From the Archives: Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters

Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters
September 6, 2012
3:06 PM MST

As he has done almost every year since he first ran for elective office in 1996, Virginia Senator Mark Warner (D-Alexandria) marched in the annual Buena Vista Labor Day parade and spoke to a gathering of local citizens and political activists from around the state.

In an interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, Warner looked forward to what Congress is likely to do between its return from its summer recess next week and Election Day in November.

The top agenda item, he said, will be to “continue the funding of the federal government,” adding that “the Republican-Democratic leadership have agreed on a plan on that.”

‘Comprehensive debt-reduction’

His own priority is to “go ahead and give the confidence that the economy’s looking for” by taking on sequestration and “the comprehensive debt-reduction plan.”

That would require two stages, Warner said, but “chances are we won’t [do it] because both national campaigns in the last sixty days before the election probably can’t show any level of compromise that’s going to be needed.”

Warner said he hopes that Congress “will have a bipartisan plan to put on the desk either of Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney after the election,” noting that he personally favors the re-election of President Obama.

“Whoever is elected,” he said, “we’re going to have to work with that individual to get this problem fixed.”

Asked whether the failure of Congress to pass a budget over the past three years has had an effect on business confidence and the economic recovery, Warner replied that “we’ve had this debate before.”

‘Political document’

There is “a budget in place,” he said emphatically. “It was part of the Budget Control Act that passed last year and this year. This will also set the appropriations level for the coming year.”

What Congress has not provided, he said, “is a long-term plan but frankly,” he pointed out, “the federal budget document is a political document. It doesn’t have the force of law.”

This contrasts, Warner explained, with his experience as a business executive and as a governor, when “we had budgets we had to meet” or face adverse consequences.

“What we need is a real plan with consequences,” he continued, “so that Congress doesn’t try to put a plan in place and then, when they care to, continue to spend or create new initiatives without any responsibility.”

The bipartisan coalition of six senators known as the Gang of Six, which included Warner, had proposed “budget control restrictions that would make sure that budgets that were adopted couldn’t be breached in the dark of night.”

‘Folks were mad’

Warner also commented on what former Governor Tim Kaine, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Virginia this year, could do to attract the votes of those who cast ballots for neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney in the presidential race.

“My sense is that 2010 was a year where folks were mad and a lot of folks got to Congress and expressed that anger by just saying no to everything,” he said.

“That didn’t move the country forward,” he explained, adding: “As a matter of fact, we’re in a deeper hole.”

The 2012 election will be different from the 2010 election, Warner predicted.

“My sense is that what people are looking for now, more than party labels, or even ideological labels, are [candidates] who can actually get stuff fixed and,” he concluded, “I think at the end of the day that’s been part of Tim Kaine’s record.”

From the Archives: 2013 Charlottesville voters may have historic election for constitutional posts

2013 Charlottesville voters may have historic election for constitutional posts
February 5, 2013 2:06 PM MST

What was so special about 1969?

A recent announcement by Lee Richards that he is retiring as Charlottesville's Commissioner of the Revenue after 20 years in that office raises the possibility that there could be a contested election for that job for the first time in many years.

Forty-four years, as it happens.

The first and last time that all five constitutional offices in Charlottesville were contested was 1969, which was also the first time that Virginia voters elected a Republican as governor (Linwood Holton).

It appears that Charlottesville Republicans were unusually well-organized in 1969, since the local party was able to recruit challengers for Commonwealth's Attorney, City Treasurer, Commissioner of the Revenue, City Sergeant (apparently the equivalent of today's Sheriff), and Clerk of the Corporation Court (apparently the equivalent of today's Clerk of the Circuit Court).

According to a front-page note in the Daily Progress of November 6, 1969, “Charlottesville, in a Democratic surge in contrast to its neighbor counties, re-elect[ed] all five constitutional officers over their first GOP challenge.”

Pensioners
There is no voter in Charlottesville younger than 65 years of age who has ever faced a general-election choice for Commissioner of Revenue or Treasurer.

As previously reported by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, an April 2 special election for City Treasurer will be the first contest for that office since November 1969. In that case, independent candidate John Pfaltz is challenging incumbent Democrat Jason Vandever, who succeeded Jennifer J. Brown after she retired for health reasons in October 2012. Brown was first elected on the same ticket as Lee Richards in 1993 and, like Richards, never faced a general-election opponent.

Richards succeeded Ora Maupin, a 17-year incumbent in 1969, retired after the 1993 election with a total of 38 years in office. Maupin had run unopposed in 1965 and in each subsequent election from 1973 through 1989. (A search through city election records found that those from before 1965 are incomplete.)

Maupin's 1969 Republican challenger was Charlotte Frame, described by the Daily Progress as a “teacher of exercise and crafts for the Charlottesville Department of Recreation.”

Two potential candidates have indicated their interest in seeking he Democratic party's nomination for Commissioner of Revenue in the June 11 party primary, Jonathan Stevens and Todd Divers, although neither has filed official candidacy papers. No Republican or independent candidates for the post have so far emerged.

The filing deadline for Democratic primary candidates is 5:00 p.m. on March 28; other candidates have until 7:00 p.m. of primary day, June 11, to get their names on the general election ballot.



Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on February 5, 2013. 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.

From the Archives: James Carr assesses David Brat's defeat of Eric Cantor, plus Jack Trammell

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 16, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was 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.

James Carr assesses David Brat's defeat of Eric Cantor, plus Jack Trammell

James Carr is the Libertarian Party's nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in Virginia's Seventh Congressional District, where House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was upset in a June 10 Republican primary by relatively unknown economics professor David Brat.

Carr came to Charlottesville on June 14, where in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of a meeting of the Libertarian Party of Virginia's State Central Committee held at the West Main restaurant, he answered questions about his potential and actual opponents.

The LPVA candidate for Congress was not surprised by Brat's defeat of Cantor in the GOP primary.

Not a surprise
“If you'd been talking to voters in the district, it really wasn't that much of a surprise,” Carr said. “As a matter of fact, my team and I had been planning for this outcome. We split our time equally between both outcomes – that Cantor wins, and that Brat does.”

Brat's unexpected victory was due to “a lot of factors,” he explained, and the story is one that “most of the media is getting incorrect.” The media have been “focusing on one issue and saying that that was the reason for the win. It really wasn't. It is the voters' dissatisfaction and the complete ineptitude in Washington right now.”

For voters in Virginia's seventh district, he said, “the idea of the permanent professional politician, living in Washington, being disconnected from those whom they're supposed to represent, no longer listening to those that they represent, no longer holding town hall meetings” is unpalatable.

Instead, they want someone who connects with voters. “They clearly didn't have that with Mr. Cantor,” Carr asserted, and they wanted “to get rid of him.”

The Libertarian candidate said that “many people that I've talked to over the last several months, when I've been out knocking on doors, going to farmers' markets, setting up events at brew fests” told him that they were going to vote in the Republican primary just to get Cantor out of the race, and then wait until the general election campaign to assess the other candidates.

Many of those voters, he said, “are very open to the Libertarian platform.”

'Points of frustration'
While Carr has not yet met his new opponent, David Brat, he has done some research on the Randolph-Macon faculty member.

“I've tried to learn as much about David Brat as I could from his web site,” which outlines some of his policy positions “but most of it is at a high level and you're going to have to interpret quite a bit.”

In talking with voters about Brat, he said, “I find that to be one of their points of frustration” although they were “very clear” they would “rather vote for someone who's not Cantor in the primary and then find out what the issues are later.”

While the news media had focused on Brat's position on immigration, Carr explained, “that wasn't as important to most of the people that I've talked to, among the thousands of people who we had interactions with over the past several months.”

Carr also believes that Brat has been misidentified as a libertarian, in part “because his campaign manager is a libertarian.”

From Carr's perspective, “Dave Brat can be considered more of a slightly-libertarian-leaning Republican on some issues but on many not. On the social issues, he's pretty well Republican.”

“I don't think anyone who looks into his web site or listens to some of his speeches would argue that Dave Brat is a libertarian. Is he more libertarian than, say, Cantor? Probably. But I would not make the mistake of calling Dave Brat a libertarian.”

Trammell 'a question mark'
The Democratic party's nominee, Randolph-Macon sociologist Jack Trammell, remains something of a mystery to Carr, who has not yet “had a chance to meet him” or find “anything other than some of his academic work that gives me any indication of his stances on the issues.

Trammell, he said, has not yet posted a campaign web site, “so we're at a point where that Mr. Trammell's kind of a question mark. He came into the race very late. We didn't have any indication that that was going to happen. We're now trying to figure out, who is this person?"

Carr's task now is to show how his views are different from both Brat's and Trammell's.

Unless Jack Trammell is “actually a libertarian running as a Democrat, we're going to have some very different stances in certain areas. I'd like to be able to address that to the voters very clearly, to give them an accurate picture.”

Carr expressed confidence, based upon what he's seen about David Brat and Jack Trammell, “that this is going to be a very new race for the voters,” who are going to receive “positive messages. They're not going to have negative campaigning from here to November.”

Although Carr had turned in well over the minimum 1,000 signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot by the filing deadline of June 10, as this article went to press, the State Board of Elections had not yet certified his ballot status for November.

The complete one-on-one interview with James Carr can be viewed on YouTube.

SUGGESTED LINKS

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor explains GOP's appeal to libertarian voters
Virginia Republican Congressmen Respond to 2014 State of the Union Message
Eric Cantor’s challenger admires Calvin Coolidge, wants end to drug war
Cultural critic Paul Cantor assesses the politics of the new TV season
Virginia Congressman Morgan Griffith clarifies aim of his medical marijuana bill

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/james-carr-assesses-david-brat-s-defeat-of-eric-cantor-plus-jack-trammell

From the Archives: 'Republicans have learned a lesson' says GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on July 6, 2014. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was 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.

'Republicans have learned a lesson' says GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie

In an interview following the annual Independence Day parade in Crozet in western Albemarle County on July 5, U.S. Senate candidate Ed Gillespie said that “Republicans have learned a lesson” after presiding over unprecedented growth in the size and scope of government from 2001 to 2007, when the party controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress.

“The difference between Republicans and Democrats,” he told the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner at Claudius Crozet Park, “is, I think, Republicans have learned a lesson.”

Continuing, he noted that “the fact is, I agree that when Republicans had the House, the Senate, and the White House that we spent too much money.”

That experience from the first decade of the 21st century, he added, “pales in comparison to what the Democrats did when they got control of all three – the House, the Senate, and the White House – but that's not enough.”

'Size and scope'
Republicans, he said, “understand that, if we're given the opportunity to govern again, and we get majorities in the House and the Senate and then, certainly, the White House, we need to reduce the size and scope of the federal government and get it in its proper size and scope.”

Gillespie said that “there are a number of functions that the federal government performs that would better be performed by individuals in the private sector and by the states. I think the federal government over the past five years, in particular, has encroached on state prerogatives.”

When asked to name three federal programs that he would like to see eliminated, however, the GOP Senate candidate would name only one, the Export-Import Bank, which is due to be reauthorized in September.

“One that I have said already that I believe should not be reauthorized and doesn't deserve to be continued in funding is the ExIm Bank,” Gillespie said, “but we'll roll out more details later as we go along.”

Gillespie, who served in the George W. Bush administration and has been chairman of both the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Virginia, explained that his victory over incumbent Democrat Mark Warner in November will be a harbinger of a GOP majority in the U.S. Senate.

“Not only would Mark Warner become the former Senator from Virginia,” he said, “but Harry Reid will become the former Senate majority leader. That would have a major impact on the future of the country: an immediate, beneficial, positive impact on the direction of the United States.”

Reid (D-Nev.), he said, “has bottled up legislation not just bills that have come from the House which deserve a fair hearing in the Senate.”

'Vigorous agenda'
With a Republican majority in the Senate, Gillespie explained, “you will see a much more vigorous agenda” in the upper chamber “and we'd be able to work with a Republican House to get legislation to the President's desk.”

Asked whether a Republican-controlled Congress would repeal Bush-era laws that expanded the federal government, such as No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D, Gillespie expressed uncertainty.

“I don't know yet,” he said, “how much support there would be for that.”

Crozet's holiday parade was the fifth Gillespie had marched in so far this weekend. He said he was next heading to Virginia Beach to participate in festivities there.

SUGGESTED LINKS

GOP can regain control of Senate in 2014, says strategist Grover Norquist
GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie sees 'energized, excited' party activists
Virginia Senator Mark Warner assesses situation in Iraq and the Middle East
'Proselytizing for freedom,' Robert Sarvis bids for U.S. Senate in Virginia
Senator Mark Warner defends his record against GOP challenger Ed Gillespie

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/republicans-have-learned-a-lesson-says-gop-senate-candidate-ed-gillespie

From the Archives: 'Open-minded, pragmatic' Republican Anson Parker enters race for City Council

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 30, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site was 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.

'Open-minded, pragmatic' Republican Anson Parker enters race for City Council

Anson Parker, a 37-year-old web developer who has lived in Charlottesville for two decades, was nominated by the local Republican Party on Saturday, May 30, to be a candidate for City Council in the November election.

Acknowledging that it is a “reasonable statement” to describe his approach as more technocratic than ideological, Parker told the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner in an interview following his nomination that “I want to be open-minded in a lot of ways. I want to be pragmatic.”

Only one Republican has been elected to Charlottesville's city council in the past 30 years, suggesting that GOP candidates face a difficult challenge. Parker brushed aside concerns that running as a Republican is an obstacle to his election.

“I think it's an opportunity because when I tell people I'm running as a Republican," he said, "it blows their minds."

Not national but local
People told him that he should run as a Democrat because of the city's voting record but “I say, no, my goals are conservative.” When they ask what kind of conservative he is and whether he's running on issues like abortion or gay rights, he says, with emphasis, “It's no, no, no. This is about local issues.”

Gay rights and abortion, he explained, “are not even local issues. Those are state and federal issues.”

For Parker, the campaign “is about what we do in Charlottesville and fiscal conservatism in Charlottesville is broadly accepted,” he said.

“There are a multitude of people who are liberal at a national level who don't like to see their money wasted locally.”

As a result, he noted, “I've actually found that being Republican to be a great talking point. I'm conservative locally and this has nothing to do with a national audience. This is Charlottesville.”

Infrastructure gaps
Parker explained that he was motivated to run for City Council because “there are a lot of gaps in the technical infrastructure, and since I'm a web developer I felt I could bring something to the table to help.”

He said that technology can improve government transparency and, in turn, improve citizens' views of city government workers.

He gave the example of a cell phone app that helps identify potholes needing repairs: It can both nudge the repair process forward and provide a way to acknowledge the hard work of the city employee who fixes it.

“I want to look at this as an opportunity for the city to show off what good work it does,” Parker said, “because 99 percent of the time that's what's going on [but] people aren't really appreciated. It's the one percent of the time when people aren't doing good work that gets a lot of press. I'm hoping that by making a more transparent system we can improve city relations” with residents.

The Democratic Party will nominate its general election candidates for City Council in a primary on Tuesday, June 9. There are five candidates seeking three slots: Wes J. Bellamy, Kathleen M. Galvin, Lena M. Seville, A. Michael Signer, and Dede L. Smith. Incumbent Mayor Satyendra Huja chose not to seek re-election.

Independent candidates who want their names on the November ballot must file their paperwork, including petitions with a minimum of 125 signatures, by June 9 at 7:00 p.m., the same time the polls close in the primary election.

SUGGESTED LINKS

Charlottesville Republicans present two City Council candidates for 2013
Rutherford Institute endorses Charlottesville marijuana resolution
Charlottesville write-ins reveal voters’ allegiance, impishness
Drug-law reformer Lennice Werth reacts to Charlottesville marijuana vote
City Council candidate Bob Fenwick challenges ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘trickery’

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/open-minded-pragmatic-republican-anson-parker-enters-race-for-city-council

Has my interview with Ed Gillespie gone viral?

U.S. Senate candidate Ed Gillespie

Last weekend I interviewed Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Virginia, at the terminus of the annual Crozet Independence Day parade.

My line of questioning was designed to discern how Gillespie, author of the 2006 book, Winning Right: Campaign Politics and Conservative Policies, would like to roll back the size and scope of government. Specifically, I asked him which three federal programs he would like to eliminate because the private sector or state governments should perform their functions.

Rather than answering my questions -- because candidates generally prefer not to be specific about anything -- Gillespie pointed me to his overall "Ed Gillespie's agenda for economic growth" (EG-squared), saying

One of those five points on that agenda is cutting wasteful spending, balancing the budget. We're going to roll out specifics of that over the course of the summer, just as we just rolled out the specifics on our energy plan, which was one of the five points as well, last week. So we're looking at various areas of the budget where we can cut wasteful spending, reduce spending, eliminate programs. One that I have said already that I believe should not be reauthorized and doesn't deserve to be continued in funding is the ExIm Bank, but we'll roll out more details later as we go along.

The version of the interview published on Examiner.com seems to have struck a nerve -- not with Gillespie or his campaign, but with his opponent, incumbent Senator Mark Warner, and Warner's supporters.

First the Warner campaign cited the interview in a press release that drew an analogy between Gillespie's answer and Texas Governor Rick Perry's famous "oops!" moment during the 2012 Republican presidential primary debates. (The link on that press release increased traffic to my Examiner.com pages by a factor of 20 or more.)

The Democratic blog, Blue Virginia, republished the Warner press release on Monday afternoon without commentary.

Then the Augusta Free Press picked up the Warner news release and basically reprinted it without crediting Warner's campaign.

Tuesday night, DailyKos, the national left-leaning blog site, took its cue from the Augusta Free Press but also drew upon a chunk of my original article.

Most recently, former Reason magazine contributor Dave Weigel, writing in Slate today, headlined his story "The Export-Import Bank Is Your New Populist Fig Leaf."

Weigel explained:

Longtime Republican operative Ed Gillespie is making a long bet that any Republican can win in 2014. The post-Bush Republican Party has largely rejected what Bush stood for, which is remembered (in shorthand) as spending on entitlement programs and immigration reform. Gillespie was the chairman of the RNC for part of Bush's first term and a counselor to the president for the last part of it. He does not make an obvious "libertarian populist," let's just say. So he's spent a strange amount of time ribbing Sen. Mark Warner for supporting a balanced-budget amendment in 1996 but not in 2014 (i.e., after two wars and the Bush tax cuts made it slightly harder to balance the budget). He has admitted that the Bush-era GOP "spent too much," generally speaking. And in this interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner,* he found a populist cause.

"That reveals what we knew already." Weigel continued:

Gillespie is savvy, and spotted an issue that was burbling up from the activist base and large conservative organizations like Americans for Prosperity and the Club for Growth. As luck would have it, the Bush-era reauthorization votes for Ex-Im came in 2002 and 2006, years when Gillespie was neither at the RNC nor the White House. He's got clean hands on this one!

This episode reminds me of what happened in 2010 when a teachers' group ran a TV ad supporting then-Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello and lambasting then-candidate Robert Hurt for his views on eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, quoting from another article of mine published on Examiner.com.  At the time, I thought Hurt's comments were uncontroversial; the NEA thought differently.

By the way, the asterisk in Weigel's article likens Examiner.com to AOL's defunct Patch.com.

Interviews with 4 Virginia GOP Senate candidates

Senator Mark Warner greets a voter

This weekend in Roanoke, the Republican Party of Virginia will hold a convention whose main order of business will be to nominate a candidate for the U.S. Senate. 

The winner after Saturday's vote will go on to face incumbent Mark Warner (D-Alexandria) in the November general election, and possibly also Libertarian Party nominee Robert Sarvis, who is still collecting petition signatures in anticipation of a June 10 filing deadline.

The four candidates facing off in Roanoke on Saturday, June 7, are Tony DeTora, Ed Gillespie, Shak Hill, and Chuck Moss.

I have interviewed all four candidates -- although my interview with Hill was more than a year ago -- and the interviews have all been posted to Examiner.com and to Bearing Drift's podcast, "The Score."  (Except, that is, for the interview with Shak Hill.  The audio of that interview can be found on Virginia Politics on Demand.)

Here are links to all four interviews and to YouTube videos of the candidates' speeches at the Fifth Congressional District Republican convention, which was held on May 17 at Hampden-Sydney College near Farmville:

"GOP Senate hopeful Tony DeTora favors marijuana law reform, opposes Mark Warner"
Tony DeTora podcast
DeTora speech at Fifth District convention (video)

"GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie sees 'energized, excited' party activists"
Ed Gillespie podcast
Gillespie speech at Fifth District convention (video)

"GOP Senate candidate Shak Hill thinks government is 'overreaching'"
Shak Hill podcast
Shak Hill speech at Fifth District convention (video)

"GOP Senate candidate Chuck Moss emphasizes technology issues, outsider status"
Chuck Moss podcast
Chuck Moss speech at Fifth District convention (video)

I will be at the convention this Saturday to report on the results and, I hope, to interview the victorious candidate after the delegates vote. Videos from that event may end up on my YouTube channel, as well.  Watch my Twitter feed for breaking news reports.

My 1991 Interview with Geraldine Ferraro

Hank Stuever's review in Friday's Washington Post of a new Showtime documentary about 1984 Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro reminded me that I once interviewed her.

Rick Sincere interviews Geraldine Ferraro, 1991

The occasion was a Human Rights Campaign Fund (now Human Rights Campaign) fundraising dinner in late 1991. I was a correpondent for Gay Fairfax, a local TV magazine show in Northern Virginia that also appeared on various public-access cable channels around the country. The interview, which was cut away from excerpts of Ferraro's speech that night, was broadcast months later, on February 10, 1992.

At the time, Ferraro was embarking on a campaign to unseat then-Senator Alfonse D'Amato in New York. D'Amato was a Republican who had first been elected in the Reagan landslide of 1980.

As John Peter Olinger later noted about Ferraro's appearance at the HRCF banquet in an undated paper for the Rainbow History Project, "It was striking to watch as the crowd at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in 1992 [sic] cheered wildly as Geraldine Ferraro said she was running against Senator D’Amato and to realize that just six years later that same organization endorsed Senator D’Amato’s re-election."

As it turns out, the former congresswoman did not even win the Democratic primary to face D'Amato in November. She lost that election to New York attorney general Robert Abrams in a crowded field that also included pre-MSNBC Al Sharpton, New York City comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman, and U.S. Representative Robert Mrazek.

My interview was rather short (although, if you watch closely, you can see that some of it must have ended up on the cutting-room floor).  Note the references to Dick Cheney, who was then Secretary of Defense for President George H.W. Bush, and the military gay ban, which a little over two years later would become Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, with repeal two decades in the future.

Ferraro also refers to "the gay rights act," which I interpret to mean ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, another bill that has been in Congress for decades without being passed into law.

The first question I posed mentioned a book Ferraro was working on.  She notes that she had deferred finishing it while running for the Senate, but a search on Amazon.com reveals that no book by Ferraro on that topic -- tensions between the First and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution --  was ever published.

Here is a complete transcript, including introductions by Gay Fairfax anchors Beth Goodman and Dave Hughes.

Beth Goodman: Gay Fairfax correspondent Rick Sincere recently got an exclusive interview from Geraldine Ferraro at the 1991 Human Rights Campaign Fund banquet.

Dave Hughes: Miss Ferraro ran for the United States Senate in New York State. Rick asked her about her views on gay and lesbian issues.

Rick Sincere: Welcome to Gay Fairfax.

Geraldine Ferraro: Thank you.

Sincere: And welcome to the Human Rights Campaign Fund annual dinner.

One of the questions I'd like to ask you is about the book you're working on about the conflict between the First Amendment and privacy rights. Could you comment on how that relates to the question of outing and ...

Ferraro: It doesn't. It doesn't. What it is is it's a book on the tension between the first and sixth amendments. The sixth amendment is the right to a fair trial. I'm a former prosecutor and so out of my experiences over the last number of years, I've sat down and really tried to analyze how much of an impact a good deal of publicity has on a person's right to have a fair trial. But to be very honest, I'm not really writing the book anymore. I've put it aside; I'm now running for the United States Senate. That preoccupies all of my time so the book will be put on the back burner for another day. Perhaps after I'm in the Senate a couple of terms.

Sincere: Right. Give it another twelve years or so, you can get back to it. Tell us about your relationship to the gay and lesbian rights movement. You've been a long term, long-time supporter of gay rights and here you are the Human Rights Campaign Fund dinner. What do you think is top on the agenda for the gay and lesbian community?

Ferraro: Well, I think the issue of funding for AIDS research into to move along i think that's probably most immediate problem, I mean there are obviously others, the immigration laws, the gay rights act which is in the Senate and in the House, I'd like to see that moved.

But again, I think, evidently funding and finding a cure for a disease that is just destroying this nation.

Sincere: What do you think about the problem of the military's discrimination against gay men and lesbians? Do you think there's hope for movement in that direction?

Ferraro: I sure hope so. I think Secretary Cheney has a very good opportunity to make some significant rules on the issue now especially in light of the report that just came out that indicates that gays and lesbians have no impact on security, no problem with security. Take a look at what happened during Desert Storm, the number of people who served and served valiantly who are gays and lesbians.

I know Dick Cheney. He was in my class in the Congress. I think he is an honorable man, and I would hope that he would be also a man of conscience and would take a very close look at what's happening in the military.

We're facing some very, very tough times and we need the talents of all of our people. We shouldn't discriminate because of race or gender or sexual orientation or anything else, or religion. So I look forward to being able to talk a little bit tonight about the issue, and I look forward to being able to come down in the Senate and doing something about it.

You can watch Ferraro's speech, my interview, and a musical performance by an a capella group, The Flirtations, here on Gay Fairfax:

Ferraro passed away in 2011 at the age of 75. The new Showtime movie about her is called Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way. It is directed by her daughter, Donna Zaccaro.

Robert Sarvis Finishes Campaign in Downtown Charlottesville

Robert Sarvis in Charlottesville

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Robert Sarvis held his final campaign rally at the Free Speech Monument in downtown Charlottesville on Monday evening, November 4, just hours before polls open statewide for the 2013 general election.

Sarvis, the Libertarian Party's nominee, faces two rival for governor in Tuesday's election:  Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

The Libertarian candidate brought his wife, Astrid, and two young children to the rally, along with his mother, who cared for the kids while Sarvis answered questions from supporters and reporters.

Both NBC29 and the Newsplex were on the mall to interview Sarvis.

In this exclusive video of the complete Q&A with voters, Sarvis talks about immigration, taxes, abortion, transportation, reforming marijuana laws, privatizing state liquor sales, EPA stormwater regulations, Medicaid and health care policy, his reaction to being endorsed by the Danville Register & Bee, and generally reducing the size and scope of Virginia's government.

The video is unedited and there are some audio problems because a train rumbled down the nearby railroad tracks in the middle of the rally.

Polls open at 6:00 o'clock a.m. and close at 7:00 o'clock p.m. on Tuesday, November 5. The polling hours are uniform throughout the Commonwealth. Weather is predicted to be partly sunny with cool temperatures.

If Sarvis receives 10 percent or more of the vote, the Libertarian Party of Virginia will obtain official ballot status and will be able to nominate its candidates for public office in the same manner that Republicans and Democrats do, avoiding the lengthy, labor-intensive, and costly process of gathering petition signatures.  For statewide office, the law requires independent or third-party candidates to collect thousands of signatures across Virginia.

Full Text: E.W. Jackson's Unjustifiable Characterization of Gays as 'Totalitarian'

E.W. Jackson, May 2013

In August, I noted in this space that the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star had a month earlier published an opinion piece I write about E.W. Jackson, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of Virginia this year. Jackson faces state Senator Ralph Northam of Norfolk, the Democratic party's nominee, on Tuesday in a general election that will also see voters choose among three nominees for governor (Republican Ken Cuccinelli, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, and Libertarian Robert Sarvis) and between two candidates for attorney general (Democrat Mark Herring and Republican Mark Obenshain).

All the candidates are traversing the state this weekend in the final stretch of the campaign season. Within 48 hours of the time I write this (barring a virtual tie in any of the top three contests), winners will be known and soaked with Gatorade or champagne and second- and third-place candidates will be licking their wounds and planning their comebacks.

Upon reflection, I realized that my summary of my op-ed piece on E.W. Jackson did not do it justice. Since it has been more than three months since the Free Lance-Star printed it, I feel it is within my authorial rights to republish it here, while its message is still relevant.

This is the text as I submitted it to the Free Lance-Star, which put it on its opinion page on Sunday, July 21, 2013.

- - - - -

E.W. Jackson's unjustifiable characterization of gays as 'totalitarian'

Richard Sincere

In remarks widely circulated only after he received the Republican Party of Virginia's nomination to be lieutenant governor, E.W. Jackson said that gay men and lesbians have “an authoritarian, totalitarian spirit that has decided they know what’s best for everyone.”

Jackson repeated the characterization, adding: “I used two words to describe what they’re trying to do: authoritarian and totalitarian, and I believe that. I believe that they are of a mindset that says we want to destroy, in any way we need to, anyone who dares oppose this agenda.”

Although there are radicals within any political movement, whether right or left, the totalitarian impulse is rare and exists only on the fringes.

Jackson's words are at odds with the attitudes and activities of the large number of gay and lesbian Americans whose core beliefs are keenly attuned to the values of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that Jackson claims animate his own political agenda.

Take, for example, the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR).

Reason magazine correspondent Michael Lynch began one report by saying, “Two and a half years in Washington and I've finally found the free marketeers in the Republican Party – they're gay.”

Lynch had attended an Arlington LCR meeting that featured a talk by British political scientist Nigel Ashford, who made a case against employment non-discrimination laws, and he noted that the vast majority of those present “appeared to agree with Ashford.”

He added that the president of the group said that LCR's mission is “to work with Republican candidates on shared issues, such as lower taxes, while letting them know you're gay and that there are good gays dedicated to the party.”

That hardly resembles an “authoritarian” or “totalitarian” agenda. Maybe that's why former Prince William County Republican chairman Bill Kling once said that Northern Virginia Log Cabin meetings are “fast becoming a 'must' campaign stop for many GOP candidates.”

Or look at the Pink Pistols, a pro-gay, pro-gun organization, with its 60 chapters across the country and abroad.

Pink Pistols filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the landmark 2008 U.S. Supreme Court case, District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Court eventually decided that firearms ownership is an individual right protected by the U.S. Constitution.

The Pink Pistols argued that "not only do members of the LGBT community have a heightened need to possess firearms for self-protection in their homes, the Second Amendment clearly guarantees this most basic right. This Court should not permit the democratic majority to deprive LGBT individuals of their essential and constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense in their own homes.”

Defending the Second Amendment rights of individuals is neither “authoritarian” nor “totalitarian.”

Third, Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty (GLIL), which I cofounded in 1991 with a group of like-minded libertarians, classical liberals, and conservatives, has a mission to advance the ideas of economic and personal freedom and individual responsibility.

Considering that, earlier this summer, the Boy Scouts of America ended its policy of excluding gay teens from membership, it is noteworthy that in 2000, GLIL took the BSA's side before the U.S. Supreme Court. In a friend-of-court brief, GLIL asserted that, as wrong-headed as the BSA's policy was, it had a right to maintain it as part of the Constitution's guarantees of free speech and freedom of association.

As conservative columnist George Will summarized our argument, “GLIL vigorously deplores the Scouts' creed, which is that homosexuality is incompatible with the Scout obligation to be 'morally straight' and 'clean.' But GLIL agrees that the Scouts are a creedal organization with an explicitly moral mission. And citing much history – for example, until the late 1970s the IRS denied tax-exempt status to organizations that 'promoted' homosexuality – the GLIL brief argues that gays have suffered 'when freedom of association has not been respected and governments have been allowed to trample on the rights of citizens to freely gather together.'”

Standing up for the freedom of association for those with whom one disagrees, while reserving the right to persuade them to change their position, does not demonstrate a totalitarian impulse.

Whether E.W. Jackson was the best choice as the GOP's lieutenant governor nominee is a broader topic best left to other days and other commentators.

One thing is clear, however: his blanket condemnation of gay citizens as “authoritarian” and “totalitarian” lacks factual foundation. He should acknowledge that there are many gay men and lesbians who share his fundamental desire for strong families, free markets, and smaller, less intrusive government.

* * *

Richard Sincere was a Charlottesville delegate to the Republican Party of Virginia's state convention on May 18. He blogs about politics and culture at http://www.RickSincere.com.

Rebublican Political Action Committee Needs Proofreader

Yesterday evening, I saw an independent pro-Cuccinelli TV ad on the NBC29 5 o'clock news in Charlottesville.

Produced by something called the "Conservative Campaign Committee," it praises gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli as a "Conservative Rebublican."

You read that right: "REBUBLICAN."

With friends like these, who needs Purple PAC?

You can see the video here.

(Cross-posted, in slightly different form, from Bearing Drift.)

Bill Clinton Came to Charlottesville

Terry McAuliffe, Bill Clinton

About one thousand supporters of gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe gathered at the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville to see and hear former U.S. President Bill Clinton deliver a get-out-the-vote pep talk on behalf of his friend and former fundraiser.

While Clinton was the big draw, the program also included speeches by Democratic Party of Virginia chair Charniele Herring, House Minority Leader (and 57th District Delegate) David Toscano, Democratic lieutenant governor nominee Ralph Northam, former Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello, and former University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann.

Here are pictures (on Examiner.com).

Here's the video:

More coverage from Aaron Richardson in the Daily Progress, NBC29, the Newsplex and Steve Szkotak of the AP (via Washington Post).

McAuliffe faces two opponents in the election for Virginia governor on November 5: Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli and Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis.

Refuse to Vote for Any of These Candidates

Competition has been described as the lifeblood of any democracy. If that's the case, Virginia's democracy is pretty anemic.

Two years ago, there were 55 uncontested seats for the Virginia House of Delegates. This year, competition is a bit better, as there are only 45 uncontested races among the 100 up for election.

There are an additional 12 seats, however, for which there is no major-party challenger, with incumbents facing independent candidates or candidates backed by the Libertarian or Independent Green parties. (One exception, District 29, has a non-incumbent major-party candidate facing an independent for an open seat.) Some of these are "paper candidates" who have not actively campaigned for the position, so the first time most voters will encounter their names is when they enter the voting booth.

That means we have a total of 57 seats in which either the Republican or Democratic party has surrendered without a fight. A large majority of Virginia voters will have no meaningful choice on Election Day.

I recommend that nobody should vote for any of these unopposed candidates. A strong and clear message should be sent to the Republicans and Democrats that voters want to have a choice on Election Day. The parties' legislative caucuses are responsible for the gerrymandering that creates safe seats but the RPV and DPVA are also responsible for building their organizations in areas of the state that they are currently forfeiting to their opponents. (Alexandria and Arlington County, for example, have been fully ceded by the Republicans to the Democrats.)

In the following list, I have not indicated any party affiliation of the candidates, because that doesn't matter. I have indicated, with an asterisk (*) whether those candidates are incumbents. (Only one is not.) If you want to learn which parties nominated them, you can look it up.

Should it turn out that you really like David Toscano or Rob Bell, for instance, feel free to write in his name. Your loyal support will be recorded but the vote will not be counted toward that candidate's 99 percent winning total. If you do not like the unopposed candidate in your district, write in the name of someone you admire -- Ron Paul or Ronald Reagan or Ronald McDonald, or whatever fits your mood.

No candidate in a democracy should win by default. Those who do should be shamed by reducing their vote totals. "Winning" in a field of one diminishes the candidate who gains office because he has had no need to defend his positions, beliefs, and record before the electorate. He has accomplished nothing but further alienating himself from voters, whose approval he no longer requires.

Here is the list of candidates who do not deserve your vote on November 5th:

District 1 Terry Kilgore*
District 4 Ben Chafin
District 5 Israel O'Quinn*
District 8 Greg Habeeb*
District 9 Charles Poindexter*

District 11 Onzlee Ware*
District 15 Todd Gilbert*
District 20 Dickie Bell*
District 24 Ben Cline*
District 25 Steve Landes*

District 26 Tony Wilt*
District 27 Roxann Robinson*
District 28 Bill Howell*
District 36 Ken Plum*
District 39 Vivian Watts*

District 46 Charniele Herring*
District 48 Bob Brink*
District 52 Luke Torian*
District 54 Bobby Orrock*
District 56 Peter Farrell*

District 57 David Toscano*
District 58 Rob Bell*
District 59 Matt Fariss*
District 61 Tommy Wright*
District 62 Riley Ingram*

District 63 Rosalyn Dance*
District 64 Rick Morris*
District 66 Kirk Cox*
District 70 Delores McQuinn*
District 72 Jimmie Massie*

District 73 John O'Bannon*
District 74 Joe Morrissey*
District 76 Chris Jones*
District 77 Lionell Spruill, Sr*
District 79 Johnny Joannou*

District 80 Matthew James*
District 81 Barry Knight*
District 83 Chris Stolle*
District 89 Daun Hester*
District 90 Algie Howell*

District 91 Gordon Helsel*
District 92 Jeion Ward*
District 96 Brenda Pogge*
District 97 Chris Peace*
District 99 Margaret Ransone*

And please -- don't get me started on how I have received fund-raising appeals from some of these unopposed candidates. (What do they need money for?)

(Cross-posted from Bearing Drift.)

Recent Articles on Examiner.com: Virginia Politics, Tina Fey, Paranoia, and JFK

Over the past few weeks, I have posted a number of articles as the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on Examiner.com, mostly interviews about the upcoming (November 5) Virginia election but also some author interviews and reports on events in Charlottesville and around Virginia.

Topics included (in no particular order) the government shutdown, Robert Sarvis, NSA spying on American citizens, Tina Fey's visit to the University of Virginia, birthers and truthers, John F. Kennedy's legacy as President, political paranoia, drones, Syria, Ken Cuccinelli, gay marriage, liquor laws, civil liberties, Tareq Salahi, the Supreme Court, Calvin Coolidge, the Boston Marathon bombers, E.W. Jackson, marijuana legalization, Terry McAuliffe, Charlottesville city council candidates, religious liberty, Gary Johnson, free markets, and former Republican presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon.

Here's the list in reverse chronological order:

General Assembly hopeful Laura Delhomme 'thrilled' to share ticket with Sarvis
Former NM Governor Gary Johnson talks about shutdown, surveillance, and Sarvis
JFK was 'cautious, conservative' says UVA political scientist Larry Sabato
Larry Sabato discusses Cuccinelli, McAuliffe, Sarvis in 2013 election
Virginia Film Festival to include documentaries on Kennedy, Nixon, Santorum

Robert Sarvis visits Charlottesville, talks about shutdown, health care, polls
TV star Tina Fey argues for importance of the arts at University of Virginia
Historian Jesse Walker discusses birtherism, trutherism, and AIDS conspiracies
Author Jesse Walker discusses political paranoia and conspiracy theories on 9/11
Congressman Robert Hurt expresses 'grave concerns' over potential Syria war

Congressman Bob Goodlatte 'skeptical' about U.S. military intervention in Syria
Virginia candidates gather in Buena Vista to launch campaign season
Two former Virginia governors assess 2013 gubernatorial campaign
GOP Senate candidate Shak Hill thinks government is 'overreaching'
Virginia LP governor candidate Robert Sarvis will push for liquor-law reform

Heritage Foundation's Matthew Spalding assesses the Calvin Coolidge revival
Attorney General Cuccinelli calls Charlottesville ABC sting operation 'overkill'
Charlottesville civil liberties lawyer assesses 2012-13 Supreme Court term
Libertarians praise Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling in DOMA case
LP gubernatorial hopeful Robert Sarvis aims for marriage equality in Virginia

Six Virginia Libertarian candidates advance to 2013 general election ballot
Journalist Christian Caryl investigates Boston's 'lone-wolf' Tsarnaev brothers
GOP candidate Ken Cuccinelli says no to including Libertarian nominee in debates
Former Congressman Tom Davis comments on IRS scandal with warning for GOP
GOP lieutenant governor candidate E. W. Jackson 'certainly used marijuana'

Seven candidates seek Virginia GOP's nomination for Lieutenant Governor
Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe hosts campaign kickoff event at PVCC
James Robinson discusses 'why nations fail' at George Mason University
Charlottesville Republicans present two City Council candidates for 2013
Current politics has Nixons but no Eisenhowers, says biographer Jeffrey Frank

Veteran journalist Evan Thomas draws contrast between Obama and Eisenhower
Amity Shlaes discusses significance of Calvin Coolidge at Heritage Foundation
Moving Picture Institute announces first annual Liberty in Film Awards
Breaking: Ex-prosecutor Steve Deaton enters Commonwealth's Attorney race
Virginia governor hopeful Tareq Salahi is 'pro-same-sex marriage,' pro-hemp

Ken Cuccinelli clarifies remarks on marijuana legalization as federalism issue
2013 Charlottesville voters may have historic election for constitutional posts
Rutherford Institute asks local lawmakers to speak out against drones
Governor McDonnell, President Obama proclaim 2013 'Religious Freedom Day'
Steve Forbes makes the moral case for free markets and free people

That list of 40 articles goes back to the second week of January 2013. Whatever else gets published this year will be featured in an end-of-the-year rundown on December 31.

Bill Clinton Coming to Charlottesville

Paramount Theatre, Charlottesville

After noting Hillary Rodham Clinton's birthday yesterday, I was reminded that her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, will be in Charlottesville this week.

Clinton will take part in a campaign rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe at the Paramount Theatre on the downtown mall. 

The campaign stop is part of a series this week that included events in Dale City, Hampton, and Richmond earlier today, as well as events in Blacksburg, Herndon, and Norfolk and on Monday; Harrisonburg on Tuesday; and Roanoke as well as Charlottesville on Wednesday.

The Charlottesville event is scheduled for 10:45 a.m., with doors to the venue opening at 9:30 a.m.   Tickets have been made available on line and at local Democratic party headquarters on a "first-come, first-served" basis and NBC29 reports tonight that tickets are still available.

Washington Post reporters Ben Pershing and Laura Vozzella write that the Clinton-McAuliffe campaign tour serves a dual purpose:

Boosting turnout to put McAuliffe in the governor’s mansion is only part of the agenda for the longtime friends and political allies. The other is to hold up Clinton’s presidency, particularly his focus on creating jobs and reaching across the aisle, as a model for what McAuliffe hopes to accomplish as governor.

McAuliffe has stopped in Charlottesville several times while campaigning this year, including a visit to Piedmont Virginia Community College on May 6 as part of the official kick-off for his bid for governor.

In the election on November 5, McAuliffe faces two opponents: Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli and Libertarian nominee Robert Sarvis. Polls will be open that day from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Purple PAC TV Ad Supporting Robert Sarvis Goes Live

Robert Sarvis in Charlottesville

Two weeks ago, I scooped Virginia's political media by revealing that a newly-formed super PAC was going to run TV or radio ads in favor of Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Robert Sarvis.

Last night, I saw the Purple PAC ad for Sarvis during the 11 o'clock news on WVIR-TV NBC29 in Charlottesville.

Writing on Virginia Politics on Demand, I said:

In July, the Center for Public Integrity reported on the formation of a new, libertarian political action committee that aims to support libertarian (and Libertarian) candidates around the country:

A super PAC quietly formed this spring by a prominent libertarian has rushed to a quick fundraising start thanks to a small network of wealthy, like-minded donors.

Purple PAC, a super PAC led by former Federal Election Commission Chairman Brad Smith and Cato Institute founder Ed Crane, raised $575,000 from the time the group launched in early May through the end of June, new FEC filings show....

Smith, who currently serves as the chairman of the anti-campaign finance regulation group Center for Competitive Politics, said Purple PAC plans to make independent expenditures promoting “freedom-oriented” candidates who are fiscally conservative and socially moderate.

These are viewpoints Smith says a large number of voters hold, although they have little influence in Washington.

“Swing voters don’t feel that either of the major parties is representing them,” Smith said, adding the group intends to focus much of its resources on battleground states, as its name suggests.

Now Virginia Politics on Demand has learned that Purple PAC is independently planning to purchase air time on radio (and perhaps television) in support of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Robert Sarvis, the nominee of the Libertarian Party.

The proposed script of the ad reads in part:

Virginia, we have a rational choice for Governor.

Why choose between an ethically challenged, socially intolerant conservative and an ethically challenged, big government liberal?

Robert Sarvis, entrepreneur, libertarian.

Social tolerance and lower taxes: Virginia's future.

Send a message on November 5 and vote Sarvis for Governor.

(Paid for by the Purple PAC, Brad Smith, Treasurer.)

The Purple PAC's address of record is in Falls Church, Virginia, so it should come as no surprise that its first major expenditure should come on behalf of a candidate in the Commonwealth.

VPOD reached out to the Sarvis campaign, which had no knowledge of the potential Purple PAC ad buy.

The only major difference in the text that I reported from what ended up in the TV commercial is that it no longer lists Brad Smith as treasurer in the disclaimer. Instead, it somewhat mysteriously features a photograph of Joey Coon on top of the disclaimer, without naming him.

If I find the Purple PAC ad on YouTube, I will post it here in an update.

UPDATE: Purple PAC has put out a press release about the pro-Sarvis spot. It says, in part:

"Both the Republican and Democratic candidates are right about each other," said Ed Crane, President of the Purple PAC. "Ken Cuccinelli is a socially intolerant, hard-right conservative with little respect for civil liberties. Terry McAuliffe is a big government liberal with little respect for economic liberties. Both have been engulfed in scandal. Fortunately, Robert Sarvis offers an alternative, an agenda grounded in free markets and social tolerance."

He added that Virginia voters need to send a message to both political parties. "Pollster John Zogby has found that 59 percent of voters surveyed answered 'yes' to the question 'Would you define yourself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal?'" said Crane. "It's time that the two major parties made room for those voters - a majority of the electorate - or risk losing them altogether."

The news release notes that the commercial can be seen on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/77629652. It has not yet shown up on YouTube -- where, I'll assert, more people would see it than they would on Vimeo.

UPDATE 2: Purple PAC has added an embeddable version of its Robert Sarvis TV ad to its own YouTube channel. (It's also the only video, so far, on that YouTube channel.) Here it is: