's wallets.  We have the money for roads, the problem is that it gets lost in the bureaucracy.  Its stories like this that make me support Gov. McDonnell's plan to privatize the ABC stores to give transportation a sustained revenue strain. 

Its also nice to see Corey Stewart once again standing up for the taxpayers in Prince William by vowing to fight this plan tooth and nail.