Posted on 08/24/2003 6:55:28 PM PDT by Theodore R.
CHILDREN OF TRAGEDY COMPETE IN VIRGINIA
August 2 was the 25th anniversary of a tragedy that dramatically changed the course of modern Virginia political history. Two months after he won a thrilling convention battle to come the Republican nominee for U.S. senator from Virginia, lawyer and former State Party Chairman Richard Obenshain perished when a twin-engine Piper PA34 carrying him to a campaign appearance crashed in the trees a fraction of a mile short of the Chesterfield County Airport. Killed with the 42-year-old candidate were pilot Richard Neel, also 42, of Alexandria, and 28-year-old flight instructor Ronald A. Edden of Camp Springs, Md.
"Obenshain was hailed in death, as in life, as the architect of the modern Virginia Republican Party and its winning conservative coalition," wrote Frank Atkinson in The Dynamic Dominion, his very readable history of the GOP in Virginia, "and as a singularly articulate and devoted apostle of conservative tenets."
Twenty-five years later, the children of Obenshain and his friend and pilot Neel are vying for the position of party chairman from which the late Senate candidate crafted the modern Republican Party in the Old Dominion. Kate Obenshain Griffin of Winchester County, 33-year-old assistant to Sen. George Allen (R.-Va.) when he was governor (1993-97), is actively running to succeed outgoing State Chairman Gary Thomson, who resigned after pleading guilty in a 17-month –old scandal over the wiretapping of Democratic officials by state GOP operatives. Her leading opponent is Mount Vernon lawyer Richard Neel, Jr., who is state party treasurer. Both are considered strong conservatives, but Griffin is said to be the front-runner—in large part because of the reverence in which her father is still held by party activists. She has Already been endorsed for chairman by Allen and State Atty. Gen. Jerry Kilgore. The governing body of the state party organization, the State Central Committee, will elect the new chairman on September 6.
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