Virginia Patriot

Isle of Wight Madness

2006-11-08T00:47:00.000-05:00

Well folks, the ABC News site powered by AP was showing Webb winning Isle of Wight with 9050 votes. But the State Board of Elections site says he received 5050 votes. I noticed this about 15 minutes ago... let's see how long it takes the Allen camp to figure this out.

Libertarian Apathy

2006-11-07T16:06:00.000-05:00

I've witnessed a disturbing phenomena amongst my fellow libertarian minded friends: declining to vote at all because of no affections for any of the candidates. While not voting for any candidate is fine if you have no preference (as many of us argue Democrats and Republicans in many cases are practically the same), I am appalled by those of us who are choosing not to vote. They are neglecting a very important opportunity to take a decisively libertarian stand by voting NO on Virginia's Ballot Question 1#: the liberty-restricting "Marriage Amendment". This oversight is unfortunate, and many libertarians in their displeasure for major party candidates this year have in turn failed to do their part to protect liberty down the ballot. Please, whether or not you can agree on the candidates, be a libertarian and vote no to "Marriage Amendments" Virginia and elsewhere.

Deserve to Vote?

2006-11-07T10:47:00.000-05:00

I've been watching Fox News this morning and a few minutes ago a man from Time was on. He suggested that Photo ID requirements for voting aren't right because just because someone doesn't have a Photo ID doesn't mean they don't deserve to vote. This is ridiculous, would one also suggest people who aren't willing to invest time in registering to vote deserve to as well? Of course not, voting like anything else bears costs, in the form of registration, and even the time we spend waiting at the polls. If one is unwilling to bear the burden of such costs they CHOOSE not to vote, and it has nothing to do with whether they deserve to vote or not.

A bit more prediction fun...

2006-11-06T23:56:00.000-05:00

Senate Key Races

Virginia - Democrat Gain
Tennessee - Republican Hold
New Jersey - Democrat Hold
Montana - Democrat Gain
Missouri - Democrat Gain
Pennsylvania - Democrat Gain
Rhode Island - Republican Hold
Ohio - Democrat Gain
Maryland - Republican Gain
*Net Gain of 4 seats for the Democrats.

House

Democrats will probably win a net gain 16-20 seats.

My humble predicitons...

2006-11-06T17:42:00.000-05:00

Virginia

Webb - 50
Allen - 48.5
Parker 1.5

While Republican's traditionally strong GOTV efforts will help Allen, Webb will likely squeak out a victory by means of Northern Virginia which will break around 60-65% for Webb, as it did in this past Gubernatorial election for Tim Kaine.

Maryland

*Senate
Steele - 50.5
Cardin - 49.5

The Washington Post and PG endorsements and his very strong momentum will help bring about a break for Steele in undecided likely voters, and a very narrow win.

*Governor
Ehrlich - 51
O'Malley - 49

Ehrlich will manage a stunning comeback, his high job approval and final week momentum in the polls have the makings of a minor election night upset. The much talked about Baltimore 'burbs won't break strongly enough for O'Malley to stave off Ehrlich's advantage in other parts of the state. Most importantly, against all odds Ehrlich has been able to match his opponent in fund raising and perhaps endorsements in this very democratic state and it will serve him well on election day.

Missouri

McCaskill - 52
Talent - 48

McCaskill's slight edge in the polls in the final week indicate she will probably succeed in her bid to unseat Senator Talent.

I don't claim to be good at this, but I figured it'd be a fun exercise none-the-less. As for Ballot question 1, I believe it will be extremely close... 51-49/50-50. Let the voting begin!

Election eve prediction fun...

2006-11-06T12:58:00.000-05:00

As I pour through polls, news articles, and blogs this election eve I have decided it would be fun to make my own "election eve" predictions. After I finish analyzing the races this afternoon I'll post my numbers and see what actually happens. On a separate note, two out-of-state races I'm particularly interested inare the Gubernatorial and Senate races in Maryland. From the last filings for the senate race it would appear Steele had the edge in cash on hand. Likewise, the less extensive information for the Governors race seems to indicate Ehrlich also lead in cash on hand. I think if this is true, the money will have been the icing on the cake for these two candidates seen surging in the last week and might prove the foundation of two potential election night upsets. Unfortunately, here in Virginia the campaign finances are less telling because Allen has amassed a considerable amount in anticipation of an '08 presidential bid.

Kerry's follies...

2006-11-01T12:09:00.000-05:00

When Democrat John Kerry asserted that those who don't "do well in school" will "get stuck in Iraq" he raised more questions than simply his opinion of the intelligence of our troops. Rather, it's possible Kerry is implying that if students don't perform well now, a Democratic congress might stick them in Iraq vis-a-vis a draft, such as the one Charlie Rangel D-NY has discussed trying to impose should Democrats gain control of congress. Maybe Kerry's comments mean something more than they seem to on the surface. Just a thought.

A little something I had forgotten to mention...

2006-05-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

With reguard to the Van Yahres fundraising snafu:
http://dailyprogress.com/servlet/Satellite?c=MGArticle&cid=1128768985338&pagename=CDP/MGArticle/CDP_BasicArticle

At the Kennedy Center...

2006-05-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

Although I'm in the midst of exams, on Sunday I took a few hours off to go to the annual Kennedy Center Spring Gala in Washington.

At the rooftop reception after the show, I had a rare chance to meet some of the performers, including Angela Lansbury, who was the honorary chair of the event.

I remember watching Miss Lansbury on her long-running program, Murder, She Wrote, when I was growing up. I never would have thought, back then, that someday I'd meet her and have my picture taken with her!

My friend, Rick Sincere, has more photos from the gala.

Spending Sunday in Style

2005-10-17T10:58:00.000-05:00

My friend Rick Sincere, who is the Republican-appointed member of the Charlottesville Electoral Board, is one of several political experts quoted in today's Washington Post Style section article on falling voter turnout in Virginia gubernatorial elections.

Check it out. The article is by Linton Weeks and it is called "Virginia's Quadrennial Dilemma: Whosis or Whatsizname?" I didn't know that voter turnout plummeted by 20 points since Doug Wilder was elected in 1989.

Rick tells me that the last time he was quoted in the Style section was way back in the 1980s, in a series of articles about nuclear fallout shelters. Fads come, fads go.

The Fair Tax

2005-08-14T11:57:00.000-05:00

According to syndicated radio talk show host Neal Boortz, U.S. Senator George Allen (R-Virginia) was recently seen carrying a copy of The FairTax Book to the podium when he gave a speech last week. The book, written by Boortz and U.S. Representative John Linder (R-Georgia), advocates replacing the current federal income tax and payroll taxes with a national consumption tax or sales tax.

Linder is the principal sponsor of H.R. 25, the "Fair Tax Act of 2005," the bill that would make the FairTax a reality. The FairTax Book is currently number 6 in sales on Amazon, number 1 at Barnes & Noble, and this Sunday is going to be at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for non-fiction.

Could prospective presidential candidate George Allen become a proponent of this radical change that would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service's capacity to pry into our lives and badger us taxpayers?

We can only hope.

Around the Blogosphere

2005-08-14T11:54:00.000-05:00

Touring some Virginia blogs, we find:

Rick Sincere and Waldo Jaquith are going to be interviewed on a local Charlottesville radio station about blogging in Virginia.

Rick, meanwhile, has posted some nice comments on a new book about the Ford Administration, saying that, to his surprise, Gerald Ford was something of a libertarian-leaning Goldwater Republican. The book is called Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s.

Waldo, for his part, has been presiding over a debate on his blog about teaching creationism (masquerading as "intelligent design") in schools. Hans Mast has also weighed in on his own blog.

Speaking of "intelligent design," Tim Hulsey has a posting on Senator Rick Santorum's new book, It Takes a Family. Tim writes:

Rick Santorum's new book, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, offers a heapin' helpin' of cornpone fascism (cleverly disguised as old-fashioned moralism) for the American religious right. Fortunately, thanks to Santorum's habit of dropping personal remarks like rabbit pellets, it's also a laugh riot.

Santorum, apparently, not only abandons the Goldwater-Ford-Reagan heritage favoring personal autonomy against an overbearing state, he condemns it.

Kevin Lynch and the Hoi Polloi

2005-05-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

Charlottesville City Council member Kevin Lynch had these choice words in The Daily Progress about some of his own constituents who have decided to get involved in local issues:

"This is just another indication of how the public has gotten distracted from what the message of the School Board needs to be," Lynch said. "This group of parents that has put out this petition is not part of the solution - they are part of the problem."

It's nice to know how much respect certain elected officials have for the taxpayers who pay their salary -- and the voters who put them into office in the first place.

Mr. Lynch provides yet another example of the arrogance of the political class: Elected officials who think their job is to lead and our job is to follow. Citizens who try to participate in local affairs are looked at through the politicians lorgnette, as though we are interfering in their right of noblesse oblige.

Civics Lesson #101: It doesn't work that way in a democracy. The voters are the bosses and the elected politicians are our servants.

State of the Mudfest, a few observations

2005-04-23T18:55:00.000-05:00

I can't help but wonder how Kilgore supporters and some of my fellow bloggers have come up with the idea that Tim Kaine's "Weak" Ad makes fun of Jerry Kilgore's accent. Here is why:

1. The ad doesn't feature Mr. Kilgores voice at all.
2. Many Virginians have accents, just like Jerry Kilgore notably Virgil Goode. So how does asking Jerry Kilgore to "speak for himself" (As Tim Kaine does in most of his ad's) bring about a negative reaction from a state where so very many people speak as he does?

Furthermore, I find the gay-baiting in Jerry Kilgore's "Blinker" ad much more appalling. Gay adoption really isn't and shouldn't be an issue rather, it's just a distraction from the real debate and was featured in this Kilgore radio ad. However, the race is early and I'm still undecided. Jerry Kilgore's social politics bother me, but I do grant that his tax plan is much more robust than Tim Kaine's which a Cavalier Daily columnist called "innovative" but really that's just a way to gloss over the fact that it's a bit vague. I'll be following all of these concerns closely throughout the campaign.

Back to the PAC

2005-04-23T01:07:00.000-05:00

Thanks to a link by Commonwealth Conservative, my previous post on campaign finance hi-jinks in Charlottesville has attracted a lot of attention and has been visited by far more people than I ever expected to see in my first few days of blogging.

It even provoked an angry response by Charlottesville blogger (and prominent Democratic activist) Waldo Jaquith, who says:

The blog entry is a cute attempt to stir up s**t, but it’s based on data that’s wholly incorrect. Any attempt to portray Mitch as unethical. You may as well paint Jesus as an insufficiently devout Christian.

Ummm, wasn't Jesus a devout Jew?

This was not an attempt to suggest that Delegate Van Yahres was unethical, but rather to ask whether this technical violation of the law -- a General Assembly member raising campaign funds during the General Assembly session -- would be thoroughly investigated by the Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney, who is not only a Democratic partisan but a financial contributor to the PAC in question. No aspersions on Delegate Van Yahres' own character were meant to be suggested or implied.

Anyway, Jaquith goes on to say:

I was at the event. For starters, it was not, as the blogger claims, at the South Street Brewery, it was at Starr Hill. You know who wasn’t there? Mitch. You know the money for the PAC has never and will never benefitted? Mitch. You know who doesn’t (to my knowledge) have any official capacity with the PAC? Mitch.

First of all, thanks for the minor correction: The February event was held at Starr Hill and not South Street. All those brewpubs in Charlottesville are easy to confuse. But that only serves to confirm the basic truth of my original report.

The fact that Delegate Van Yahres wasn't present is beside the point. Richard Nixon wasn't in the Democratic National Committee headquarters on the night the Watergate burglars were arrested. That didn't make him any less culpable for the actions of a political committee -- in that case, CREEP, the Committee to Re-Elect the President -- under his control.

Whether the PAC money benefits Mitch Van Yahres as a candidate is not relevant. The law prohibits members of the General Assembly from fundraising for any purposes (themselves, other candidates, political action committees) while they are serving in session.

Now what about Mitch's "official capacity"? That's where it gets really interesting, and it's anything but murky. No ambiguities to be found. Here's how the Virginia Public Access Project defines the Democratic Road Back PAC:

Democratic Del. Mitch Van Yahres set up this leadership committee in 2003 to raise money for Democratic candidates.

In a calendar of events listing for the PAC's kick-off in September 2003, George Loper says:

The "Democratic Road Back" PAC is a Political Action Committee created by Delegate Mitch Van Yahres designed to support Democrats running for offices that represent the City of Charlottesville or Albemarle County.

That same listing says:

If you have any questions, call Connie Jorgensen at 293-3733.

As noted previously, Connie Jorgensen is Mitch Van Yahres' long-time legislative aide (whose salary as such is paid by the taxpayers); that telephone number is listed under the name "Mitchell Van Yahres."

Moreover, another calendar listing on George Loper's web site for an upcoming PAC event next month (for which the PAC has already put down a $2,000 deposit, according to filings with the State Board of Elections):

Friday, May 6: 6:30 p.m. at the Boar’s Head Inn, the Democratic Road Back PAC is hosting a ROAST OF DELEGATE MITCH VAN YAHRES For information about becoming a sponsor or to be sure that you are on the invitation mailing list call Connie @ 293-3733 or E-mail roadback@mitchvanyahres.com

Note that the email address for the Democratic Road Back PAC is at "mitchvanyahres.com"

And finally, it's particularly interesting that Jaquith would say that Van Yahres "doesn’t (to my knowledge) have any official capacity with the PAC," because on his own blog, a one-line entry dated September 5, 2003, says in its entirety:

There’s a kickoff fundraiser for Del. Mitch Van Yahres’ Democratic Road Back PAC tonight, so off to Charlottesville.

Hmmmm. How does he identify the Democratic Road Back PAC? By using Delegate Van Yahres' name in the possessive case, with an apostrophe that defines the Democratic Road Back PAC as belonging to, or being of, Delegate Mitch Van Yahres. ("In the possessive case, a noun or pronoun changes its form to show that it owns or is closely related to something else.")

Now perhaps the treasurer of record on the SBE filings belongs to Mr. Van Yahres' employee, Ms. Jorgensen, using his address and telephone number for contact information on the same form. The fact of the matter is that the Democratic Road Back PAC is controlled by, guided by, and under the direction of Delegate Mitch Van Yahres. He created it, he runs it, he makes the decisions for it. So he should have known better than to have his leadership PAC to hold a fundraising event in the middle of the General Assembly session, in direct violation of Section 24.2-940 of the Virginia Code.

Can I lay it out any simpler than that?

Van Yahres' Legal trouble

2005-04-19T10:53:00.000-05:00

Is Delegate Mitch Van Yahres (D-57) headed for trouble with the law? He might be, and the cause may be his disregard of campaign finance laws designed to reduce the appearance of corruption in politics.

Back in 2003, Van Yahres founded a leadership PAC (political action committee) called the Democratic Road Back PAC. As reported in The Hook, a Charlottesville weekly, at the time:

He promises the PAC will be an ongoing effort to attract and support Democratic candidates for the General Assembly, City Council, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, and other city and county offices. "The trend in politics is on a local basis-- door-to-door, more personal," he says. "It's all local."

The PAC will funnel funds, workshops, and training to Democratic candidates--and Van Yahres specifies that assistance is only for candidates nominated by the party.

Van Yehres remains the driving force behind the Democratic Road Back PAC, and his legislative assistant, Connie Jorgensen, is the PAC's treasurer of record. (See the PAC's statement of organization with the State Board of Elections here.) According to the Virginia Public Access Project, Van Yahres' PAC raised $32,200 and spent $16,373 in 2003, and it raised $31,680 and spent $8,846 in 2004. The PAC's top donors are a virtual "who's who" of prominent Charlottesville Democrats: Virginia Daugherty, George Loper, Paul Garrett, Kevin Lynch, Thomas Vandever, David Toscano, and Warren D. Chapman.

That last name is where this story gets interesting. In February 2005, the Democratic Road Back PAC, founded and controlled by sitting Delegate Mitch Van Yahres, advertised and held a fundraising event at the South Street Brewery, a Charlottesville restaurant. This fundraising event occurred while the General Assembly was in session. As noted in Monday's Washington Times,

Virginia law forbids candidates from fundraising while the legislature is in session, which this year ran from Jan. 12 to Feb. 27.

Better, let's quote the law itself, Section 24.2-940 of the Code of Virginia:

A. No member of the General Assembly or statewide official and no campaign committee of a member of the General Assembly or statewide official shall solicit or accept a contribution for the campaign committee of any member of the General Assembly or statewide official, or for any political committee, from any person or political committee on and after the first day of a regular session of the General Assembly through adjournment sine die of that session.

B. No person or political committee shall make or promise to make a contribution to a member of the General Assembly or statewide official or his campaign committee on and after the first day of a regular session of the General Assembly through adjournment sine die of that session.

Delegate Van Yahres and his assistant, Connie Jorgensen (the PAC treasurer), must have known that holding a campaign fundraiser in the middle of the General Assembly session was a violation of the law. In fact, it is quite likely that Delegate Van Yahres voted for the law when it was first proposed.

A complaint has been made to Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman, asking him to investigate the situation and to determine if, in fact, the law has been broken and if further prosecution is required.

But here's the $64,000 question: Can Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman, a Democrat like Van Yahres, be trusted to conduct an impartial investigation of this case? Or, more importantly, can Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman, who, using his full given name -- Warren D. Chapman -- has contributed funds to the Democratic Road Back PAC, be trusted to conduct an impartial investigation of that political action committee and its principals, Mitch Van Yahres and Connie Jorgensen?

It's not hard to guess the outcome of this tangled web of corruption and law-breaking.

De-education

2005-04-12T23:30:00.000-05:00

For years it's been apparent how incompetent and sometimes downright moronic the public school system is. Anyone doubting this should read this article that describes the recent rape of a disabled girl, and the subsequent advice of the principal that the father not call the police. Oh... three of the involved assistant principals aren't being fired, just "reassigned" to other schools. Shameful, vouchers look better everyday.

George Mason University's Homeland Security Program

2005-04-12T22:57:00.000-05:00

I was watching CNN's NewsNight program, and noticed one segment in particular that examined an terrorism course here at Mason. They interviewed Lauren Rajczak a Junior, and the course instructor Dennis Pluchinsky a former state department intelligence analyst. Apparently part of the curriculum involves planning a mock terrorist attack on a plausible target. From the looks of it this is a well thought out course with definite application in an era of ever increasing domestic threats. I may just have to take it myself. You can read a transcript of the piece here.

Kerry laments election

2005-04-12T00:16:00.000-05:00

Back in February, my friend Rick Sincere wrote about an election bill cosponsored by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, which he called "so bad in so many ways."

Although Kerry lost last November's election decisively, he can't seem to get off the hobby-horse of election fraud. He's just not willing to let go and admit he lost the election fair and square.

Earlier this week, Kerry complained again. According to the Cuban News Agency, Latina Prensa,

Five months after the US elections, the ghost of fraud comes back to haunt the US, following accusations by senator and Democrat Party candidate John Kerry at a meeting of the Massachusetts League Of Women Voters on Monday.

Kerry assured the audience that many US citizens were denied their rights and access to the ballot box by means of deceit and intimidation.

As an example, he cited authorities telling many people that Republicans were to vote on Tuesday, the day of the elections, and Democrats one day later. Others were told that if they did not have a parking lot ticket, they would not be allowed to vote.

Really. If what he said is true -- if voters were tricked into believing that "Republicans vote on Tuesday, Democrats vote on Wednesday" -- then those voters are simply too stupid to vote. We should be glad they missed the election.

And doesn't Kerry understand how horribly condescending he is? After all, it wasn't Republicans who got tricked into voting on the wrong day, right? Kerry is saying that his own Democratic supporters are more gullible than Homer Simpson on a bad day.

Yet they used to call conservatives "the Stupid Party."

Hello fellow Virginia Bloggers and Blog Readers!

2005-04-11T18:34:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my blog the Virginia Patriot. I've created my own blog, inspired by the success of my good friend Rick Sincere's blog http://www.ricksincere.com . Now that I've "joined the fray" so to speak, I look forward to contributing to the vital group of current Virginia political bloggers. I'm an Economics major at George Mason University with an interest in politics that dates back to 1992. I feel it important to note that my blog's title "Virginia Patriot" is not in reference to either the PATRIOT ACT, or right-wing militias, but rather a combination of the name of my native state and my schools team name the Mason Patriots.

I'm a Libertarian, but I consider myself independent of the party. In this crucial election year for the commonwealth I look forward to doing my part to bring awareness and debate to my fellow voters. Bloggers are a growing influence in Local, State, and National politics and I intend to use this valuable forum to capitalize on that influence.

- Richard Morrison