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Interesting week for me in my often overlapping roles as a business writer and politics writer. On Wednesday, I met with U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, after a roundtable in Staunton with local business owners and business leaders who gave Warner quite the earful about the state of business and the state of the…
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Mark Warner spent his first year in the United States Senate alternatively getting his feet wet and biting his lip. “It was a little bit of earning your bona fides. I tried to do that particularly on the financial-reform bill, really dig in an on issue. And there were probably some times where I bit…
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Confidence. That’s what America needs to get business moving again. “The challenge we have now is, what can we do to fix the confidence of the business community at large?” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told a group of business owners in Staunton on Wednesday. Warner did some talking and a lot of listening as…
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A 10-point lead for Republicans on a Gallup generic congressional ballot was erased in a week. Gallup now has Republicans and Democrats all even at 46 percent support each among the voting public. Link to news brief on WhenVirginiaWasBlue.com.
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University of Virginia politics professor Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball released on Thursday is projecting a split in the upcoming midterm congressional elections. Republicans are poised to take the House with a net gain of 47 seats by the GOP, according to Sabato. Democrats would retain control of the Senate, but Republicans are still on track,…
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Interesting insight on the politics of division from Grover Norquist, the head of the far right Americans for Tax Reform, today on the POTUS “Morning Briefing” on Sirius XM. Norquist thinks unequivocally that Republicans are playing snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory politics with the way they’re playing the proposed Muslim mosque in New York City. More from Chris Graham’s…
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“Unemployment remaining unchanged at 9.5 percent and the loss of over 130,000 jobs once again confirms that President Obama’s economic policies have failed to create sustainable job growth.” This is what passes for statesmanship these days, I guess. The quote is from Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. I get it. He has to say…
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President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently signed the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START), a measure designed to mutually and verifiably reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. Specifically, it would reduce U.S. and Russian warheads by approximately one third and would continue and strengthen the verification regime that has allowed the inspections and…
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A new VCU poll has Virginians split on the job performance of the new governor, Bob McDonnell. The Commonwealth Poll conducted July 15-19 has 48 percent of Virginians rating the Republican’s performance as excellent or good, and 52 percent saying that McDonnell is doing a fair or poor job. Inside the numbers, the views on…
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Robert Hurt’s move to sign the DeFundIt.org pledge to pull funding from the health-care reform measure passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in March is good politics. It’s probably also bad policy, but you could say that policy is the province of those who are good at politics first. “By signing…
