Focus | Democratic divide
Battle brewing between progressives, centrists over direction of party
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
The 2001 election that ushered in the Democratic Decade in Virginia gave power in Democratic Party circles to the centrists in the mold of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine who led the mini-revolution that fall.
The model that they laid out wasn’t all that complicated. Emphasize management efficiency, avoid at all costs anything even remotely controversial on social issues.
Progressives weren’t and aren’t among the biggest fans of Warner and Kaine and their brother-in-RepublicanLite-arms Jim Webb, but for the most part they self-muted their criticism, because, well, Democrats were winning elections, with Kaine holding the Governor’s Mansion in 2005, Webb knocking off U.S. Sen. George Allen in 2006, Warner landsliding former Gov. Jim Gilmore in a 2008 Senate race, and Virginia going blue in the ’08 presidential race for Barack Obama. Read more
The Pulse | Politics beyond health care
Column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
It can be easy to get myopic in our Who won today? scoreboard-focused political world, and in so doing assume that what’s majorly important today, like the months-old health-care debate, will be important tomorrow, next month and forever.
Even recent history suggests to us that politics is as much about the Janet Jackson 1980s song “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” as what happened even a couple of weeks ago.
It’s in that context that I bring up how I was talking recently with my friend Quentin Kidd, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University, about the political ramifications of the health-care debate on upcoming congressional elections in 2010.
Kidd’s first observation: “Once a bill passes, I think Republican opposition, which has been centered around fighting a bill from being passed, is going to dissipate.” Read more
Focus | Perriello: Baptism by fire
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
With AFP Audio
Tom Perriello picked a great time to be a freshman congressman, what with the country in January on the verge of the next Great Depression and with so much unresolved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the push from the electorate in the ’08 elections for change on health care.
“Never a dull moment. It’s hard to imagine a more contentious year,” said Perriello, D-Fifth District, who was elected in 2008 on a mandate of change in the country and in the Fifth and will head into his first re-election battle in 2010 on the heels of news that a Danville-area conservative group had broached publicly the idea of burning him in effigy to protest his votes on cap-and-trade legislation and the still-contentious health-care issue. Read more
Austin Gisriel | Let’s form a big circle
It is time to stop talking about the “political spectrum” in this country and instead, talk about the political circle. If I head to the left or right on a spectrum, I will continue to travel further from my starting point. On a circle, however, if I start to my right and go far enough, I will end up to the left of where I started. This is the best imagery I can use to explain that I am so conservative on some issues that I become a liberal. Read more
What does Curren need to do?
There were no polls, as one of the candidates for the Republican Party nomination in the 20th, Dickie Bell, famously tried to assert upon the departure of State Del. Chris Saxman from the 20th District race two weeks ago, but conventional wisdom would have had Saxman ahead of Democrat Erik Curren if there had been a poll to back that notion up.
That same conventional wisdom has Curren in a much better position in the 20th whether it’s Bell, the apparent favorite for the nomination, or any of the others from among the seven-candidate GOP field that he’s up against this fall. Read more
Videocast | Mark Warner rallies Dems in Waynesboro
AFP News reporter Crystal Graham reports from the Mark Warner rally at the Waynesboro Democratic Committee ’08 Election Headquarters on Sunday, Nov. 2, 2008. Length: 4:30. Read more
The Speaker of the House
Posted by afp on December 13, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Column by Ken Plum
www.kenplum.com
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with del. ken plum, democrat, democratic party, general assembly, house of delegates, john warren cooke, ken plum, virginia