Republican Candidate quits in NY23

In what appears to be a coup for conservatives in New York, Dede Scozzafava, the Republican Candidate has suspended her campaign 3 days short of the election. She garnered the nomination over Doug Hoffman in a closed party committee process. When it was revealed by among others, Fred Thompson & Sarah Palin, that Scozzafava had a fairly liberal voting record in the State Legislature, Hoffman’s # shot way up and support began to pour in from across the country. This is a win for conservatives in that Hoffman will caucus with the Republicans but will not be beholden to the party.

Francis Chester has cost Augusta County taxpayers $7000 to date

After doing some digging, I found out that the total costs of defending the taxpayers against the assessment lawsuit as of the middle of this month were approaching $7000. For a county where the taxpayers have to watch every dime, this is not insignificant.

What total will be enough before Mr. Chester is done with us? $10,000? $20,000? Its not hard to see that if this drags out through next year that the totals will reach that and and much more.

Public Option Goes Down

Its not a done deal yet, but its clear the whole plan is in danger. Pressure MUST be kept up, especially with Warner & Webb.

Public Option Goes Down – Tevi Troy – The Corner on National Review Online

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On the road

Seems that while I enjoy running a blog, I don’t have the time right now to truly commit to doing it the way I envision. My idea is/was to have a blog mainly dedicated to local issues. With work commitments that have me out of town, its very difficult to stay abreast of events and issues at home or even find enough time to procure usage of a connected computer. I’m going to keep the blog up, but I expect to post only sparingly, at least until I am working from the Valley.

Virginia’s Senate Race

The result of this race was not unforeseen. Jim Gilmore had to fight with relatively low funding and a conventional wisdom (unfair in my opinion) that said he left his opponent with a budget problem after finishing his term as Governor.

I did not approach this race with a bias against Mark Warner. In fact, I voted for him when he ran for Governor in 2001 and he ultimately did some good things(promoted Virginia Tech’s entrance into the ACC, willing to cut budgets of some sacred cows). Ultimately I was led to vote for Jim Gilmore for one reason. I could not support allowing the Democratic Party to control both of the Commonwealth’s Senate seats. Mark Warner will have to take his marching orders from Harry Reid, the Majority Leader in the Senate. I detest Reid with a passion and I regret that he now can count on Virginia’s two Senate votes for what may be some truly detestable bills that are sure to come down the pike.

The best I can hope for is that conservatives in Virginia engage Warner on issues where he is open (surely he can be persuaded on matters of commerce) and oppose him stoutly where he is wrong.

I knew I could.

Read this great article by Paul Ibrahim, who puts to shame the idea that America does not provide opportunity.

Link Here

Visit his blog

Election Post Mortem

The Obama campaign was able to convince quite a few people that they were voting against a 3rd Bush term. I thought that unfair to McCain, but he never did much to combat it.

I thought McCain had a chance several weeks ago, when a coworker
(under 35) who had voted Dem the last two cycles was voting for McCain
because of deep seated reservations over Obama. I thought maybe there
were a lot more like him flying under the radar but perhaps he was the
exception rather then the rule.

As has been mentioned in other media, Obama was able to position
himself as a blank slate (he was able to successfully extricate

himself from virtually every political influence he ever had, (again,McCain never pushed that issue, except for a throw-away line about Ayers in the last debate)and he was different things to
different people. To some he is a savior that will throw manna from
heaven, to others a chance to move on from race problems.

Palin was not a deadweight for McCain. We will never know just how
bad it could have gotten for him had she not been on the ticket.

Obama did not win as a liberal. He was Clinton-esce in his ability to
project moderation when his record shows him to be a farleft liberal.
More thoughts specifically on Virginia and the Valley later.