Elephant Ears

This blog is dedicated to the political happenings in the Valley and Southwest Virginia. As the the name implies, this blog will have posts based on what is heard by this elephant's (GOPer's) ears. It is also a great treat to get while at the county fair or a carnival.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Moderate War in '09?

Not Gerry Conolley (a Republican), a guest blogger at NLS has a post up about '09 being the year of the moderate for the GOP. He (or she) is predicting that Bolling is the GOP gubenatorial candidate in '09. He then goes on to say that if Gilmore runs as well, then it will leave open the possibility of a moderate to move in and get the nod. He then has a list of possible GOP contenders for each nomination. They are:
Governor:Bolling, Gilmore, Connaughton, Tom Davis, Thelma Drake, Jerry Kilgore
LG (moderates): Emmett Hanger, Chris Saxman, JeanneMarie Devolites-Davis, Joe May, Gil Davis and Connaughton
AG: Baril, Cuccinelli, Albo, Bill Mims, and McDonnell if he loses this time

I really have no disagreements about any of those candidates trying to get the nominations, but I would say over half have no chance.
The best part of the post is that NGC calls Chris Saxman a moderate. I wouldn't call most of these folks moderate, but this is a first for Saxman.
I am not sure I agree with the assessment that moderates will get nods in '09, but we will see I suppose. If Chris Saxman is a moderate, I say we need to run moderates every election.

posted by GOPHokie @ 10:30 PM  

17 Comments:

  • At 12/09/2005 6:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The terms moderate and conservative have been debased for political purposes in Virginia to the point that they have no meaning. They've become crude weapons, mere epithets, not analytical tools to define philosophy or positions. 90% of what goes on in the Virginia government doesn't really have a conservative/moderate/liberal solution in any event. A moderate is now any Republican who is against my guy.

     

  • At 12/09/2005 6:22 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The Family Foundation scorecard says Saxman voted for a bill to allow gays to offer insurance coverage to their partners. Not too conservative.

     

  • At 12/09/2005 7:23 PM, Blogger Megan said…

    First of all you can't stop people from making contracts between them.

    i.e. when to gay dudes want to leave their junk to each other when they die or make medical decisions for each other.

    If I'm not mistaken, the constitutional ban on gay marriage would do that. Gophokie, do you really think the state should not let people make arrangements with people they "love"?

     

  • At 12/09/2005 10:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    frankly, the saxman vote (a jim dillard bill if i remember correctly) is not about gay rights but rather about government not dictating certain decisions that should be made by an individual business.

     

  • At 12/09/2005 11:52 PM, Blogger GOPHokie said…

    Myron, I have never heard that the gay marriage ban will stop gay couples from willing their estate to their partner. I cannot imagine that being in there either.
    As to this Saxman bill, I don't know much about it. AWC seems to know, and it sounds like a good bill.

     

  • At 12/09/2005 11:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    A vote to help the business community attract and retain capable workers doesn't seem particularly ideological, one way or the other. No one is forced to do anything. Conservatives do not support anti-market prohibitions. Oops! I used one of the words I'm trying to get everyone to stop using for a while. This isn't going to be easy.

     

  • At 12/10/2005 10:06 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    sounds a like a free market, less involvement of the government in our lives, try to help people get private health insurance instead of medicaid kind of bill. who else voted for it?

     

  • At 12/10/2005 10:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    just checked on the other votes for - albo, bell, joannou, johnson, louderback, marrs(didn't an anti gay fundraising letter hurt his campaign) wardrup, o'bannon, suit and tata. let's see if there are 5% of the people who are actually gay, does that leave 95% of the people who would likewise be helped?

     

  • At 12/10/2005 10:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    And like Parrish, Saxman voted with the 17 House GOPers to freeze the car tax cut. If it walks like a duck...

     

  • At 12/10/2005 10:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I actually asked Saxman about this vote at the Advance. I was impressed because he responded with a very well thought out and sincere explanation. He noted that every other state in the US had this provision in place, and that the bill pro-business, as well as pro-family, because it would allow families to work with their employers on the option to provide benefits to extended family members or care givers who may otherwise be on taxpayer funded benefit programs, such as Medicaid. Frankly, I think that working to get more people insured through private providers rather than having the state (taxpayers) pay for them helps all Virginia families by keeping a check on one of the fastest growing areas of the budget (Medicaid and welfare programs)...

     

  • At 12/10/2005 11:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Thank you, AWC.

    You make a good point-- Too many times we don't take the time to figure out the whole story on issues... When I asked Saxman, I was impressed how much thought he'd put into his voting and that the issue was very different than some of the talk I'd heard.

    I also think there was more behind the car tax cap vote, as wasn't the cost of the car tax the real issue behind all the talk about losing our AAA bond rating?

     

  • At 12/10/2005 12:24 PM, Blogger GOPHokie said…

    Sounds like you guys are certainly very knowledgeable about these issues.

     

  • At 12/10/2005 12:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Thanks for the insight, AWC. To clarify, the vote on capping the car tax was separate from the vote on the tax increase package, right?

     

  • At 12/10/2005 12:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Thanks, just making sure.

    I think I understand the rationale. I would be interested to hear from some of the legislators who decided to vote for the cap but voted against the tax increase. To me that seems logical and fiscally conservative to cap an expenditure rather than increase taxes in order to protect the AAA rating.

     

  • At 12/10/2005 1:34 PM, Blogger GOPHokie said…

    Every gang of 17 member I have ever talked to has had no problem explaining why they voted the way they did.
    I still don't agree with the vote, but I understand where they were coming from. That is part of the reason I was not a huge supporter of taking some of those guys out.
    If we were actually willing to overturn the increase I would have been more supportive of taking these guys out.

     

  • At 12/10/2005 4:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    To clarify, I was not referring to the "gang of 17" who voted for the tax increase. I was referring to those who voted to cap the car tax...I get the sense there were different issues being discussed that some of us are not fully aware of.

     

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