March 2006 Archives

Here is an article in the Jewish World Review that mocks the hypocrisy of the left when it came to defending an innocent disabled woman from forced starvation.

Via Life News I learned of these encouraging statements from the Holy Father (full Papal address can be found here):

"As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person”...

..."[S]he is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable," the pope added, referring to the church's pro-life stance...

...He called on the lawmakers to reject the society that is developing that causes people to say Christians should keep their pro-life views to themselves.

What say ye now, Tim Kaine?

Columnist Mike Franc has a great article today titled “Moderates Behaving Badly” which examines the differences between moderates who supported the conservative agenda in 1995 (which according to Franc was a year with conditions very similar to the current political landscape) and the current moderates who are constantly obstructing the conservative Republican agenda.

Here is a good taste of the article:

“The moderates,” Congressional Quarterly noted last year, “are not known for fighting to the bitter end.” Rather, they have acquired a reputation for “caving to pressure from their leaders to preserve their ability to get desired committee assignments and favors in appropriations bills.” Indeed, despite their misgivings, moderates ultimately cried uncle on the president’s tax cuts, renewal of the Patriot Act, last year’s modest retrenchment of federal spending, and the addition of two conservative justices to the Supreme Court. The marriage had its rocky moments, but the warring spouses ultimately found ways to persevere.

Over the last six months, however, Republican moderates have all but filed for divorce. Most notably, they mounted an open assault on the president’s miniscule spending cuts, adding $16 billion in social welfare spending in the Senate and then threatening to do the same in the House. Their tone, moreover, is more overtly confrontational than during previous spats. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., described the president’s proposal to modestly reduce spending on failed welfare programs as “scandalous.” A House moderate even referred to his conservative Republican colleagues as “the other side.” Oops.

The symptoms become clearer every day. Mexican flags, etc.

Let's assume the political implications of the national immigration, uh, "spat" will be significant in 2006 and 2008. I think if the national Republican leadership continue to straddle the fence on this issue, the Party will go the way of the Whigs. Anyone who thinks there is plenty of time for missteps and course corrections is overlooking the fact that this whole "democracy" shindig contains the seeds of its own demise: People who gain numerical majorities can vote to change the rules. Then, you can have enormous problems if you happen to not be a member of the majority group.

Like if you happen to want the American flag to fly, and you are outvoted. Or if you drive down your street and see people climbing in and out of windows and parking eight cars out front because there are eight families living inside. Then, the issue becomes a bit more immediate and the Republicans chortling about how they appreciate the illegals tending their fairways become a little less attractive on election day. (Memo to GOP leaders: Staying home on election day is easier than falling off a bike.)

But the well-documented symptoms of our national crisis are not the focus of this post. Rather, I wonder how we got to this point.

Obviously, decisions were made since the 1970s that loosened the gates. That's a key problem and a topic for another day.

Another problem is related less to policy than ideology: Why do they come here and want to fly Mexican flags?

Immigrants came to America in massive numbers from 1870 to 1920, and they learned to speak English and became ...Americans. They did not attempt to overthrow the existing culture and usurp sovereignty in favor of Ireland, Germany, Italy or Poland. They came to America because they were attracted to what it had to offer, and they wanted to be part of it.

Now, a large segment of immigrants seem to want something very different. There was a time when "reconquista" referred to the Spaniards' efforts from the 8th to the 15th centuries to repel the Islamic jihad from Spanish soil. The modern reconquista is aimed at America and it sympathizes with the jihad.

Americans thought they had it bad in the 1890s when the immigrants (my forebearers among them) talked and smelled funny, but that all worked out fine.

How did WE end up with this bunch of America-hating newcomers?

Short answer: We took our eye off the ball for about the past 20 years. We had bigger fish to fry, I guess - like the Soviet Union - than to care about our borders or immigration laws. Opportunistic people from south of the U.S. took advantage of our laxity.

Long answer: We quit caring about what "America" is. Peggy Noonan describes the essence of the problem:

It's the broad public knowledge, or intuition, in America, that we are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically. And if you don't do that, you'll lose it all.

We used to do it. We loved our country with full-throated love, we had no ambivalence. We had pride and appreciation. We were a free country. We communicated our pride and delight in this in a million ways--in our schools, our movies, our popular songs, our newspapers. It was just there, in the air. Immigrants breathed it in. That's how the last great wave of immigrants, the European wave of 1880-1920, was turned into a great wave of Americans.

Read all of it, friends. It's not all the immigrants' fault they haven't bought into the American concept. We who already live here have muddied the concept.

UPDATE: Virginia Centrist illustrates perfectly the difficulty in even discussing this issue: By pointing to a problem, you can get painted as a bigot by anyone with sufficient creativity to parrot the liberal party line. Personally, I don't care. If you just read the above post I think it should be pretty clear where I stand and that I don't have any ethnocentric ax to grind. The problem as I see it is not racial at all: It is cultural. But if you still think I'm a bigot, go ahead and knock yourself out. I definitely am an unapologetic conservative, which in most liberal circles means about the same thing.

What is a real shame is people like those who comprise the Minutemen and Help Save Herndon, who definitely are NOT bigots, are roundly painted as such by the liberal crowd and their parrot brigades in the mainstream media.

While there is sufficient sentiment in America right now to crack down on illegal immigration, because of the fact the "racism" banner is going to be unfurled in every instance by the pro-illegal propagandists, I predict it won't be until 2008 that the public begins to see through the false charge and any politician is able to successfully run on that issue.

Thanks VC, for the opportunity to clarify my argument. (My direct response to VC is below the fold)

The Washington Post has an article discussing the ability of military chaplains to pray in Jesus's name during official events. This is part of a larger debate that has been going on for quite some time within the Christian community whether it is appropriate to end a prayer in the Lord's name in settings where non-Christians are involved especially if that involvement is involuntary. Personally, I believe that a chaplain of any faith should not have to sacrifice his religious practices in order to participate in an official prayer, and the command to pray in Jesus's is clearly laid out in the Bible. This is just another example of political correctness run amock.

Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance: Taxpayer Rally

Monday, April 3, 6:30—7:30 p.m. in front of the Fairfax County Government Center
Just before the Board of Supervisors 7:00 p.m. Budget Public Hearing
12000 Government Center Pkwy Fairfax VA 22035
(near Fair Oaks Mall)
Questions? Email rally@fcta.org or phone 703-642-5567

More info here.

The first review of Donkey Cons, a new book co-authored by Washington Times editor Robert Stacy McCain, is up over at that whacked-out 'Alpaca something or other' site.

Apparently the media blitz begins in a week. Despite the puckish title it sounds like Donkey Cons could be a pretty significant book. Undoubtedly it will be a significant media event at least for the requisite 15 minutes.

I've spoken with McCain before and he is a real piece of work: If you get the opportunity to see him on the usual round of cable news shows during the next couple weeks be sure to tune in - you won't be disappointed.

Over at the ODBA blog Sic Semper Tyrannis, Old Zach asks "What's wrong with NOVA"? Worth a read.

This past Friday Senator Allen met with Townhall.com columnist Eliot Peace after speaking at a fundraiser for a Congressional candidate in South Carolina. The full story can be found here, it is worth a read.

Although the premise of the article is that Allen is extremely similar to George Bush, it is refreshing to see he doesn’t share the President’s wishy-washy stance on illegal immigration:

Allen also touched on immigration. He replied, "First and foremost, we need to secure our borders. They have been neglected." He highlighted the need for more personnel, more fences (both real and virtual), and more detention centers. "I don’t think we should reward illegal behavior […] you must punish illegal behavior, or you’ll get more illegal behavior." He also replied, "I’m not for amnesty […] I’m for immigration, but it must be legal immigration."

Also noteworthy is the fact that Peace treated James Webb as the only challenger to Allen… completely ignoring Harris Miller:

Unfortunate for Allen’s presidential prospect tour, the senator has an opponent for re-election. James Webb, former Secretary of the Navy running as the opposing Democrat. However, with the right effort and the same message on which Allen has delivered for Virginia since being in Congress, he should emerge victorious. "We’ll keep doing what we’re doing. He [Webb] is very formidable, but if we work hard and keep doing what we’re doing, we should be fine."

I am looking forward to the race picking up- with Dick Wadhams as Allen’s campaign manager and strategist Chris LaCivita and former Bolling Political Director Matt Wells on board… it’s going to be a good fight and the conservative Senator will prove to be a healthy rallying point for a fractured Virginia GOP.

Via Michelle Malkin I saw this disgraceful photo. As described on Malkin’s site:

Whittier area students from Pioneer, California and Whittier high schools walked out of classes to protest the proposed federal immigration bill March 27, 2006. The protestors put up the Mexican flag over the American flag flying upside down at Montebello High. (Leo Jarzomb/Staff photo)

I wonder if this behavior is comparable to the behavior of the millions of legal immigrants (such as those in my own family) who came to America over the past 200+ years looking for a better life, willing to follow our laws and assimilate into the great melting pot of American society?

Malkin has more great commentary on the impertinent behavior of illegal immigration advocates. I presume it would be expecting too much for those willing to disrespect the immigration laws of the United States to respect its symbols and ideals.

After a long evening of bare-knuckled, confrontational grassroots activism, I'm usually ready for a nice, tall Bosco with some Animal Crackers.

WHO: Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and an auditorium full of mostly Democratic supporters.

WHAT: "Town Hall meeting" to discuss the Governor's plan to raise taxes for transportation projects throughout the state.

WHEN: Tonight, about 3 hours ago.

WHERE: Sterling, Virginia.

WHY: To preach to the choir and the media about the need to impose new taxes.

If you weren't on the Democratic guest list, you probably did not know the event was taking place. Luckily for us, our local "Orange Revolution" himself - Eugene Delgaudio - and Jim Parmelee of Republicans United for Tax Relief, got word out to a bunch of us rabble and we descended with green signs a' blazin'.

Governor Kaine, to be honest, did a REALLY good job presenting his case. Emphasis on the "presenting" more than the "case." The man has a bright political future on the national scene. I see a lot of public speakers in my regular life, and Tim Kaine is right up there. Personable and erudite, he speaks without notes (in complete sentences, no less), and he employs just the right combination of "college professor" and "motivational speaker" to really shine in the town hall format.

All that being said, the content of the Governor's talk wasn't such a clearly cut "rah rah" message.

Here's the Kaine Transportation Plan [below the fold]:

According to the AP, Senator John McCain seems committed to improving his standing among religious conservatives in his bid for the Republican nomination in 2008. The article, for being so short, is very well done and reflects the skepticism that remains over whether the senator from Arizona is truly committed to the pro-life cause, but we can at least give Senator McCain credit for realizing that until Roe v. Wade is overturned, the Republican nomination will be denied to any pro-choice candidate. I wish I had a ticket to that speech.

Just received the following tragic news. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this difficult time.

Governor Kaine's Statement on the Death of Delegate Harry J. Parrish

Today, Governor Timothy M. Kaine made the following statement:

"Anne and I are deeply saddened by the death of Delegate Harry Parrish of Manassas. In January 2001, I started attending a Tuesday morning Bible study that is held during the General Assembly session. Harry was a regular attendee at those Bible studies, and during that time I came to know him as a dear person and a dear friend. In his public and his private life, Harry was always courtly and civil and committed to service. His composure and dignity combined with his commitment to working in a bipartisan manner for the future of the Commonwealth made him a true Virginia gentleman. We will miss him."

Check out this story.

Obviously it’ll never get this bad in the Commonwealth… but with the General Assembly’s failure to pass true Eminent Domain legislation in a post Kelo world, this should help remind us of our newfound connection with the Chinese Communists.

Here is an excerpt:

Without an independent court system and unschooled in the ways of bureaucracy, the farmers fend for themselves against frequently corrupt local Communist Party officials with broad authority and powerful economic incentive to confiscate farmland to sell to developers.

It's pathetic that Senator Cuccinelli and Delegate Joannou were so alone when fighting to protect our property rights.

As we all recall U.S. Senator John Warner backed Governor Warner’s unprecedented 2004 tax hike that was presented under the false pretense of a budget crisis (with a huge surplus announced only days after the tax hike was passed). Now it appears, via this Washington Post article, that Senator Warner is again supporting a liberal Governor’s tax hike proposal.

Warner, the state's senior Republican senator, praised Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for proposing a $1 billion tax increase and challenged members of his party in the legislature to reach a compromise that allows Virginia to receive the maximum amount in federal matching funds.

"It is really up to our distinguished speaker of the House and the majority leader in the Senate and others to sit down and show a measure of political courage to resolve it," Warner told reporters after a meeting with Kaine and other members of Virginia's congressional delegation. "The people of Virginia deserve no less."

Does “political courage” equal yet again unnecessarily raising taxes on Virginia’s families when there is already a huge pot of money in the government’s coffers? I think not. While it is meritorious to urge Virginia to maximize federal assistance, both the tax hike plan and the fiscally conservative House plan would invest significantly more dollars into transportation to secure the federal money.

I love House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith’s analogy when discussing the liberal Senate’s budget strategy:

Griffith likened the Senate's strategy to that of hostage-takers. He said senators are using the state budget as leverage to get higher taxes approved in the House.

"Until the Senate recognizes that the building is surrounded," the stalemate will not be resolved, Griffith said. "Negotiations are not going to continue until the hostages are freed. Then we can talk."

Virginia traditionally passes a budget based on existing revenue streams and considers tax hikes as a separate issue. It looks like the House finally has the “political courage” to stand up for Virginia’s families.

DC metro-area residents received an interesting statistical tidbit Saturday morning upon reading this front page story in the Washington Post:

Area Soon to Be Mostly Minority
Shift in 4-8 Years Will Reshape Politics, Priorities, Experts Say

...Among residents younger than 40, minorities already outnumber whites, and experts say the trends that have driven up those numbers are certain to continue...

On the face of it, this is hardly news and not of great significance for most of us. "Minority" is a relative term. You'd have to have been living in a cave not to know the ethnic makeup has been changing for 30 years in this area and it's a great place to live.

But among the "trends" most prominent in Northern Virginia, at least, is the continuing influx of illegal immigrants. As is the case in many of our cities, I think illegal residents have managed to stay below the average citizen's radar. But that stealth-manner is changing, and this is the subject of today's dispatch from Euphoric Reality.

__________________________________________

This past week there were numerous demonstrations across the country, as immigrants were organized to protest any federal legislation that would tighten immigration enforcement. The rallies were organized by unions, church groups, socialist activists, civil rights advocates, and immigrant organizations to demand free immigration rights as their due and protest the "unjust laws" of our nation.

Los Angeles had the nation's largest mobilization of immigrants ever, which the LA Times described as "boisterous" and "spirited" and "mostly peaceful": "The marchers included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life and a love for this county." ("Newly arrived" being a politically-correct euphemism for "illegal".) The estimated crowd of 500,000 proudly carried tens of thousands of Mexican flags, which belied the blissful claim that they are "bound by a love for this country".

"There has never been this kind of mobilization in the immigrant community ever," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "They have kicked the sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights struggle."

In Georgia, many Latinos protested a newly passed bill aimed at curbing illegal immigration by not working or shopping for the day. Guess what? The state's economy didn't collapse! A small American rally in Temecula, CA, focused on border security and law enforcement. We also saw peaceably demonstrating American citizens attacked by an unruly crowd of pro-illegal immigration and socialist protesters in Indiana.

Photo by Freedom Folks

This week, our Senate continues the debate on illegal immigration, with an upcoming vote on the McCain-Kennedy Amnesty bill. And, pressing for his "guest worker" program, our President repeats the tired (and untrue) refrain that our country needs these workers to do what Americans won't:

"We must remember there are hardworking individuals, doing the jobs that Americans will not do, who are contributing the economic vitality of our country," the president said in his weekend radio address.

However, the Minuteman Party has responded:

No longer content to sit on the sidelines while politicians sell out our sovereignty and turn our citizenship into a yoke of slavery in the service of foreign interests, we are fighting that government "of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth".

[More, below the fold]

As usual, the Times-Dispatch, like other papers, has a biased article on abortion that has the pro-life position represented by an interest group member on one side and the pro-abortion viewpoint represented by a woman who had to make an agonizing choice about having an abortion. What's more the type of abortion that the mother had is of the type that is in the vast minority of cases--to save the life of the mother.

The pro-life movement has many women who have had abortions and then realized afterwards that they had murdered their child and now fight to educate others about their mistake. A fair discussion would have excluded the irrelevant personal information or included a disclaimer stating that the abortion that the woman had would not be illegal under the South Dakota statute or before Roe v. Wade. As a child whose mother was told that she should have an abortion because of her age, I also have some personal experience with abortion but that doesn't make me more qualified to speak about it than anyone else.

Shaun Kenney is hosting this week's Virginia Blog Carnival. NOVA Town Hall is excited to make our first appearance!

For those unfamiliar, here is the description of the Carnival:

Each Monday, a Virginia blogger will host a Virginia Blog Carnival, offering just a sample of the topics Virginia bloggers have been writing about during the week. We hope everyone’s curiosity will be piqued to read more of the selected posts, thereby giving more exposure to each participating blogger’s site.

Check it out!

Jennifer Morse has a good article today on marriage and the black community. It is yet another reminder that supporting and fostering marriage is a crucial task and should be an urgent public policy priority. Morse builds on the correlation between marriage and economic success (highlighted in my previous post on the “marriage gap”) by looking specifically at the impact of the decline of marriage in the black community. Here are some good chunks from the article:

Marriage is a protective factor against social pathologies. Marriage generates and preserves wealth, unlike other family forms which dissipate wealth. A recent publication by the Boston-based Seymour Institute, "God’s Gift: A Christian Vision of Marriage and the Black Family", spells out the case for marriage as the most important next step for the future of black America. The report cites the fact that married families in the black community have twice as much income as unmarried black families…

…Elite opinion that celebrates diverse family forms is actively destructive of social justice. Our culture glamorizes early sexual activity, unmarried sexual activity, and unmarried childbearing. But these cultural influences have very different implications for poorly educated, low-income women of color, than for the elite opinion-makers who graduate from exclusive universities.

The Virginia Club for Growth (not always the most politically suave organization- the horrendous 2005 anti-Kilgore mailer ultimately used to help Kaine comes to mind) has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Virginia revenue data for 2005 and 2006. This is a smart move to help the principled members of the House of Delegates further illustrate the absurdity of enacting a massive tax hike when there is a $1.4 billion surplus. Here’s a great quote from the organization's press release announcing the FOIA request:

“We have learned from history that we cannot trust the statements coming from the governor’s office involving revenue projections, particularly at a time of a state budget impasse,” said Phil Rodokanakis, the President of the Virginia Club for Growth. “There is little doubt now that in 2004 Gov. Warner’s administration intentionally underreported state revenues in order to blackmail the House of Delegates into enacting the largest tax increase in the history of our state.”

The full VCG press release is below the fold.

Reading this article over at the Times-Dispatch website, I think we get a preview of one tactic that the Dems and Senate Republicans will be using to push for a compromise (read "tax hike") that the House Republicans are costing the taxpayers money by refusing to agree to their budget. The Senate would probably defend their holding out along the lines of "You gotta spend money to make money."

Our preacher many years ago told me, "Redemption is possible for anyone, even though he be a Democrat."

To that end, since I have yet to weigh in about him at all, I am building a positive foundation for working with our new Governor.

And I must say, watching Governor Tim Kaine pose for approximately 200 photos after his speech last night, while his dinner sat cooling on the table, and then making time for one more with yours truly before he sat down, has reminded me to never write off my fellow man.

(Jeez, especially when he looks like he's about ten years younger than this old geezer. Plenty of time for him to see the light.)

We chatted for a few minutes. I was going to ask, "Governor Kaine, can you explain to me why we have a $1.4 billion surplus in Virginia and everybody is talking like there will be a humanitarian catastrophe if we don't increase taxes?" But in this situation, I just wanted to let him sit down next to his wife and eat his food.

Simply amazing.

Bill Wheaton, conservative activist and columnist for the Lynchburg Ledger has an article published today that blasts the General Assembly for a lackluster session. He particularly lays into moderate/liberal Republicans (he describes them as RINOs).

He does shed some light on one of the most ridiculous tactics of Governor Kaine and the Democrats and moderate/liberal Republicans:

They will initially propose spending an inflated amount on a budget line item, and when anyone suggests appropriating less, they call it a budget cut.

The response is predictable. Special interest groups who don’t get everything they want, start hollering that their budget has been cut, when in reality, their budget had increased, but not as much as they hoped.

Wheaton concludes his article with a call for conservative Republicans to challenge GOP liberals who have been colluding with Kaine and the Democrats at the expense of the Republican agenda.

The problem lies mainly in the Virginia Senate with just a handful of RINO senators. Charles Hawkins who represents portions of Campbell County is one of them, along with Russ Potts from Winchester, John Chichester from Spotsylvania, and Frederick Quayle of Chesapeake.

Real (conservative) Republicans need to start now in raising up primary opposition for 2007.

The full story is below the fold.

While I have to say I am (pleasantly) surprised... I see that Vince over at the recently purged Too Conservative blog has a post defending Senator Cuccinelli from the typical mindless liberal attacks. Good to see!

Liberal Democrats and Liberal Republicans like to attack conservative Republicans who are willing to stand up for the unborn as if they are fringe lunatics supporting a ridiculous cause. These same folks often accuse conservative pro-life Republicans of being a liability on Election Day.

Well, Zogby has a comprehensive new poll out that examines Americans’ views on the issue of abortion and it demonstrates that pro-lifers aren’t some fringe extreme, rather they make up a sizable demographic and support for pro-life legislation is extremely broad.

As this Life News article states, there is broad support for the pro-life cause:

The poll fund that Americans take a pro-life position on more than a dozen pro-life legislative proposals.

* Some 69 percent agree with prohibiting federal taxpayer funds from being used to pay for abortions while only 21 percent disagree.

* When asked differently, 51 percent oppose federal or state funding of abortions for poor women while 37 percent support it.

* Americans support parental notification abortion by a 69-23 percent margin for girls 16 or younger and by a 55-36 percent margin for girls 18 and younger.

* 56 percent of Americans want a 24-hour waiting period on abortion while 37 percent do not.

* Laws that charge criminals with two crimes when they assault a pregnant women and kill or injure her unborn child are favored by 64 percent of Americans and only 23 percent disagree with them.

* President Bush's Mexico City Policy prohibiting federal funding of groups that perform or promote abortions in other nations enjoys the support of 69 percent of Americans while only 21 percent oppose the law.

* 86% of those polled oppose sex-selection abortions and say they should be illegal while just 10 percent say they should be legal.

* Some 56 percent of Americans disagree with requiring health insurance plans to cover abortions other than those necessary to save the life of the mother and only 12 percent want insurance plans to be forced to pay for abortions.

* Requiring women considering an abortion to undergo pregnancy counseling beforehand is favored by 55 percent of those polled while 37 percent oppose such a requirement.

Below the fold is some good content from a recent VCAP email. Also worth noting is the fact that VCAP now has a blog on their website, albeit with only one post.

The Townhall.com editors (our loosely-affiliated parent site) have a article up on the challenges facing Congressional Republicans as they strive to achieve success on issues important to the conservative base prior to the 2006 elections. It is worth a read. Here is an excerpt:

We are now in an election year.

As such, there is a tension between GOP leadership's growing realization that the Republican conservative base demands action on conservative issues and the fact that the more moderate faction of the Party, many of whom are up for re-election, cannot stomach any action that requires tough votes…

…To this observer the answer is easy. Vote. Vote on everything you can that conservatives care about. You will win some and perhaps lose more, but at least you will demonstrate a clear awareness of the desire of your base instead of what has been viewed by many as the tin ear of the recent past.

Also on Townhall.com there is an article by Patrick Hynes titled Converting the humble, the meek, and the Dems. He discusses the Democrats’ recent posturing to pick up votes from evangelical Christians, continuing the commentary from Amy Sullivan’s Washington Monthly article that reported that “a growing number of evangelicals see the Republicans as ignoring their values and find the Democrats eager to welcome them in.”

While Hynes is basically optimistic that the Democrats will never be able to provide a serious alternative for evangelical Christians, he comments on the growing disillusionment with the GOP and its failures to deliver for conservatives (this is obviously related to the first article, discussed above). He says:

Democrats can take heart in some of the FRC [Family Research Council] data. It seems clear that evangelical Christians are deeply frustrated with the GOP’s lack of follow-through on the issues of their greatest concern. 63% of evangelical Christians believe that "the Republican majority in Congress has not done enough to keep its promises to voters to act on these proposals."

In our base-against-base political environment, Republicans presently enjoy an advantage because: 1) The GOP base is larger than the Democratic base; 2) The GOP base is growing while the Democratic base is shrinking; and 3) The GOP base is dispersed throughout the states and congressional districts in a manner more advantageous to winning congressional majorities.

But if the GOP’s conservative Christian base is disaffected and unhappy with Republican candidates, who will stuff the envelopes come election time? Who will pound the yard signs? Man the phone banks? Hand out literature? Register new voters? Bus people to the polls?

The neo-cons? The free-market types? The "Main Street" Republicans? I don’t think so.

Maybe this gives broader context to help understand the Virginia Republican failures in 2005…

As many may have already heard, a mini civil war seems to have occurred at the Too Conservative blog. It appears Vince suddenly cut off his fellow contributors and potentially claimed credit for their prior posts under his blog identity. One can speculate that this sudden move was a result of other contributors exhibiting their own viewpoints and failing to march lock-step with Vince’s tabloid style attacks on conservatives (the recent Frederick/Lingamfelter hatchet-job comes to mind). Regardless, the suddenly homeless former contributors used the original blogger website to demonstrate their displeasure at their authoritarian removal and hinted that if Vince continued to pressure them (to get them to vanish from the blogger site as well) they would (according to our limited understanding of the situation) reveal IP address information demonstrating that Vince has also been posting anonymously under various pseudonyms to further his own agenda.

One has to immediately note the irony in the fact that the apparent creator of the “Group B” classification (used to label and attack undesirable conservatives who oppose the moderate/liberal GOP agenda under the auspices that they only care about power and control) has himself swiftly cut out the diverse commentators/members on the TC site and has been potentially using unethical means (posting under various anonymous pseudonyms to make it appear as if they are multiple people) to gain further influence and control.

Whatever the real reason for this split I for one am sad to see the best commentators vanish from the Too Conservative blog… particularly Jay and Riley who always had interesting and substantive posts (I always wanted to learn more about Slugging!) and helped to unite rather than divide Republicans. However hope is not lost as the vanquished commentators have started their own blog, Virginia Virtucon. I look forward to reading it and hope they can soon become members of the ODBA.

Other ODBA bloggers comment on the debacle: Chad comments here, and James Young has even more here.

UPDATE: It appears, via comments on TC, that Vince also purged comments from his blog. Some are arguing that this was to remove comments critical of TC's favorite politicians or his posts. Sounds like they really believe in a "Big Tent" Republican Party over there!

The current issue of the Weekly Standard has a phenomenal article by Allan Carlson titled Indentured Families: Social conservatives and the GOP: Can this marriage be saved. It provides a comprehensive overview of the "pro-family" cause from its temporary political home in the GOP under Teddy Roosevelt and then with the Democrats from 1912-1964. Carlson describes the most recent realignment when the family voters shifted back to the Republican Party:

The broad transformation continued with the rise of the "pro-family movement" during the 1970s, behind early leaders such as Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Weyrich. It ended in 1980 with the solid movement of northern Catholics and southern evangelicals into the Republican party, and the counter-movement of feminists and the new sexual revolutionaries into the Democratic fold. Ronald Reagan, a proud four-time voter for Franklin D. Roosevelt and a lifelong admirer of the New Deal, explained his 1980 victory to a group of Catholic voters this way:

"The secret is that when the left took over the Democratic party we [former Democrats] took over the Republican party. We made the Republican party into the party of the working people, the family, the neighborhood, the defense of freedom. And yes, the American Flag and the Pledge of Allegiance to One Nation Under God. So, you see, the party that so many of us grew up with still exists except that today it's called the Republican party."

Carlson believes that this marriage of pro-family forces and the pro-business GOP, consummated under Reagan's watch, is in serious trouble. Social Conservatives were the key to the GOP's success in the last 25 years but the relationship seems to be moving closer and closer to the point of declaring irreconcilable differences.

Moreover, when push comes to shove, social conservatives remain second class citizens under the Republican tent. During the 2004 Republican convention, they were virtually confined to the party's attic, kept off the main stage, treated like slightly lunatic children. Republican lobbyist Michael Scanlon's infamous candid comment--"The wackos get their information [from] the Christian right [and] Christian radio"--suggests a common opinion among the dominant "K Street" Republicans toward their coalition allies.

In Virginia members of the pro-family GOP are increasingly subject to ridicule and attack from moderates/liberals who have little interest in advancing the cause of the family. The 2005 election results may have been a warning sign that social conservatives aren't going to tolerate being ignored or insulted any longer. A winning strategy is the commonsense pro-family strategy of hope and values pioneered by Reagan, and the GOP would be ill advised to discard it from the meaningless mush often presented as an alternative. As Carlson points out:

Contemporary Republican leaders need to do better--much better--toward social conservatives. They must creatively address pressing new family issues centered on debt burden. And they must learn to say "no" sometimes to Wall Street, lest they squander the revolutionary political legacy of Ronald Reagan.

Also via the TMG I found this fantastic article on marriage, family, and society written by Kay Hymowitz and published in the City Journal. It is absolutely outstanding and while it doesn't address the issue of protecting organic/natural marriage of one man and one woman from a radical redefinition that would deny a child a mother and a father, it does make it crystal clear that this "social issue" has a profound effect on government and society. Protecting and supporting the institution of marriage should not be ridiculed as some frivolous priority. Hymowitz strengthens our understanding of why marriage is such a critical issue.

Here is a good glimpse at what you'' find in the article:

When Americans announced that marriage before childbearing was optional, low-income women didn’t merely lose a steadfast partner, a second income, or a trusted babysitter, as the strength-in-numbers theory would have it. They lost a traditional arrangement that reinforced precisely the qualities that they-and their men; let’s not forget the men!—needed for upward mobility, qualities all the more important in a tough new knowledge economy. The timing could hardly have been worse. At a time when education was becoming crucial to middle-class status, the disadvantaged lost a reliable life script, a way of organizing their early lives that would prize education and culminate in childbearing only after job training and marriage. They lost one of their few institutional supports for planning ahead and taking control of their lives.

Worst of all, when Americans made marriage optional, low-income women lost a culture that told them the truth about what was best for their children.

I have to give it to Speaker Howell for trying to outflank the Senate and the Governor by having a press conference with environmental leaders who oppose the tax hike, as reported by the AP on the Times-Dispatch website.

Howell said the Senate wants to curtail a complex program that saw farm or woodland property put off-limits to development last year in return for tax credits. Those income tax credits are worth about $130 million over several years to the owners of the land.

It's good to see the House finally get out in front of the tax increase issue with this press conference and the ad buy of the unnamed conservative group mentioned in the article. Perhaps the House learned from its media drubbing last time and will be able to frame the issue rather than allow the Governor and Senate to turn them into whipping boys again.

However, the Senate, with a couple of well-known exceptions, is a monolithic body, controlled by Senator Chichester, and will be unlikely to blink in this shoedown any time soon. The tax increase passed that body with an extremely wide margin, and the House is going to have to be prepared to sit in special session for a while if it has any chance of keeping a tax increase from passing.

Via the TMG we learn of the following anti-tax hike resolution from a GOP Committee. Would any Northern Virginia committee be interested in taking a stand on principle opposing the Kaine-Chichester plan to continue to feed the growing government behemoth? I'd hope so... UPDATED: The Lancaster committee passed a similar resolution in February, it is below the fold.

ROANOKE COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY RESOLUTION Passed on March 20, 2006

Whereas, the General Assembly raised our taxes during the previous session, and

Whereas, the General Assembly is considering another tax increase, in the face of a budget surplus of $1.4 billion or more, and

Whereas, some Republican members of the Virginia Senate and Virginia House of Delegates are actually supporting Gov. Kaine's call for higher taxes,

Be it therefore resolved that the Roanoke County Republican Party STRONGLY OPPOSES further tax and fee increases of any kind and asks our elected Representatives to vote NO on tax and fee increases, and this request will be communicated in writing to each of them, prior to the late March budget special session.

Al Thomason
Chairman
Roanoke County Republican Party

The Rothenberg Political Report now says that George Allen is no longer the front runner for the GOP nomination in 2008. I don't believe anyone can know what the nomination landscape will look like a year from now (as Rothenberg clearly didn't a year ago per his own argument) so this is all somewhat entertaining speculation- nothing more. First we get to see Allen chew up the winner of the VA Democrats' "Who Wants to Lose to George Allen" primary.

Here is the crux of Rothenrberg's rational for lowing Allen from frontrunner status:

...the Virginia Senator’s White House prospects have been steadily eroding since my first column on this topic one year ago. The reason: President Bush’s reputation has nosedived.

Allen is perfectly positioned as heir to the Ronald Reagan-George W. Bush legacy. The only problem is that the legacy doesn’t look nearly as valuable now as it did as recently as a year ago — even within the GOP.

In a letter to Governor Kaine, Lieutenant Governor Bolling wrote:

"There is no issue more important to the Commonwealth, our citizens and our business community than developing a comprehensive statewide energy plan. We must begin the process of reducing our dependence on foreign oil, expanding the use of alternative energy sources and looking for ways to conserve energy. SB262 attempts to accomplish these important goals in a responsible manner that has been thoroughly reviewed and considered by the General Assembly."

The bill, sponsored by Senator Wagner (R-Virginia Beach), has come under fire from extreme environmental groups, like the Sierra Club, for including the potential for off-shore drilling. Bolling went on to state that the legislation "includes many other provisions that are important to the development of a comprehensive statewide energy plan that have absolutely nothing to do with off shore drilling. The Sierra Club's simplistic approach totally ignores these other important provisions of the legislation." The Sierra Club seems to be using off-shore drilling as a red herring in an attempt to sink the bill via veto.

The President declared in his most recent State of the Union that Americans must end their addiction to foreign oil, and the Virginia legislature has put forward a plan that will move our Commonwealth toward this goal. Environmental groups should be jumping at the opportunity to work with the Republican Party to find a real solution to our energy crisis, but their leaders seem to be more concerned with playing politics. Governor Kaine, who are you listening to?

On Monday, a Family Foundation email reported that a Virginia circuit court judge had ruled that civil unions performed in Vermont would not be recognized in Virginia under the Commonwealth's Marriage Affirmation Act, which bars officials from recognizing civil unions performed in other states. Lisa Miller, a former lesbian, attempted to prevent her estranged partner from gaining custody of Miller's biological child, born through artificial insemination. The partner based her claim on the fact that the two had shared parental rights under their Vermont civil union. The case, named Miller v. Jenkins, has been appealed to the Court of Appeals here in Virginia; and a simultaneous appeal is pending in Vermont.

This is a huge victory for Phil Griffin who is one of the lead attorneys on the case. You may know Phil as husband of Kate Obenshain Griffin (chair of the VA GOP) and former candidate for the seat held by Russ Potts. Let's just hope his Vermont colleagues are as on the ball as he is, but knowing courts in Vermont, it probably does not matter. If the Virginia Court of Appeals upholds the lower court ruling, our best shot is that either the Supreme Court will reject the eventual appeal, which would leave the conflicting rulings in place, or that the conservative block can talk Justice Kennedy into buying their view on the subject.

As Human Events noted in last week's issue, most of the GOP senators need a kick in the butt on the question of proposed amnesty for illegal workers.

The Human Events chart is a GREAT tool, with phone numbers and e-mail addresses. The following Guard the Borders message has the link to fax contact information.

USE THEM ALL - THIS IS A CRITICAL TIME TO HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE RESOLUTION OF THIS ISSUE.

Amnesty = increasing illegal immigration. You can take that to the bank.

Act now!

__________________________________________ CALL TO ACTION!

On Thursday, March 16, the Senate Judiciary Committee told their staff to meet behind closed doors to construct an immigration bill that would include provisions from the Kennedy-McCain bill. Known as S. 1033, the McCain-Kennedy bill includes an amnesty for illegal aliens, a massive "guest" worker program that leads to citizenship, and an estimated one million additional permanent immigrants each year.

Millions of illegals to become citizens?
Kennedy-McCain immigration reform bill likely to pass Senate committee after recess

A bill that would give millions of illegal aliens in the United States the opportunity to earn citizenship is closer to becoming law today as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signaled likely passage of a proposal by Sens. Edward Kenney, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz.

Though a committee vote will not be held until after a week-long congressional recess, likely March 27, committee members appeared ready to back the Kennedy-McCain bill.

"The votes are there," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

Congress is working to pass a reform bill that includes enforcement, a policy on dealing with illegals already in the country and a guest-worker program pushed by President Bush.

Under the legislation, illegal aliens in the United States would obtain six-year nonimmigrant visas under which they could work in the country and travel outside the country. The aliens would have to pay a $1,000 fine and undergo background checks.

After six years, the aliens would be able to meet certain requirements and then apply for a green card, or permanent residency.

Besides voting on the bill after the recess, committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said the panel also would vote on a bill by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., that would give illegal aliens up to five years to leave the U.S. After returning home, they could then apply to return, either as temporary workers or for permanent residency.

"Our intention is not to strand anyone outside the country," Kyl said, according to an AP report. But he asserted the McCain-Kenn