Posted on 02/26/2012 3:16:49 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
RICHMOND — Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell met with Republican members of the General Assembly more than 60 times in the past month — from formal meetings to glitzy social gatherings at the Executive Mansion — and he often cautioned them to exercise restraint.
McDonnell warned his fellow Republicans to limit their socially conservative legislation and focus on job creation and the state budget, according to legislators. Otherwise, he said, they risked miring the session in needless disputes that would not benefit the GOP. He even signaled which bills he would support, a departure from previous practice.
.....But apparently not everyone took his words to heart. The increasingly influential conservative wing of McDonnell’s party — which now controls the state government in Richmond — has swiftly taken on abortion, adoption and guns. And no initiative was more politically perilous than the ultrasound bill softened last week after ferocious opposition that stretched beyond Virginia’s borders.
The governor moved quickly to limit any lasting political damage to his national profile, but scrutiny of socially conservative legislation united Democrats and bore out McDonnell’s concerns. That legislative blunder also underscored McDonnell’s quandary: how to strike a balance between the interests of his Virginia Republican allies and his own practical political needs.
McDonnell is a potential vice presidential contender, and national Republicans are counting on him to deliver Virginia — a swing state in recent years — to GOP presidential and U.S. Senate candidates in November.
Bob Holsworth, a former professor at Virginia Commonwealth University with a deep knowledge of state politics, said the governor has been successful at managing conflicting goals. “McDonnell is a national figure,’’ Holsworth said. “He’s simultaneously running two campaigns: one for his budget and other priorities and one a silent campaign for the vice presidency.’’....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
In Virginia, governors are only allowed to serve a single four-year term by law, and this is McDonnell’s last year in office. And so he is now trying to feather his own nest as a potential VP for Romney, who apparently made some kind of corrupt bargain with him last year for his support and to keep Gingrich and Santorum off VA’s primary ballot. I wonder how this deal will square with whatever deal Romney made with Ron Paul?
Indeed.
Personal ambition turns another conservative into a RINO who ignores his own beliefs.
He needs to get his butt off of supporting toll roads if he wants me to vote for him again.
Like so many, get elected as a conservative and then figure you’ve got them in your pocket, why not go after liberals. Of course, liberals only vote for liberals, so that means you have to actually govern as a liberal to get there vote.
I wouldn’t vote for Romney if Palin was on the ticket.
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Agreed. I idea behind term limits is to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Here we see McDonnell ignoring the peoples’ representatives in order to further his personal political future. He is a conservative but, like so many others, he sells himself to the devil for personal political gain. Virginia's should be outraged over his betrayal and deceit, which couldn't be more obvious.
Behold the influence of those few RICHRINOS$$$$$ who must try to turn the GOP into another Abortion party.
How’s it workin’ McD??
Notice who’s standing behind Romney in Florida.
He's just now figuring that part out.
BTW, we have Santorum and Gingrich who are Virginia residents. McDonnell cannot run as VP with either one of them, nor they with each other.
The lesson here is that Virginia Conservatives are not yet in full command of the Virginia Republican party ~ but that's coming.
He's just now figuring that part out.
BTW, we have Santorum and Gingrich who are Virginia residents. McDonnell cannot run as VP with either one of them, nor they with each other.
The lesson here is that Virginia Conservatives are not yet in full command of the Virginia Republican party ~ but that's coming.
Yes, it was Bob McDonnell who kept Rick Santorum from actually collecting 10,000 signatures to turn in.
And he caused Gingrich to not collect enough signatures, and to hire a guy who cheated.
He also clearly caused Rick Perry to fail to collect the 15,000 signatures that would have automatically put him on the ballot.
Yes, I am being sarcastic. McDonnell didn't even support Romney until after Rick Perry had dropped out of the race. McDonnell had always said he was going to support a governor, and was holding out to see if Rick could get traction.
Meanwhile, I can tell you exactly why Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum didn't make our ballot. I wrote EACH of those campaigns. I signed up on their web page WITH may address, so they knew I was in Virginia. Three times I sent them all contact e-mails telling them about the problems of getting signatures, and asking them they could have my family's signatures if they told me where to go, and that I would collect signatures for them if they wanted.
NONE of the campaigns ever responded to any of my e-mails. 5 days before the deadline, Gingrich (apparently realizing his problems) sent a blast e-mail telling all his supporters to drive into collection points to sign petitions. The drives were 30 or more miles from where I live, during the day, when most people work.
None of these candidates had a rapport with local committees. None of these candidates wanted to share information, so none asked the state RPV to help them. NONE of these candidates had volunteers out collecting signatures at public events.
We had an actual ELECTION the first tuesday in November. Republicans turned out in droves -- over 700,000 votes. At MY precinct, we had close to 1000 republicans vote. And yet not ONE Of these candidates had a volunteer at the polling place collecting signatures -- the one place you could be certain you had REGISTERED voters and knew exactly what district they were in.
The only candidate collecting signatures at my polling place was Herman Cain. He had 23 signatures when I showed up at 8am. I'm sure he had hundreds before the end of the day. You only need 600 in a whole district, and 15,000, to guarantee ballot access -- and it is possible to get 600 signatures at a SINGLE PRECINCT, with nothing more than one volunteer working 12 hours. (most republicans will sign anybody's petition, we like competition).
There has been a lot of misinformation and disinformation about our process. It is certainly too restrictive. And I know Romney made it, and McDonnell has now endorsed him, and that generally means people here can say anything they want about it and get away with it.
But I'll be darned if I'm going to sit around and let people trash a good man like Bob McDonnell over the failures of their own candidates to do something that frankly, I and 30 other volunteers could have done for them. I'm tired of the collateral damage. I don't agree with Bob McDonnell or Bill Bolling endorsing Mitt Romney, but they are both good men, not corrupt politicians doing deals -- they think they are doing waht is best, and that may show a flaw in their reasoning, it's no reason to besmirch their reputations and character. There's too much of that going around.
Old McDonnell had a farm...E I E I OHHHHH
And on this farm he has some RINOS...E I E I OHHHHH
With a compromise here, a capitulate there
Here a loss, there a loss, everywhere a loss-loss
Old McDonnell had a farm...E I E I OHHHHH
Whatever, Charles. Whatever.
.. they are both good men, not corrupt politicians doing deals — they think they are doing waht is best, and that may show a flaw in their reasoning, it’s no reason to besmirch their reputations and character.
‘they think’.. sometimes wrongly.. that is their flaw..
all men (and women) suffer from it.
as to the process..what process? to call it orderly or fair is a untruth. It is effectively rigged, it is dirty and it is just starting.. buckle up.
we live in a never-ending campaign cycle, there are few respites these days from the barrage of mud slung back and forth, by media, by party members and leaders, and ‘our own’.
sure beats living in a gulag.. at least we can burn the paper ballots and voter guides for heat. ;-]
Will we fall for this again?
I think some people miss how “socially conservative” our proposed legislation is.
THings that many states would dream about pass our legislation easily, even with democrats. Our marriage protection amendment not only saved “marriage”, it stops civil unions. We cut Planned parenthood already. We love guns, and our fights there are over whether people can park in unfriendly parking lots with their weapons (we can carry into bars!).
Our fight over ultrasound isn’t whether we are going to require patients to be SHOWN the ultrasound — it was over a misunderstanding of the law which allowed the democrats to claim we were FORCING a specific type of ultrasound. McDonnell helped quell that misperception, and I expect the legislation to pass, and it’s fully supported by McDonnell and is socially conservative.
I’m glad we have fights over quixotic conservative legislation. I am more happy with how close we come to passing things like the personhood bill (most of the real social conservative stuff comes from the guy who used to be my delegate until our last redistricting). But we don’t need to make all the fights over the most controversal of these proposals, because we also want to keep taxes low, encourage business to grow, and keep Virginia the free state that Maryland only “claims” to be.
We need to beat a few moderate republican senators, and incumbents are hard enough to beat in their moderate districts, without them being able to run non-stop commercials about how they were the only thing stopping a host of social conservative legislation that their district had no interest in whatsoever.
The Party honchos just said he did, but nobody knows that he did.
So, why didn't Mitt get 15,000 signatures? Why didn't he get 10,000? Why didnt he get 5,000?
That way you build enthusiasm for Republican voters ~ and I'll guaranGD~TEE you that Republican voters in Virginia are NOT enthusiastic over voting for jug ears and his plastic faced buddy.
Just doesn't happen.
We could lose Virginia to the Democrats in a nationwide Republican sweep just because of this exclusionary tricksterism by the Big Republican Dogs.
I don’t know why you say Romney didn’t turn in 15,000 signatures. The signatures were not “verified” so they could have been forged, but they did count the signatures. That’s how they knew there were 15,000 of them.
There is a presumption that our candidates are in fact going to follow the rules, and aren’t going to deliberately cheat. It was actually a shock that signatures were faked, and it is being investigated as a criminal matter.
I know people will claim Romney definitely would cheat and forge signatures — and I guess because they didn’t investigate every signatures, they don’t know.
But why would you think Romney couldn’t get 15,000 signatures? He turned in that many in 2008, he DOES have a big organization here in Virginia, and they WERE collecting signatures. They contacted me multiple times both to get signatures, and to collect signatures — I didn’t mention them because I ignored them.
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