Is that a fun title or what? I wanted to hit some points tonight because I'm getting ready for a busy end of the week and then I'm going to Las Vegas on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for work. So here we go.
-Iowa was interesting and I am DONE predicting anything, for all I know Dick Cheney could end up being the nominee, its impossible to figure this out so I'm going to stop and just roll with, and vote for Ron Paul in the Virginia primary. Its clear that the majority of the party just does not want to support Romney (me included), but there is no unifier. None of these non-Romney candidates are compelling enough to have Republicans flocking to them, or they would have already. This 25% is a ceiling for Romney, but also the conservative alternative trying to supplant him. Its just an ugly, tense standstill right now. Santorum may do it, we'll see. But this is a problem, because Romney needs to deal with this anit-Romney fervor and be given an opportunity to deal with it. I think without a resounding victory over someone whom conservatives have coalesced around, he will struggle. If he just squeaks by at 25% percent in every primary, he will be incredibly weak heading into the general election because he will never have had that moment of reckoning withe large swaths of folks in the party that just do not want to support him. There has to be a moment where the two forces clash and one wins. If we go the entire primary avoiding that clash, tension will remain for the the entire election and Romney will be chasing conservatives while trying to chase Barack Obama. The party needs this, and Mitt Romney needs this. He will be accepted when he wins, its what John McCain did. He beat everyone and did it convincingly and the conservatives (with the help of Sarah Palin) got behind him. If Romney plans to win this just by inching by 25% clip, it will be bad news. The best way to describe what I'm trying to say here is this: its like a married couple who are pissed at each other but refuse to fight and just live in a tense calm. Sometimes you just need to shout at each for ten minutes to get past it. Romney and his conservative detractors need to get it out of all of our systems and shout at each other for a little while and when the dust settles, we will be in it together to win it.
-Bob Marshall is hopefully running for the Senate. Its the old Republican saying, "a choice, not an echo." George Allen is a fine guy who has had a great career as a leader in Virginia but I continue to believe that he is too damaged to defeat Tim Kaine. If Marshall can get the signatures he needs, this will be good for everyone. A primary, in my opinion, is exactly what Allen needs. He needs to be pushed and be forced to deal with his problems while still in the friendly confines of a intra-party primary rather than getting whacked over and over by Tim Kaine. This slow roll to the nomination, gobbling every professional Republican in the state, is setting Allen up with a false sense of security, and you can see it with how so many Republicans have ignored Tim Kaine's abilities and are just assuming a win here. Allen needs to work for this, he needs to be pushed, and if he is as good as he used to be he will win. But I think Bob Marshall presents serious problems to Allen . . . he is everything Allen isn't. Its a stark contrast . . . Marshall should do well in Northern Virginia and among the arch conservatives in the Shenandoah Valley, two sections of the state that will show up in a primary. I'm anxious to see Marshall get in this and finally give us an actual choice instead of just being forced to accept and do as we are told.
-John Cook is to be applauded. He is having a public forum to discuss the hiring for a new county executive looking for public input. From what I understand, the mood on the general board was to do this behind closed doors and without input from the general populous. I'm not entirely surprised, given the folks both Republican and Democrat, that we have on the board. I felt during the election that in some ways getting Cook reelected would mean that the BOS was really going to be 9-1, not -7-3. Cook is not party of the "in" crowd among the political class in the county and its nice to see someone on the Board of Supervisors wants to let residents and taxpayers to have a say in who will be running the day-to-day operations of their government. (Note: I changed some of this because I cannot prove that every other member wanted to get this behind closed doors. I over-spoke and am now just saying it was the mood of the majority of the board)
-If anyone here is roughly around my age (30) and you grew up playing arcade/video games, I highly suggest you check a really fun book called Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America by Jeff Ryan. My sister-in-law, 18 years old and a bit of a gamer herself, thought it would be a fun book, especially after I downloaded a bunch of NES games on the Wii and showed them to her. Its a fun look through the history of Nintendo that helped me relive a lot of fun stuff from my childhood. Its kind of geeky, but in a very good way. Highly recommended if your looking for a quick read that will be a change of pace.
Again, Chris you are an idiot. There is a very good reason why SEIU endorsed John Cook this past cycle and its not because of his pro-union policies. There was a quid pro quo for that endorsement and John is going to have pay that price now.
Ask anyone involved in the union why they endorsed John. Cook is a mediocre supervisor who sold his vote on the county executive to SEIU.
Posted by: Yes We can | January 05, 2012 at 03:32 PM
What Herrity staffer wrote that?
Posted by: Chris | January 05, 2012 at 05:35 PM
It makes sense and is true. So stop denying it and just accept the fact that your favorite politician is a fraud.
Posted by: Yes We can | January 05, 2012 at 08:03 PM
Not sure why you think a Herrity staffer wrote it.
Posted by: Stephen Spiker | January 06, 2012 at 12:13 AM
Marshall will play well with arch conservatives and Northern Virginia? Please tell me how that works. There aren't all that many arch conservatives in NOVA.
Posted by: Lovettsville Lady | January 06, 2012 at 05:23 AM
I just heard about Cook's explosion directed at *Gretchen* Bulova at the December board meeting. Go watch the clip on the Fairfax County website, would like to hear your comments. I was extremely entertained to say the least.
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | January 07, 2012 at 11:39 PM