Virginia political leaders react to news of Osama bin Laden’s death
May 2, 2011 3:19 AM MST
President Barack Obama’s late-night confirmation of the death of Osama bin Laden – an announcement that had been preceded by hours of speculation on Twitter – led naturally to reactions by political leaders across the country, including those in Virginia.
Congress
U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA7) said that the “men and women of our armed forces and intelligence community have fought valiantly for the last decade and this is a major victory and testament to their dedication. I commend President Obama who has followed the vigilance of President Bush in bringing Bin Laden to justice. While this is no doubt a major event in our battle against terrorism, we will not relent in our fight against terror and our efforts to keep America safe and secure.”
In a news release distributed by his office, U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA6) said:
“The brave men and women of our military work hard day in and day out to preserve our security and deserve our gratitude for accomplishing this dangerous mission. Without their dedication to the mission and their resolve to track Osama Bin Laden, tonight’s announcement would not have been possible.”
Freshman Representative Scott Rigell (R-VA2) tweeted:
“Hearing now that Navy SEALS led the operation. So incredibly proud of them. True warriors in defense of freedom.”
Candidates
Three Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated after the 2012 election by Democrat Jim Webb also had reactions.
Former Governor and Senator George F. Allen released a statement that said, in part:
“The death of Osama Bin Laden is important symbolically and strategically, but it is not the end of the war on terror. Radical terrorism is larger than any one person or one group. America and her allies are still the target of the enemies of freedom, and we must remain vigilant in our fight.”
Jamie Radtke, another candidate for the 2012 GOP nomination, said on her campaign web site:
“Our war against militant Islamic terrorism is not over. Prudence suggests that we face greater risks in the near-term, as al-Qaeda attempts to show that bin Laden’s demise does not end their war against America and the world. It is my prayer, however, that Osama bin Laden’s death will be a turning point in the war in Afghanistan.”
Northern Virginia businessman Timothy Donner, the most recent entrant into the Republican Senate race, said on Twitter:
“We are grateful and proud to our brave military for making this moment possible” and “while this death stirs memories of the unspeakable horror of 9/11, this represents the triumph of American will.”
Party Leaders
Pat Mullins, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, said in a statement distributed via email to journalists:
"This is a tremendous day, not only for the Commonwealth of Virginia, but for our entire country. The man who plotted the murder of hundreds of innocents on Virginia soil and thousands elsewhere has finally been brought to justice.”
Former Governor L. Douglas Wilder (D-Richmond) first tweeted “Looks like we got him,” followed by “Americans owe a great debt of gratitude to our men & women in the U.S. military and in the intelligence community.”
As this goes to press, other members of the Virginia congressional delegation, other announced candidates for the U.S. Senate, and other state party chairmen had not responded to the news of bin Laden’s demise.
Publisher's note:This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 2, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.
Virginia Senate candidates remember Ronald Reagan on his 100th birthday
February 6, 2011 9:45 AM MST
The 2012 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Virginia is still a year away, but potential nominees from both the Democratic and Republican parties are taking advantage of the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Ronald Reagan to associate themselves with the conservative icon.
Jim Webb
Incumbent Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat who has not yet announced whether he will seek re-election, served as Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. According to the Washington Post, he sent a letter to Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, encouraging the state’s chief executive to honor the Reagan centennial.
"More than twenty years ago, President Reagan inspired this nation after a period of extraordinary turmoil and self-doubt," Rosalind Helderman quotes Webb as saying. "I believe it is entirely fitting that we reexamine his legacy today as our nation faces serious challenges at home and abroad."
On Friday, McDonnell issued a proclamation designating February 6 as “Ronald Reagan Day” in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
George Allen
Webb’s 2006 opponent, former Governor and Senator George Allen, who recently announced his intention to take back his old seat, sent an email to supporters with his own reminiscences of Reagan.
Allen notes that he first met Reagan when the latter was governor of California and that he had served as chairman of Young Virginians for Reagan during the nomination campaign of 1976.
Allen goes on to say that Reagan “knew that to unleash America's potential, people must be unburdened by government interference, unrestricted by onerous taxes and obstacles to innovation and creativity, and unobstructed by incentive-sapping laws and regulation. By using Ronald Reagan's faith in foundational principles we can confront the challenges we face in our nation, state and local communities and again unleash the unique potential of the American Dream.”
Jamie Radtke
Allen’s only announced rival for the 2012 GOP Senate nomination, former Tea Party leader Jamie Radtke, also released a statement on the occasion of Reagan’s 100th birthday.
“Just as President Reagan kept alive the ideals of the Founders,” Radtke says, “the modern-day Tea Party movement has revived the ideals of Ronald Wilson Reagan, even as the political party he led wandered from those principles, with disastrous results.”
Taking credit for a return to Reagan’s values, Radtke goes on to say that “the Tea Party movement, of which I have been a proud member, has driven a resurgence of the Republican Party in Washington centered around Ronald Reagan's principles of smaller, Constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, free markets and virtue and accountability.”
There have been reports that other candidates who may enter the 2012 Senate race in Virginia include Delegate Bob Marshall (R-Manassas) and Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors.
Publisher's note:This article was originally published on Examiner.com on February 6, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.
Publisher's note:This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 4, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. With the impending nomination of Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) as the vice presidential running mate of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.
Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine ponders appeal to third-party voters
Although former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine was scheduled to address the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte on Tuesday, where he pointed out that “a few years ago, few imagined that Virginia would be a battleground state,” on Monday he was at Buena Vista's Labor Day celebration, campaigning for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Democrat Jim Webb.
Because Virginia has gone “from red to purple,” as Kaine put it in his convention speech, polls show the state’s presidential contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is neck-and-neck, and the Senate contest between Kaine and former Senator George Allen is tracking very close to that, a dead heat.
On September 4, the State Board of Elections confirmed that there will be three third-party presidential candidates on the ballot in Virginia, in addition to Obama and Romney: Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode, Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein.
‘Same questions’
Given that some voters will cast their ballots for neither Obama nor Romney on November 6 but rather for one of those three independent candidates, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner asked Governor Kaine in Buena Vista how he would appeal to those third-party voters to garner their support for his Senate bid.
Tim Kaine
“I bet they have the same questions that other Virginians do,” Kaine replied. Those voters want to know “how to fix the economy, how to balance the budget, how to find common ground.”
Kaine said that he has “a better plan than my opponent in all three of those areas, so I’m making my case to them based on the record but also based on what we need to do on the national level.”
A lot of third party voters, he added, “are interested in the spending issues. I’m the only governor of Virginia who left office with a smaller general fund budget than when I started.”
Kaine explained that that situation may have been due to the fact that he was governor during the onset of a severe recession, but even so, he added, “I had to make a lot of painful cuts.”
Making those kinds of cuts, he pointed out, is something that “very few people in the Senate have had to do.”
George Allen, he said, “didn’t have to do it when he was in the Senate -- but I know how to do it.”
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Presidential hopeful Gary Johnson on health care, marriage, and Colbert
Because of the demise of the Examiner.com publishing platform, the original URL for this article is no longer available.
Publisher's note:This article was originally published on Examiner.com on July 3, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. With the impending nomination of Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) as the vice presidential running mate of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original. Tim Kaine argues for balancing individual liberties, communal responsibilities
Former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, who is also the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is currently a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Senator Jim Webb.
On July 2, Kaine came to Crozet, in western Albemarle County, to celebrate Independence Day two days early: marching in a parade and speaking at a festival at Claudius Crozet Park sponsored by the local volunteer fire department. Kaine’s likely Republican opponent in the 2012 election, former Governor and Senator George Allen, was also present, and the two men described each other as “competitors and friends.”
Just before the formal program began, Kaine spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about current issues, including the impending congressional vote on raising the national debt ceiling, and what he hopes to bring from Virginia to the national stage.
Debt ceiling limit
“My assessment of the situation” with regard to the debt ceiling vote, Kaine said, “is I can’t believe they let it get as close as they have. You shouldn’t be playing brinksmanship with things like threatened government shutdowns or threatened default on debt payments.”
Even so, he added, “we’ve got to find a resolution. I think the resolution is one where we increase the debt ceiling limitation but in exchange we have to do a combination of significant cuts [and] finding more revenues.”
To get more revenues, he explained, will require “closing loopholes on certain businesses and individuals that don’t need them.”
That should be followed by making “more investments in transportation and education to grow the economy. That’s the best anti-deficit strategy of all.”
Getting libertarian votes
Asked how he would appeal to libertarian-minded voters in the coming election campaign, Kaine said that he would talk about his record.
“I am very much a supporter of individual liberties,” he explained, adding that “yet we’re in this mixture, where we have individual liberties -- and that’s the great thing about our country -- but we also have communal responsibilities. Just trying to find that right balance is important.”
Kaine noted that “we do pretty well on that in Virginia. My basic campaign message is, ‘America has challenges, Virginia has answers,’ so I’ll be talking about the way we do it here in Virginia.” From Virginia to D.C.
The former governor gave three specific ways that he plans to take lessons learned in Virginia to the national level.
George Allen and Tim Kaine, July 2, 2011
First, with regard to the “challenged economy,” he said, the way Virginia “went from low income to high income [was] by going from low education to high education. Education innovation is the best economic development and jobs strategy.”
The second lesson is “fiscal responsibility,” he said, explaining that “I had to make more cuts than anybody who’s ever been governor -- but there’s a right way and wrong way to do it. No across-the-boards, don’t shred the safety net, and don’t do the kind of gimmicks like default on the debt payment stuff. Just make hard decisions.”
The third thing he offered is that, in Virginia, “we have some balance and civility. We still listen to each other instead of just trying to out talk each other, and that’s what I want to take” to Washington.
Kaine may still face a primary challenge for the Democratic Senate nomination from Third District Representative Bobby Scott, who announced on July 1 that he is delaying his decision on whether to get into the race. Former Governor Allen also has several challengers for the GOP nomination, including Tim Donner, David McCormick, and Jamie Radtke.
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Va. Senate candidate Jamie Radtke hopes her message resonates with libertarians
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Senator Jim Webb talks about U.S.-Korea free trade and stability in Asia
With the demise of the Examiner.com publishing platform, the original URL for this article is no longer available.
Publisher's note:This article was originally published on Examiner.com on September 13, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.
'They won and we blinked' says former Sen. George Allen on Iran deal
Former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George Allen spoke in Charlottesville on Saturday, September 12, at the monthly breakfast of the Albemarle County Republican Committee. His message to the gathered activists was one of inclusion, saying that political parties win elections by addition, not subtraction.
Before he delivered his remarks, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner asked him about some foreign policy matters that are in the news. Allen said that, if he were still in the Senate, he would vote against the proposed deal with Iran on nuclear technology. He also said that the best solution to the refugee crisis in the Middle East is to build a “safe haven” in Syria rather than encourage migrants to come to Europe or the United States. 'Sanctions worked'
One aspect of the agreement with Iran that bothers Allen is the unfreezing of assets.
“One of the things I worked on when I was in the Senate,” he explained, was the issue of people who had been held hostage, injured, and killed by Iran over the years.
Going back to the Carter administration, he said, there were court judgments in favor of those injured parties that could be paid out of frozen Iranian assets in the United States and elsewhere.
“We have all these assets,” Allen said, “and they ought to be able to get their judgments paid out of those assets. Those assets are being released back to [Iran], going back to a regime that's going to use that money to support Hamas and Hezbollah and all sorts of terrorist organizations around the Middle East.”
On the nuclear aspect of the agreement, he said, “People will argue over the verification and so forth of that, and you can argue endlessly. But here's the other point: they are a state sponsor of terror and in five years the arms embargo is off. Then in seven or eight years the ballistic missile sanctions are removed.”
Iran, he said, is “a dangerous force and they can be even more dangerous after this when they can get more arms and they can get more missile technology.”
Acknowledging that the agreement will go forward, Allen said “I hope that I'm wrong but I see no evidence to evince any sort of confidence that this theocracy will change its ways and will only be stronger. In fact,” he added, from Iran's perspective, “they won and we blinked.”
Stated flatly, he concluded: “Sanctions worked. What we ought to do is keep the sanctions on but these other countries” that are party to the agreement “are all capitulating because they want to go [into Iran] to make a little money.”
'Safe haven'
On the matter of the refugee crisis in the Middle East – over four million refugees from Syria are now in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan but the United States has promised to take in just 10,000 – Allen was reluctant to suggest that the United States should commit to receiving more asylum seekers.
“I think the best solution to all of this is to create an area, a safe area, in Syria, maybe along the Jordanian border,” he said, “and just create a safe-haven city so that the folks from Syria don't have to leave their country on risky boats going to Greece.”
That solution, he said, “would be a whole lot less expensive to our government, to the governments of Europe and the world, to create that sort of a situation rather than having them so desperate to live and get food they have to make these risky trips. To me, that's the solution to it rather than creating this diaspora from” Syria in the United States and Europe.
Noting that he understands asylum laws and how they affect refugees from conflict zones, Allen concluded that “to me the solution would have been, and should be, and in fact, can still be, to create a safe haven for them in Syria.” SUGGESTED LINKS
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One of the questions posed to the four candidates seeking the Republican nomination to succeed Democrat Jim Webb in the U.S. Senate concerned DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act.
The panelist asked the candidates -- George Allen, E.W. Jackson, Bob Marshall, and Jamie Radtke -- whether they supported DOMA and whether the law has a constitutional basis.
Here is a video of the four candidates' answers. The first to respond is Jackson, followed by Marshall -- author of the Marshall-Newman Amendment, which bans gay marriage in Virginia -- Radtke, and finally former Senator Allen, who seems eager to give a perfunctory "yes" answer to the question and then quickly switch to a topic he prefers to talk about, energy and gasoline prices.
After the debate, I was able to ask Bishop Jackson how his position on gay marriage is consistent with a broader position he holds, namely that the government should not interfere with the private, moral decisions of individuals. (Jackson had explained that position to me in an interview a few weeks ago, when he made a campaign appearance in Charlottesville.)
The full interview is available as a podcast on Bearing Drift, and the portion dealing with same-sex marriage is excerpted on Examiner.com. Here is part of what he said:
E.W. Jackson in Charlottesville
Jackson conceded that he would not call himself a libertarian and added that “I don’t know that libertarians would call me a libertarian,” but that what he had said previously is that “libertarians like me because they know I lean very strongly into keeping government out of the lives of people.”
With regard to gay marriage, he added, “you’ve got to remember, what is really happening there is that people who want homosexual marriage are inviting the government to put its imprimatur on what they want to do and to change 6,000 years of human history and 200 years of American policy. So in my view, they’re the ones who are trying to use the government to intrude upon those of us who believe that marriage as it is is just fine.”
The next question was how Jackson would be affected if the gay couple next door were to get married.
“I’m talking about it affecting society, affecting our culture in the long term,” he answered.
“I would turn the question around and say, if you’re going to upend 6,000 years of human history, it is incumbent upon you to prove to me that somehow we’re going to be better off with that.”
Almost a year remains before Virginia Republican voters will choose their U.S. Senate candidate in a statewide primary. (Traditionally, Virginia has primary elections on the second Tuesday in June. This year, because of post-census redistricting, primary elections for state and local offices will be on August 23.) Former Governor and Senator George F. Allen is widely seen as the favorite to win the GOP nomination, although he has several rivals who are contesting the 2012 primary.
It is fairly certain that former Governor Tim Kaine will be the Democratic nominee, although there remains a possibility that Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA3) will enter the race. Scott had previously said that he would reveal his intentions by July 1, but on that day, he said he was delaying his decision about whether to run.
Since April, I have had several opportunities to interview the various candidates for the U.S. Senate from Virginia. They are seeking the seat being vacated by Senator Jim Webb (D), who chose to retire after one term.
Among the Republicans, I have not yet been able to interview Northern Virginia businessman Tim Donner or Bishop E. W. Jackson. At least one of those lacunae will be filled soon, however, because I am scheduled to meet with Mr. Donner in Charlottesville on July 19, and I may also have an opportunity to talk to him in Richmond this coming week.
Last weekend in Crozet, I was able to talk to both former Senator George Allen and former Governor Tim Kaine. The two rivals were there to march in the annual Independence Day parade sponsored by the Crozet Volunteer Fire Department. In Allen's case, he didn't so much march in the parade as ride in it -- he was on horseback throughout the route.
In remarks to the crowd at Claudius Crozet Park -- which, I might note, is a private park, not a government-owned park, something I find admirable -- both candidates acknowledged that they are "competitors and friends." It was clear from their interaction that Allen and Kaine genuinely like each other, even if they disagree on policy issues and are likely to be engaged in a mudslinging, highly-competitive Senate race next year, one that is widely acknowledged by political analysts to be the most closely-contested campaign in the country and consequently one of the most expensive, too.
Before speaking, Allen and Kaine led the revelers in patriotic songs. (Kaine's voice, especially, is clearly heard over the PA system in the video below.) They sang one verse each of "America (My Country 'Tis of Thee)," "America the Beautiful," and "The Star Spangled Banner." The songs are introduced by WCHV radio host Joe Thomas, who acted as emcee.
In a flurry of restraint atypical of political candidates, Allen and Kaine -- introduced alphabetically -- limited their remarks to about two minutes each, focusing on the values celebrated by Americans during the Fourth of July holiday weekend. (Video follows.)
I spoke to Kaine just before the program began. We chatted briefly about our shared admiration of composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim. (Both of us were in the audience about two years ago in Richmond, when Sondheim was interviewed by former New York Times drama critic Frank Rich.) Then I asked him about some policy issues, posing the question I try to ask every candidate: How will you earn the votes of libertarian voters? His response, like all of these interviews, was first published on Examiner.com.
Asked how he would appeal to libertarian-minded voters in the coming election campaign, Kaine said that he would talk about his record.
“I am very much a supporter of individual liberties,” he explained, adding that “yet we’re in this mixture, where we have individual liberties -- and that’s the great thing about our country -- but we also have communal responsibilities. Just trying to find that right balance is important.”
Kaine noted that “we do pretty well on that in Virginia. My basic campaign message is, ‘America has challenges, Virginia has answers,’ so I’ll be talking about the way we do it here in Virginia.”
For his part, George Allen had answered my libertarian voters question at Shad Planking in April (see below), so I asked him a different set of questions in Crozet.
Replying to a question from the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about the pending debt-ceiling vote in Congress, Allen offered his assessment of the situation.
“What I’ve been advocating for many years,” he said, is “that is there needs to be a balanced budget requirement in the federal Constitution, [the] same as we have here in Virginia. I think the President should have line-item veto authority and there should be taxpayer protection.”
A balanced budget amendment “narrowly failed back in the 1990s by one vote,” he explained.
“Can you think of how much better our country could be if that had passed back then?” he asked.
“If I were in the U.S. Senate, I’d be advocating for spending cuts, for curtailing the amount of spending, and putting in real reforms to have ironclad reductions in reforming the way that Washington does business,” Allen said.
My other interviews with Senate candidates took place at the 63rd annual Shad Planking in Wakefield, long seen as the start of the political season in Virginia. In Wakefield, I was able to interview Republican candidates David McCormick, Jamie Radtke, and George Allen, as well as potential Democratic Senate candidate Bobby Scott and current U.S. Senator Mark Warner.
Asked how he would appeal to libertarian voters, McCormick replied in general terms.
“I’m a very good case for a libertarian or an independent or a conservative,” he said. “They’ll salute the fact that for 29 years I’ve worked with [the] middle class and working class of America. I have such strong independent roots, even though I’m a strong Republican, very conservative on fiscal policy.”
He pointed out that he has “every policy, every solution on my web site” and suggested that “libertarians would love and support my candidacy.”
First-time candidate Jamie Radtke developed a statewide reputation as a leader of the Virginia Tea Party movement. She also answered my question about libertarian voters.
“Our message is right in line with the libertarian vote,” Radtke said, especially “as far as the spending and the debt and getting the fiscal house in order. The PATRIOT Act is another one that really irritates the libertarian people. Infringing on civil rights is an issue with me, as well. All those things are important.”
She said that when talking about the budget, “you’ve got to look at entitlements” and, from a libertarian point of view, entitlements “should be consumer-driven. People should have skin in the game.”
Things like that, Radtke explained, “resonate with people in the Libertarian Party.”
Even defense spending should be on the table, she said.
“The priority, the absolute priority, 100 percent should be our military and our veterans,” she said, “but the size of the Defense budget is so astronomical that even the Department of Defense is talking about places where there can be savings” without adversely impacting current troops or veterans.
“All of those things,” she concluded, “are things that we have in common” with libertarian voters.
Asked how he plans to earn the votes of libertarian-minded Virginians as he seeks the GOP Senate nomination, Allen called himself a “commonsense, Jeffersonian conservative” with “a good libertarian streak in me.”
“I trust free people and free enterprise,” Allen said, “and so long as someone’s not harming someone else, leave them free.”
He added: “I don’t like limits and restrictions. That’s borne out by my views on requiring a balanced budget in the Constitution” and a line-item veto to restrain the federal government.
“I like lower taxes,” Allen said, noting he has “always been one for lower taxes on business owners and individuals and families.”
While his colleague Jim Webb was not present, Virginia's junior senator, Mark Warner, was at Shad Planking this year. Warner talked about the budget and answered my question about libertarian voters.
Warner also addressed a political question: How can Democratic candidates earn the votes of libertarian-minded voters?
“That’s a challenge,” he conceded, though “it depends on, in a certain way, how ‘libertarian’?”
That is, he continued, “if you believe that there is no role for government in virtually anything, it may be a struggle.”
Warner noted, however, “on the other hand, I think Democrats generally believe on social issues there should be less government involvement. Oftentimes Republicans believe in more government involvement on the social issues and less on the government side. I think there is a balance there.”
Pausing briefly, Warner then suggested an approach that voters could take in choosing which candidates to support.
“I actually think,” he said, “whether a libertarian or anyone else, my advice to people is try to find candidates who can (1) actually read a balance sheet and (2) who are rational.”
Finally, Congressman Bobby Scott -- still a potential (and undeclared) candidate for the Democratic Party's U.S. Senate nomination -- answered a few questions.
Democratic candidates can attract the votes of libertarian-minded voters, Scott said, “if we stand up for the principles that we usually stand up for, that is, investments in our future, education, scientific research, making sure young people can go to college, mak[ing] sure the elderly are cared for [and that] children get off on the right track so that they have opportunities.”
Scott pointed out that not only was the federal budget balanced during the Clinton administration, but the country was on track to pay off the national debt, a situation that has changed severely in the past decade.
“So what do we need to be doing to attract votes?” he asked.
Democrats must “do what we traditionally did,” Scott answered. “We’re fiscally responsible, we want to invest in education and the future of America, and, hopefully, people will respond to that message.”
As a point of information, excerpts of my interview with Senator Jim Webb at Piedmont Virginia Community College earlier this year can be seen at "Jim Webb Visits PVCC" on this blog.
In the first, Donner said that he had a long libertarian pedigree:
“My libertarian roots go pretty deep,” Donner said, “back to when my father was heavily involved in the founding of National Review magazine.”
Joseph Donner, he explained, was “a good friend of William F. Buckley and I grew up around William F. Buckley and his family. Buckley often called himself a libertarian, even though he’s known more as a conservative.” (The title of one of Buckley’s books is Happy Days Were Here Again: Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist.)
“As the years go by,” Donner continued, “I’ve become more and more libertarian.”
In the second article, Donner discussed some policy issues, including the impending debt-ceiling vote in Congress (with a Damoclean deadline of August 2) and a comparison of the flat tax and the Fair Tax:
Donner also weighed the pros and cons of two popular proposals for federal tax reform, the Flat Tax (the centerpiece of Steve Forbes’ 1996 presidential campaign) and the Fair Tax (popularized by radio talk-show host Neal Boortz).
“The pros of a Flat Tax,” he explained, “are that it will simplify an overly complex tax system. It will broaden the tax base because more people will pay income tax. More people will therefore have ‘skin in the game,’ so to speak.”
These new taxpayers, he said, will “have a stake in the system and therefore be more interested and involved in what their government is doing -- and more informed and educated citizens is always a good thing.”
I expect to have more opportunities over the next year or so as these candidates hit the campaign trail and make public appearances as they hustle for votes and money.
Nearly 15 years ago, syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock wrote an article that appeared in the Washington Times (February 26, 1996; not available on the Web) with the headline, "Prohibition, alive in Virginia."
Murdock focused particularly on a then-pending lawsuit concerning the Commonwealth of Virginia that had been brought by a wine distributor, in a case known as Brown-Forman Corporation vs. Sims Wholesale Company. He also took broader aim, however, at Virginia's post-Prohibition system of controls over the sale and distribution of beer, wine, and spirits, including a government-owned and -operated monopoly on the wholesale and retail sales of distilled spirits (that is, liquor).
Murdock quoted a libertarian political activist who at the time lived in Arlington County, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.:
Stiff limits on the importation of alcohol lift this 80-proof trade wall even higher. It is against state law to bring more than one gallon of wine, beer or spirits into Virginia. Despite the fact that "you could reasonably say that the prices in Washington, D.C. are lower than in Virginia," as Mr. [Curtis] Coleburn states, anyone who bought a case of beer in Georgetown and drove it to a barbeque in Fairfax would be a lawbreaker.
All of this limits consumer choice. "In Arlington County, with a population of 200,000, there are only four ABC stores I am aware of," says writer and policy analyst Richard Sincere. "In a four-block radius of my office in downtown Washington, D.C., there are six or eight liquor stores." Mr. Sincere also sees far more variety in District stores than in Virginia's. Washington retailers "sell more than liquor." "They have cheese, wine glasses, potato chips and newspapers. The Virginia ABC stores have all the personality of a DMV office. They're plain cinderblock structures with plain walls. There are no advertising posters, no color. They remind me of my trip to the Soviet Union in 1987. There were stores there that just were called `Milk' or `Bread.' In Virginia, they say `ABC Store' in big block letters. This is the last vestige of socialism in Virginia."
In a suggestion aimed at then-Governor George F. Allen and the still-Democratic-majority General Assembly, Murdock said that privatization was overdue:
The Elliott Ness-era moonshine still that is Virginia's alcohol policy should be streamlined for the 21st Century. Wine and spirits manufacturers should be free to hire and fire distributors as swiftly as law firms can pick and choose among FedEx, UPS and Airborne. State liquor stores should be privatized, perhaps with their public-sector employees given the first crack at buying the means of alcohol distribution at a fair market price. Virginia's alcohol consumers should be free to shop in Washington. and surrounding states to satisfy their wallets and taste buds. And if they drink what they buy on the drive home, they should be arrested and stripped of their drivers' licenses.
Fast forward a decade and a half, and we can see that this issue is still on Virginia's agenda. Governors since George Allen have urged consideration of privatization proposals, but there has been no movement. Now, however, a window of opportunity may exist for Virginia's political leaders to make a decision that modernizes and liberalizes the ABC system, acknowledging that the free market is better than socialism. This time, ABC privatization is a top priority for Virginia's governor.
While McDonnell insists (see video below) that there are "hundreds" of suggestions for government reform -- making government more effective, more efficient, and less costly -- the centerpiece and most popular (and most controversial) of those suggestions is the one he made during last year's gubernatorial campaign. That is, to privatize the state's monopoly on liquor sales, turn it over to the private sector, and use the hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds to pay for improving Virginia's transportation network.
About an hour before the town hall meeting began in the chamber of the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors in front of a standing-room-only audience, Governor McDonnell sat down with me for a one-on-one interview on the specific issue of ABC privatization.
In the middle of a speech delivered in Richmond on Tuesday night, former Virginia Governor George F. Allen answered the question: "What are Americans addicted to?"
"One of the smarter blogs is the libertarian-leaning collection of Charlottesville posts put up by Rick Sincere..." -- Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, May 8, 2005
