From the Archives: UVA political scientist analyzes 2012 election, looks toward 2016 GOP nominee

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on March 19, 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.

UVA political scientist analyzes 2012 election, looks toward 2016 GOP nominee

James Ceaser teaches politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and is co-author (with Andrew Busch and John J. Pitney, Jr.) of the recent book, After Hope and Change: The 2012 Elections and American Politics.

Ceaser spoke about After Hope and Change at the 2014 Virginia Festival of the Book on March 19, participating in a panel discussion on “The United States in the World” with political scientist Stephen Farnsworth, historian Robert Rakove, and former ambassador Francis Rooney. The panel was moderated by Bob Gibson, a former political reporter with The Daily Progress.

After the panel, Professor Ceaser answered questions from the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about lessons learned in the 2012 presidential campaign, the outlook for factional divisions in the Republican Party, and who the GOP presidential nominee might be in 2016.

'A different era'
In summing up his book, he explained that “After Hope and Change makes a comparison between the 2008 election, where 'hope and change' was the theme, where enthusiasm and uplift accompanied Obama's election, and 2012, which was kind of a letdown, [with] no inspiring theme [and] little enthusiasm.”

Those differences, he said, were recognized “by the Obama people themselves. They were contentious to win but” they knew that the electorate "had moved into a different era.”

The defining figure “was no longer the Obama of 2008,” Ceaser explained. “It was Obama elected in 2012 as a politician, not a cultural or moral leader of the whole world.”

One of the lessons learned from the 2012 election is that “the Democratic Party, as a base, has a slight advantage over the Republican Party,” he said. “I think that was confirmed. The Republicans went in thinking this was an election they could and should win, and they lost it.”

Swingers
Ceaser cautioned, however, that there is “still enough of a swing group in the American population that any election can swing to either party, given how people process the events under which they live. We may be seeing in 2014 a swing back to the Republicans. Who knows what will happen in 2016?”

What 2012 teaches us, he noted, is that the Democratic base has a slight advantage over the GOP but “enough people who still swing to make every election a struggle, the outcome of which is unknown.”

Divided Republicans
Factional differences between libertarians and social conservatives have been “part of the Republican Party for a long time,” Ceaser pointed out. “It all goes under the label of conservative, but you pick up the hood and you see that conservatism means different things to different people – hence conflict.”

This has historically “been the way things are,” he said, “but basically the Republicans have been able to come together sufficiently because of their opposition to the Democratic project to hang together, more or less.”

He warned, however, that people should not “expect the Republican party to be holding hands as various pieces are opposed on many issues.”

He pointed out that “perhaps the greatest division within the Republican party has been on foreign affairs,” and that it is significant that “the libertarian position [is] closer to a sort of softer isolationism than the rest of the party.”

GOP's 2016 nominee
Within this context, Ceaser has some general predictions about what to expect during the 2016 GOP presidential nomination contest.

“The libertarian candidate will do well, that is, maybe even have a plurality over a spread field but in the end will not have enough support to achieve the nomination, he said.

Ceaser said the 2016 candidate will not be someone who “will be very surprising,” but rather will be someone like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, or Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

The nominee, he predicted, will be “someone who has some elements of respect for libertarians but is not himself libertarian.”

What about Rand Paul?
If Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is a candidate, he added, “he'll do quite well.”

Expressing some admiration for Paul's political skills, Ceaser offered that “it's one of the more amazing stories of American politics: This young senator from Kentucky, whose father was regarded in many ways as an extremist, [yet] Rand Paul has been able to take this movement and make it into something a lot larger in a very short period of time and acquire status as a significant player in the Republican party.”

Rand Paul, he concluded, is a “potential very strong candidate, even though I don't think he'll be over the top in 2016.”

The complete audio version of this interview will soon be available as a podcast on Bearing Drift radio, “The Score.”

SUGGESTED LINKS

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Sorensen Institute chief Bob Gibson assesses the state of news media in Virginia
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Attorney Bruce Fein discusses NSA lawsuit, DHS spying, and FCC intrusions

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/uva-political-scientist-analyzes-2012-election-looks-toward-2016-gop-nominee

From the Archives: First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams talks about free speech in Charlottesville

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on March 22, 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.

First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams talks about free speech in Charlottesville

Floyd Abrams, an attorney who has argued for freedom of speech and freedom of the press before the U.S. Supreme Court in cases such as Citizens United and New York Times v. United States (the “Pentagon Papers”), came to Charlottesville on March 22 to speak at the Virginia Festival of the Book.

In a panel ostensibly about Abrams' recent book, Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment, he was quizzed by Ronald L.K. Collins, author of Nuanced Absolutism: Floyd Abrams and the First Amendment, and audience members. Josh Wheeler, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, hosted the panel, which was held in the Charlottesville City Council chambers.

After he had autographed copies of his book for admiring readers, Abrams answered a few questions posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner.

ACLU evolution
One concern of his is the evolution of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) towards a position that often seems at odds with free speech rather than in favor of it.

The ACLU, he said “is becoming more of a liberal organization – more of a progressive organization – than a free-speech protective one.”

That is not to say, he explained, “that they would not protect, on the face of it, the right of some conservatives who were thrown in jail for speech; they would.”

In “hard areas” such as campaign finance law, however, he said that the ACLU is “too willing to give up speech for what they consider to be other social benefits. I think that they hurt themselves as an institution and limit themselves in terms of serving as a protector of the public when they do so.”

Minority protection
Related to that, Abrams indicated that he agrees with the premise of Jonathan Rauch's book, Kindly Inquisitors (which he said he has not read), that posits that members of minority groups are better off in a robust free-speech regime than in a regime that limits speech for the purpose of protecting those same groups.

Minority groups, Abrams said, or “people who are weaker than stronger are the people who generally benefit the most from living in a free society and a society in which speech is free.”

While that may not satisfy “people who say, 'but we have some people with more power than other people because of their money,'” he argued that “anytime we cut back significantly on speech, the people who tend to get hurt most, if not first, are people without rather than with power.”

Tillman Act
With regard to campaign finance law, Abrams offered some thoughts on the Tillman Act of 1907, one of the first such laws. The Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal campaigns, has been criticized by Justice Clarence Thomas, who told Stetson University law students in 2010 that Senator Benjamin Tillman “was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”

Abrams said the Tillman Act had “conflicting” aims.

“One was to limit corporate power and corporate control,” but, he added, “the Tillman Act also had significant racist aspects to it,” although it was “basically a reform piece of legislation designed to crack down on corporations.”

Lane v. Franks
Finally, Abrams talked about a free-speech case he is following that he expects to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“There's one I'm watching very closely,” he said, and he has filed a brief in it, “which is a follow-up to the Garcetti case of a few years ago [Garcetti v. Cebalos, 2006], which basically said, if you work for the government, and you're doing something within the course of your governmental duties, they can fire you for any reason, including your speech.”

The current case, Lane v. Franks, he explained, involves a former government employee in Alabama, who observed a politically-connected person who was being paid for a government job that he did not actually do, and “who revealed the fact that the other person was essentially acting criminally. The other person was convicted, jailed, fined $160,000, and they fired the guy who turned him in.”

According to the First Amendment Coalition, which filed Abrams' brief in the case, Lane v. Franks “tests the limits of the categorical, on-off rule of constitutional interpretation that was applied in Garcetti. We think (hope) that the Court chose to review the Lane v. Franks case to reverse the appeals court and clarify the Garcetti decision in a way that permits First Amendment protection for true speech by government employees, at least in circumstances where the speech serves a public or governmental interest.”

The question raised by this case, Abrams noted in Charlottesville, is this: “Is that really consistent with the First Amendment? Is it really consistent to say that when you tell the truth in court, you can be fired for that? I don't think the Supreme Court is going to say that, but that's one case I'm watching.”

The complete audio recording of this interview with Floyd Abrams will soon be available as a podcast on Bearing Drift radio, "The Score."

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Josh Wheeler discusses ‘Hustler v. Falwell’ as bulwark for free speech
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Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/first-amendment-attorney-floyd-abrams-talks-about-free-speech-charlottesville

From the Archives: Stephen Jimenez discusses Matthew Shepard's murder at Virginia book festival

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on April 1, 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.

Stephen Jimenez discusses Matthew Shepard's murder at Virginia book festival

Investigative journalist Stephen Jimenez discussed his 2013 book, The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard, in Charlottesville on March 20 at the Virginia Festival of the Book. Jimenez participated in a panel called “Shifting Identities” at the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library.

In The Book of Matt, Jimenez explores alternative explanations for the 1998 beating and murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, which at the time was thought to be an unprovoked gay bashing and hate crime.

Shepard's murderers were convicted of second degree murder but not a hate crime. Jimenez looks into a seedy underworld connection between Shepard and one of his convicted killers, Aaron McKinney. Based on his research, Jimenez posits that both Shepard and McKinney were involved in the crystal meth trade in Colorado and Wyoming and disputes the notion that anti-gay animus motivated McKinney and Russell Henderson, who also was convicted of Shepard's killing.

Disrupting the narrative
After the panel, the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner interviewed Stephen Jimenez about his research and conclusions.

When the author began working on this story, he had no plans to disrupt the narrative of Matthew Shepard's murder as an anti-gay hate crime.

Almost 15 years ago, Jimenez traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, to write a TV movie about the Shepard murder, spending eight months working on a screenplay that ultimately went unproduced.

At the time, he “believed that the story of this anti-gay murder was really very important and deserved the long form of the television movie but” just as he thought his research for the screenplay was finished, he “started to realize there were other things going on around this crime.”

After extensive interviews with Cal Rerucha, the principal prosecutor of the Shepard case, “I felt I really wanted to look deeper. I also felt – as a gay man as I got into some of the methamphetamine side of the story, as someone who's a survivor of the AIDS era – that methamphetamine was becoming a very, very big problem in urban gay enclaves but also it was moving through a substantial part of the country: through the Midwest, through states like Missouri and Kansas and Iowa and then, in the West, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming. When I realized what methamphetamine was doing, I felt it was critical to tell that part of the story that had been largely excluded.”

'Drug laws have failed'
Asked whether his findings had implications for the wider debate about drug prohibition, Jimenez replied that “I'm quite libertarian when it comes to drugs.”

He explained that he believes that “drug laws have failed miserably” and that there is “a lot of organized crime” involved in the war on drugs.

“It's not by accident,” he added, “that some very vulnerable communities have been set up” as markets for methamphetamine.

“Meth has been a problem on native American reservations,” Jimenez said. “Meth has been a problem in the gay community. Meth has been a problem in economically depressed towns, communities across the country.”

His purpose in writing The Book of Matt, he explained, was to show how “the issues in this case are full of human complexities. Matthew was a human being. The perpetrators were human beings.”

He said “it behooves all of us to understand those complexities if we're serious about dealing with the many different manifestations of violence and hatred in our culture and in the world at large.”

Resistance and acceptance
Although there has been some resistance to his alternative theory of the Shepard murder – which upends the accepted narrative similar to the way Dale Carpenter's book, Flagrant Conduct, changed the accepted story of Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court case that resulted in overturning sodomy laws in the United States – Jimenez said that reception of his book has generally been positive.

“I just completed a 34 city tour” in which “city number 33 was Laramie, Wyoming. I spoke to a packed theater there on a night when it was 10 below zero. A few hundred people came out.”

There were many comments and questions at that Laramie appearance, he said, but “not one person stood up and disputed my findings.”

While he was touring the country, Jimenez said he encountered “minuscule resistance to what's in the book. In fact,” he added, “it only happened at one book store in Washington, D.C., but everywhere else I spoke in the country, people were very open to the findings of the book.”

Since The Book of Matt began as a movie project, it should come as no surprise that “there have been some initial inquiries” adapting it into a film. While Jimenez has not done anything to pursue that possibility yet, because he's working on other projects, “maybe, with the passage of time, a movie can be made,” he said.

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‘Flagrant Conduct’ author Dale Carpenter discusses how sodomy laws ended
First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams talks about free speech in Charlottesville
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GOP can regain control of Senate in 2014, says strategist Grover Norquist

Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/stephen-jimenez-discusses-matthew-shepard-s-murder-at-virginia-book-festival

From the Archives: Craig Shirley recalls events at the start of World War II in 'December 1941'

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 24, 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.

Craig Shirley recalls events at the start of World War II in 'December 1941'

Memorial Day weekend seems an appropriate time to revisit Craig Shirley's 2011 book, December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World, a day-by-day account of what happened in the month that the United States joined the effort to defeat the Axis Powers in the Second World War.

Shirley spoke about his book at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville earlier this year. After his presentation, I asked the author about the genesis of the book and what he learned while researching the history of the early days of World War II in the United States.

Family inspiration
The idea for writing the book came from his family, he said.

When he was growing up in upstate New York, around the dining room table he heard “the stories about all the things that were going on with the Victory Gardens and the oleo[margarine] and the fake coffee and food shortages and all the sacrifices the American civilians made” during the war.

Moreover, he explained, his uncle had enlisted and, “was shot down and killed in the Pacific.”

Shirley's family had a tradition of military service going back to the American Revolution.

Two of his ancestors fought at Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill in Boston. Another ancestor “was with Washington all the way from 1775 to 1783. He was at Valley Forge, he contracted small pox there and lost an eye.”

That same great-grandfather fought at Monmouth, Boston, and Trenton. “He was in a number of battles under Washington's command. He was just a militiaman, one of the regular army from Connecticut. I don't think he achieved any rank.”

While his family members served in the military, Shirley said, “I wanted to do something from the standpoint of the civilians and how they were affected by the events of December 7.”

Deep and broad research
To research the material that ended up in the book, Shirley explained he “cast as wide a net as possible. We went to all the Roosevelt materials and uncovered documents that hadn't been reported on previously. We went through [Secretary of War] Henry Stimson's papers at Yale, we went through [Secretary of State] Cordell Hull's papers.”

Shirley and his research team also explored “Eleanor Roosevelt's papers and diaries, all the White House documents we could get our hands on, all the War Department” documents that were available.

“On top of all that,” he said, he looked at memos, diaries, and “thousands and thousands of newspaper articles” as well as “shortwave dispatches because at the time, CBS and NBC both had shortwave commercial broadcast stations and so the transcripts of those shortwave broadcasts” are archived.

Newspapers were a particularly rich source of information.

“There were some reporters and columnists who were just terrific and I like to use their material. It's interesting that there probably wasn't a newspaper reporter in 1941 who wasn't an excellent writer. They were all very good writers.”

In 1941, there were about 2,000 daily newspapers across the country, Shirley explained, compared to about 500 today. New York City had nearly 20 daily newspapers, he said, “including ethnic papers, [like] Polish papers. Washington, I think, had seven daily newspapers at the time.”

'Great man theory'
What surprised Shirley in the course of his research was “coming to the conclusion that Franklin Roosevelt was a better man than I thought he was. I am a political conservative, but I am also a historian and I have to look at things objectively.”

The New Deal, he asserted, “in terms from the standpoint of turning the economy around, was a failure [but] it did help the morale of the American people, there's no doubt about that.”

There is also no doubt, he added that, “without Winston Churchill [and] without Franklin Roosevelt, Adolph Hitler and the empire of Japan would have ruled the known world.

Churchill and Roosevelt, he concluded, “really are part of what Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish historian, postulated as the great man theory of history, and these truly were great men.”

Craig Shirley is also the author of Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America (2011) and Reagan's Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All (2005). December 1941 has now been published in paperback and Kindle editions.

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Stephen Jimenez discusses Matthew Shepard's murder at Virginia book festival
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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/craig-shirley-recalls-events-at-the-start-of-world-war-ii-december-1941

From the Archives: Morgan Griffith, Robert Hurt vote against Rohrabacher amendment on medicinal pot

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on May 30, 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.

Morgan Griffith, Robert Hurt vote against Rohrabacher amendment on medicinal pot

Early in the morning of May 30, the House of Representatives voted to approve an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015 (HR 4660) that has the effect of prohibiting the federal government from interfering in the production or distribution of medical marijuana in those states that have legalized it.

Introduced by Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-California), the amendment passed on a vote of 219-189, with 49 Republicans and 170 Democrats voting in favor of it. It was the first time the House had voted on a bill related to this topic since 1998.

Virginia Members vote 'no'

Among the members of the Virginia delegation, Representatives Rob Wittman (R-VA1), J. Randy Forbes (R-VA4), Robert Hurt (R-VA5), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA6), Eric Cantor (R-VA7), Morgan Griffith (R-VA9), and Frank Wolf (R-VA10) voted no, while Representatives Scott Rigell (R-VA2), Bobby Scott (D-VA3), Jim Moran (D-VA8), and Gerald Connolly (D-VA11) voted yes.

Morgan Griffith's “no” vote came as something of a surprise, since he has introduced legislation similar to the Rohrabacher amendment. In April, Griffith submitted HR 4498, the ``Legitimate Use of Medicinal Marijuana Act'' or the ``LUMMA''. The bill would restrict the federal government from applying the Controlled Substances Act (as it relates to cannabis) in states that have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana.

Robert Hurt's “no” vote was not as surprising, although in an exclusive interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner before the Rohrabacher amendment came to the floor, the Fifth District congressman said he was open to the concept.

Hurt explains his position on cannabis
Speaking specifically about Griffith's bill, Hurt told Examiner.com that “I think that the case that [Griffith] makes is very compelling.”

Hurt explained that “it's not good when the government gets between patients and their physicians,” such as when doctors “diagnose chronic and significant pain, nausea, and other issues that could be ameliorated by this treatment.”

The policy change envisioned by Griffith's bill, he said, is “something that we ought to look at and, as Morgan points out, the Virginia law [on medical marijuana] would allow for this if there was no federal ban.”

(Former Delegate Harvey Morgan, a Republican from Gloucester, sought to clarify and strengthen Virginia's medical marijuana statute several years ago.)

Hurt was careful to note that, although he has “the highest amount of respect” for Congressman Griffith, “it's important to just point out that I am not, and never have been, in favor of legalizing marijuana. I don't think it should be legalized.”

The Chatham Republican added, with regard to legalization efforts in Colorado and Washington state, “that those states that have done that in the West, I fear they're going to be sorry that they've done that [and] gone down that road.”

Hurt said he has not yet taken a position on Griffith's medical pot bill, but he is looking at it carefully.

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Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/morgan-griffith-robert-hurt-vote-against-rohrabacher-amendment-on-medicinal-pot

From the Archives: GOP Senate hopeful Tony DeTora favors marijuana law reform, opposes Mark Warner

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 2, 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.

GOP Senate hopeful Tony DeTora favors marijuana law reform, opposes Mark Warner

Stafford County resident Tony DeTora is one of four candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Virginia. On Saturday, June 7, the state GOP convention in Roanoke will select a candidate to challenge incumbent Senator Mark Warner (D-Alexandria) from a list of competitors that also includes Ed Gillespie, Shak Hill, and Chuck Moss.

DeTora spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner last month on the sidelines of the Fifth District Republican Convention at Hampden-Sydney College near Farmville. The interview began with a look at Warner's vulnerabilities as he runs for re-election in November.

“If you look at the perception of Governor Mark Warner,” DeTora said, “and you compare that to the record of Senator Mark Warner, they're two different people.”

That, he said, is “a huge vulnerability.”

'Not the right guy'
Republicans “need to point that out as we approach November [because] that opens the door for us to get in there [as] some people still really, personally like him. They need to be convinced that maybe he's not the right guy for us in Washington.”

DeTora explained that in his “day job,” he is a senior policy analyst on the staff of Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-California). Rohrabacher recently submitted a successful amendment to an appropriations bill that would have the effect of prohibiting the federal government from interfering with medical marijuana providers in states that have legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Since DeTora works for Rohrabacher, what does he think of efforts to reform marijuana laws?

“I don't think we should be restricting people's freedom,” he said, “without a clear constitutional reason to do so, so I'm supportive of the things he's trying to do.”

Working the system
DeTora's experience on Capitol Hill is one of the key assets he claims to bring with him into the Senate race.

“I also understand the politics and the games and how that works,” he asserted. “I understand how to work the system as well. I'm the only candidate in the race who understands all of that, has all that experience, and wants to go to Washington not to play the games better but to undo them.”

The first-time candidate also believes he can appeal to libertarian voters in the general election.

“Libertarians are going to absolutely be interested in my message. Most of this campaign is going to be about economics because the state of the economy is in a shambles. Obamacare is hurting that. Pushes for increases in the minimum wage is hurting that. All of these things are just compounding so my fiscally conservative message will resonate with libertarians,” he said.

Noting that Libertarian Party candidate Robert Sarvis will be running for the U.S. Senate this year, DeTora said that while Libertarians are “interested in getting the Libertarian Party a permanent spot on the ballot, they also don't want to send Mark Warner back to Washington to represent Virginia, so we can appeal to them that way.”

Taking the long view, DeTora explained he got into the Senate race for the sake of his two-year-old daughter.

“I'm concerned about her future,” he concluded. “We want to male sure that we secure the blessings of liberty not only for ourselves but for our posterity, as they write in the founding documents. I'm concerned that as we approach her future, that America won't be the great nation it still is.”

A podcast of this interview with Tony DeTora can be heard on Bearing Drift's "The Score."

SUGGESTED LINKS

Morgan Griffith, Robert Hurt vote against Rohrabacher amendment on medicinal pot
'Proselytizing for freedom,' Robert Sarvis bids for U.S. Senate in Virginia
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Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor explains GOP's appeal to libertarian voters

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-senate-hopeful-tony-detora-favors-marijuana-law-reform-opposes-mark-warner

From the Archives: GOP Senate candidate Chuck Moss emphasizes technology issues, outsider status

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

GOP Senate candidate Chuck Moss emphasizes technology issues, outsider status

Virginia Republicans will meet in Roanoke on Saturday, June 7, to pick a candidate for the U.S. Senate to run in the November election against incumbent Democrat Mark Warner.

Four men are seeking the GOP nomination: Tony DeTora, Ed Gillespie, Shak Hill, and Chuck Moss.

Moss is a Northern Virginia small business owner and engineer. He spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on the sidelines of the Fifth Congressional District Republican convention at Hampden-Sydney College last month.

Moss said he was motivated to run for the U.S. Senate nomination because he saw a lack of skills and perspectives on Capitol Hill. Specifically, he explained, there need to be more people in Congress who “understand the technology that's becoming more of an issue within national security, the economy, privacy, things like that.”

DMCA, SOPA, PIPA
He noted that technology issues are underestimated and underreported, deserving more attention from policymakers.

“In terms of technology, we need to understand what we're doing and make sure we're not undermining our large industries at the behest of special interests such as Hollywood,” Moss said.

Among legislation “that's frustrated me over the years,” Moss singled out the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and noted that the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) “had a big uproar,” yet problems in those bills recur within other pieces of legislation.

For example, he said, “right now we're looking at the Trans Pacific Partnership that's being negotiated in secret, ostensibly because of national security concerns. They're trying to fast-track that legislation and a lot of those issues that have been beaten down in the past keep coming back up in various ways. We need to keep an eye on that and not cede the control of Congress to an up-or-down vote on fast-tracking.”

Warner's Vulnerabilities
In terms of the vulnerabilities of his potential opponent, Mark Warner, Moss said that “Obamacare gives us a strong tailwind but I think we need to have a positive message as well.”

Warner, he said, is burdened by having had “a career in Washington both before and after running for office. I think we can make the argument very successfully that we need something different, that the challenges we're facing within the country are too big and too urgent to leave it to career politicians and Washington insiders.”

In terms of appealing to libertarian-minded voters, Moss said “I try not to pigeonhole myself too much, but I have described myself as a fiscal conservative with a libertarian slant. If you look at the Republican Creed and we focus on – and make clear that we support – fiscal responsibility and personal liberty, that has broad appeal that transcends party.”

In Virginia, he explained, the electorate is “very closely, evenly divided” among Republicans, Democrats, and “unaffiliated independents.”

Republican candidates, he said, “need to be able to talk to those people, the swing voters, and make sure our message of fiscal responsibility and personal freedom, if presented well, resonates and transcends party. We need to reach out to people with that consistent message and make the case that we will not only talk about it when running but stand for it when elected.”

A podcast of this interview with GOP Senate candidate Chuck Moss can be heard on Bearing Drift's “The Score.”

SUGGESTED LINKS

GOP Senate candidate Shak Hill thinks government is 'overreaching'
GOP Senate hopeful Tony DeTora favors marijuana law reform, opposes Mark Warner
'Proselytizing for freedom,' Robert Sarvis bids for U.S. Senate in Virginia
Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters
Morgan Griffith, Robert Hurt vote against Rohrabacher amendment on medicinal pot

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-senate-candidate-chuck-moss-emphasizes-technology-issues-outsider-status

From the Archives: GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie sees 'energized, excited' party activists

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

GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie sees 'energized, excited' party activists

Former national and state Republican chairman Ed Gillespie is one of four candidates seeking the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate from Virginia at a state party convention in Roanoke on Saturday, June 7.

The winner of the nomination contest – either Gillespie, Tony DeTora, Shak Hill, or Chuck Moss – will go on to face incumbent Senator Mark Warner (D-Alexandria) in November. Libertarian nominee Robert Sarvis may also be on the ballot, pending his meeting the petition requirements by the filing deadline of Tuesday, June 10.

Gillespie spoke to the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on the sidelines of the Fifth Congressional District GOP convention at Hampden-Sydney College on May 17. He expressed his views about health care reform, Warner's vulnerabilities, his appeal to libertarian-leaning voters, and whether he will debate any ballot-qualified candidate during the election campaign.

Party unity
Although the party canvass and convention process so far in 2014 has been fractious, Gillespie believes that “unity is possible.”

Republicans, he said, are “energized, they're excited.”

Gillespie pointed to “massive turnout at our district conventions and people getting energized and excited and coming into the process” as being “a good thing for us.”

With regard to the disputatious nature of the convention process, he said that “a little friction, a little tension here and there, that's a sign of a growing party. I would rather have the growing pains of a growing party than no pains of a shrinking party.”

Libertarian voters
Asked how he can earn the votes of libertarian-leaning Virginians in November, Gillespie asserted that “we have a lot of common ground with our libertarian-leaning members of our party and libertarian-leaning members of the electorate obviously. We are in favor of less government intrusion in our lives, we're in favor of lower taxes, we're in favor of stopping reckless spending, we want to get Obamacare out of making decisions about what our health insurance can be and who our doctors can be.”

He noted his view that, “if you believe in our constitutional principles of limited government and personal freedom, then anyone with a strong libertarian leaning needs to vote for our nominee come November.”

Gillespie would not, however, commit to debating any ballot-qualified candidate during the campaign. “I'd debate Mark Warner happily,” he said, but with regard to Robert Sarvis or any other possible Senate candidate, he demurred.

“I don't know. We'd have to look at that. Obviously, my focus is on Mark Warner,” Gillespie said.

Job killer
Warner's vulnerabilities include “his job-killing policies, his voting with President Obama and Harry Reid 97 percent of the time,” the GOP hopeful said.

Warner, he continued, “didn't just vote for Obamacare, which kills jobs. He voted against an amendment to repeal the medical device tax --165,000 jobs right there. He's for cap-and-trade or a carbon tax. A cap-and-trade regime would cost Virginians alone 66,000 jobs. He has voted job killing policy after job-killing policy. The fact is, his policies have resulted in lost jobs, lower take-home pay, skyrocketing health-care costs, and higher energy prices.”

In contrast, he asserted, Republican policies, “based on free markets and free people, would result in more job creation and higher take-home pay, and lower health-care costs, and bringing down energy prices.”

Gillespie also summarized his views on how to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare.

Repeal and replace
“We need to repeal it because it's designed to get us to a single-payer system over time. We've got to repeal it and replace it with market-oriented reforms,” he said.

“I'm looking at a positive alternative to put forward for the people of Virginia. Some of the things I've been talking to people about are allowing for insurers to market across state lines. There's an artificial barrier there that doesn't exist in the auto market or the life insurance market. It shouldn't exist in the health insurance market.”

Gillespie also suggested a policy that would give “equal tax treatment for the employer or the employee, giving the employee more power in that regard. That would also help, so when you change jobs you wouldn't be at risk of losing insurance for a pre-existing condition.”

He pointed out the need for reform of medical malpractice laws, “which are driving up health care costs by virtue of defensive medicine practices or exorbitant awards. People need to be protected in our judicial process in the event of hospital error or doctor's error but we can do that without driving up the cost of health care.”

Gillespie also noted that medical savings accounts “hve been gutted by this administration” but should be “beefed up” instead.

He concluded his discussion of health-care policies by saying that he is “looking forward to talking about a positive alternative [to] replace Obamacare. People want to know what we're for as well as what we're against.”

He also expressed confidence about his chances of winning the nomination in Roanoke.

“I am very excited about the convention. I believe we're going to have a unifying convention in Roanoke; I think we can bring our party together. I'm very optimistic about how that's going and like our delegate count a lot.”

Saying he will support the eventual nominee “110 percent,” but adding that “ I'm hoping it's going to be me,” Gillespie concluded that “we have real momentum and a chance to unify our party for a big win in November.”

An audio version of this interview with Senate candidate Ed Gillespie is available on Bearing Drift's podcast, “The Score.”

SUGGESTED LINKS

GOP Senate candidate Chuck Moss emphasizes technology issues, outsider status
GOP Senate hopeful Tony DeTora favors marijuana law reform, opposes Mark Warner
'Proselytizing for freedom,' Robert Sarvis bids for U.S. Senate in Virginia
Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters
GOP Senate candidate Shak Hill thinks government is 'overreaching'

Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/gop-senate-candidate-ed-gillespie-sees-energized-excited-party-activists

From the Archives: Author Craig Shirley considers whether Ronald Reagan was a libertarian

Author Craig Shirley considers whether Ronald Reagan was a libertarian

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the death of President Ronald Reagan. He died on June 5, 2004, the eve of the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion and the 20th anniversary of his speech at Normandy remembering “the boys of Pointe du Hoc.”

Earlier this year, Craig Shirley, author of Reagan's Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All and of Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America, came to Charlottesville to speak at the Virginia Festival of the Book.

In an interview that weekend with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, Shirley noted how Reagan viewed libertarianism as intrinsic to conservatism and often defined himself as a libertarian.

'Heart and soul'
Reagan, he explained, gave an interview to Reason magazine in 1975, in which “he said that libertarianism is the fundamental basis for American conservatism.”

That interview, conducted by Reason's founding editor Manuel Klausner, appeared in the magazine's July 1975 issue. In it, Reagan said that “if you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism... The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”

Shirley pointed out that, “for a time, [Reagan] referred to himself publicly as a 'libertarian conservative.' I have interviews with him on CBS in which he referred to himself as a 'libertarian conservative.'”

Reagan, Shirley explained, “was not libertine but he was very much of the opinion, following Locke, Paine, and Jefferson, that [limited government] was about the individual and the privacy and the rights and the dignity of the individual. He said that many, many times in his political career.”

Anti-gay Briggs Amendment
As an example of Reagan's libertarianism, Shirley recalled the then-future president's opposition to the Briggs Amendment in California, a 1978 voter initiative that would have banned gay men and lesbians from teaching in government schools.

John Briggs, he explained, was a California state senator in California. Briggs “had seen the political success that Anita Bryant had done in Dade County” with her campaign to end the local anti-discrimination ordinance that protected gay workers. “Her political star began to rise as she was taking on the gay rights movement,” he said, noting that “Briggs had higher aspirations; he wanted to run for governor of California.”

Briggs, he explained, “came up with an idea that would prohibit either those who championed a homosexual lifestyle or those who were gay and were out from being public school teachers. This deeply offended Ronald Reagan. You could say it was because of his libertarianism, or because of his upbringing, because of his mother's [influence] about allowing people to live and let live, or because of his cosmopolitan lifestyle that he was aware of during his days in Hollywood. He may have been informed by all three experiences but he was against it and he campaigned against it.”

The November 1978 referendum was defeated by a 14-point margin and afterwards, Shirley recalled, Briggs had a press conference where he “was asked by a reporter, why did it lose?”

Briggs replied: “Ronald Reagan. Reagan campaigned against it, and that was it.”

Confirmation
Shirley's recollections are confirmed in an article by James Duke Mason on June 5 in The Advocate, an LGBT magazine.

“Believe it or not,” Mason wrote, “Reagan was one of the first major politicians in history to come out for gay rights. Just a year before he announced his candidacy for president, he came out forcefully” against the Briggs Amendment.

Not only did Reagan “have no political incentive to do it, but it could’ve been a huge catastrophe. In speaking out against the initiative, Reagan used language that was way ahead of its time; he argued that 'prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual’s sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child’s teachers do not really influence this.' Some dismiss his support as too last-minute to have made a difference. But as his biographer Lou Cannon once put it, Reagan knew the risks but 'chose to state his convictions.'”

Briggs himself blamed Reagan for his amendment's defeat. Could he have equally blamed Reagan's core libertarianism?

SUGGESTED LINKS

Craig Shirley recalls events at the start of World War II in 'December 1941'
Virginia Senate candidates remember Ronald Reagan on his 100th birthday
Historian Paul Kengor on Ronald Reagan and the collapse of the USSR - Part I
Historian Paul Kengor on Ronald Reagan and the collapse of the USSR - Part II
Amity Shlaes discusses significance of Calvin Coolidge at Heritage Foundation

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/author-craig-shirley-considers-whether-ronald-reagan-was-a-libertarian

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 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.

From the Archives: Virginia Congressman Morgan Griffith clarifies aim of his medical marijuana bill

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 11, 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.


Virginia Congressman Morgan Griffith clarifies aim of his medical marijuana bill

Although he voted against a budget amendment designed to circumscribe federal interference in the production and distribution of medical marijuana in states that have legalized it, U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA9) has introduced his own legislation to address implications for federalism and individual liberty by reforming the nation's drug laws.

Griffith's bill, the “Legitimate Use of Medicinal Marijuana Act” or the “LUMMA,” would allow physicians to prescribe marijuana for various ailments and provide for experimentation and research by universities and pharmaceutical companies. Prescription of cannabis is currently prohibited under federal law and research is severely limited.

Congressman Griffith explained the aims of his bill in an interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner on the sidelines of the Republican Party of Virginia's state convention in Roanoke on June 7.

Most of the states that have legalized medicinal marijuana “haven't adopted a policy that I would advocate,” Griffith said. “That is a policy that says that you have doctors involved with a prescription, not just a note that says it might be good for you but a prescription so that we can actually see what we're doing.”

Griffith's bill “would also allow for universities and pharmaceutical companies and whomever to start doing experiments with the levels of the THC,” he explained, “because one of the problems you have is, even where people want to use it for medical reasons, whether it be epilepsy or glaucoma and cancer, we don't really know what the right mix of THC and cannabinoid oils are to make the [use of it] most effective for particular patients.”

Currently, he continued, “because it's a Schedule One drug and the DEA won't reduce it to Schedule Two, you really can't get the research that you need to use it for real medicinal purposes.”

Griffith was critical of the way medical marijuana is regulated in those states where it's already legal.

“A lot of the states have a loosey-goosey plan,” he said.

'A serious medication'
“What we need is to have marijuana treated like any other serious drug, like we treat hydrocodone, like we treat barbiturates, like we treat morphine – treat it seriously, [because] it's a serious medication.”

Once the law treats it that way, he said, then the federal government should “step back and let the states decide whether their doctors can make the prescription. Right now they can't because it's against the federal law and you lose your DEA license to prescribe any drug if you do it.”

Now there are “22 states where the federal government looks the other way and doesn't enforce the law [while] we have a federal law that actually makes it a felony for a hospital or a doctor to actually use it in any kind of an efficacious way.”

Under the terms of Griffith's bill, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) would reschedule marijuana from Schedule One to Schedule Two. “Some would argue it ought to be Schedule Three, or maybe even lower, but Schedule Two gets us the research and allows doctors to use it,” he explained.

While Dana Rohrabacher's amendment to a budget bill last month would have ended DEA and Department of Justice interference in states with legal medical marijuana, that approach does not go far enough for Griffith.

'Patchwork set of laws'
“I think a lot of folks feel that voting for these budget amendments is solving the problem,” he said, adding that it “actually makes the problem more complex because then you have a patchwork set of rules across the nation and it's still a violation of federal law.”

As a result, “whenever a new president comes in, they say to the DEA, 'Go get those people, they're in violation of federal law.' I don't want to do that. I want there to be a respect for the law but let's get the law right.”

The right way to reform the law, he explained, is to “have our doctors, our trained medical professionals, prescribing it, and have our universities and our pharmaceutical companies testing it to get the dosage right.”

Griffith's bill, designated HR 4498, currently has two cosponsors: Rep. James Moran (D-VA8) and Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA47). It has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, chaired by Michigan Republican Fred Upton, where it awaits action.

SUGGESTED LINKS

Morgan Griffith, Robert Hurt vote against Rohrabacher amendment on medicinal pot
Virginia Republican Congressmen Respond to 2014 State of the Union Message
GOP Senate hopeful Tony DeTora favors marijuana law reform, opposes Mark Warner
Ken Cuccinelli clarifies remarks on marijuana legalization as federalism issue
Justin Bieber, Gary Becker, and the future of marijuana prohibition

Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/virginia-congressman-morgan-griffith-clarifies-aim-of-his-medical-marijuana-bill

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: Virginia Senator Mark Warner assesses situation in Iraq and the Middle East

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 20, 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.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner assesses situation in Iraq and the Middle East

On Friday evening, June 20, the University of Virginia Center for Politics hosted a screening of its Emmy award-winning documentary short film, “Out of Order,” followed by a panel discussion featuring former U.S. Senator John Warner (R-Va.) and his successor, incumbent Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.). Both Warners appear in the film along with Bob Schieffer of CBS News and other current and former Members of Congress.

After the two-hour, formal program, the current Senator Warner answered questions from the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about his re-election campaign and also about foreign policy issues.

The day before the interview, President Barack Obama had spoken to the White House press corps about the administration's plans to send military advisors to Iraq in an effort to defend that country against the army of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Learning lessons in Iraq
Senator Warner said that he supported the president's deliberate approach with regard to Iraq, saying that it is important to gather all the facts on the ground before taking action.

“Of all places in the world,” he explained, “Iraq is a place [where] we should have learned the lessons that we've got to get all the facts first.”

Noting that he is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, 'Warner said he believes “very strongly that we need to slow the rush of these terrorists into Iraq.”

At the same time, however, “I also believe that we need to support any Iraqi government that's going to be inclusive” rather than narrowly sectarian.

“Particularly since part of the Iraqi army melted away rather than try to defend their own country,” Warner said, the United States needs to gather and assess intelligence about who the “bad guys” are.

“Before we take action,” he explained, the U.S. government must find out whether the ISIS forces might be “in uniforms that used to be Iraqi army uniforms.”

He asked, “How do we get that intelligence?,” stating that “on this issue, I think the president is moving with the right deliberate speed in terms of getting information first before we take action.”

Corrupt regimes
Warner also commented on the nature of regimes in the region and the sacrifices made on behalf of the people there.

“If there are only corrupt, sectarian regimes in all of those countries' future, then the region and the world's future is going to have a real challenge,” the senator said.

Suggesting that the American people are disheartened by the situation, Warner asserted that “the challenge is going to be: will these countries step up” in their own defense?

He said that it “was sickening” to see Iraqi soldiers “drop and run” rather than fight, especially after “thousands of Americans lives were lost” and “trillions of dollars were spent” on behalf of Iraq by the United States, which spent “billions of dollars” on training and equipping Iraqi troops.

Senator Mark Warner's dialogue with former Senator John Warner, moderated by political scientist Larry Sabato, can be seen in its entirety on YouTube.

SUGGESTED LINKS

GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie sees 'energized, excited' party activists
'Proselytizing for freedom,' Robert Sarvis bids for U.S. Senate in Virginia
Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters
At Shad Planking, Virginia Senator Mark Warner says ‘budget situation is dire’
GOP can regain control of Senate in 2014, says strategist Grover Norquist

Original URL:  http://www.examiner.com/article/virginia-senator-mark-warner-assesses-situation-iraq-and-the-middle-east

From the Archives: Senator Mark Warner defends his record against GOP challenger Ed Gillespie

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 21, 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.

Senator Mark Warner defends his record against GOP challenger Ed Gillespie

At a panel discussion in Charlottesville on June 20, former U.S. Senator John Warner (R-Va.) explained his choice to endorse his one-time rival, incumbent Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) over Republican nominee Ed Gillespie. The two Warners had faced off against each other in 1996, when the senior Warner won re-election to the fourth of his five terms in Congress.

During the conversation, former Senator Warner paid a compliment to the Republican candidate challenging his successor in the Senate.

'A good strong opponent'
Acknowledging that his cross-party endorsement had “stirred up a few feathers here not long ago,” John Warner pointed out that Mark Warner is “on his own This state's going to have a good Senate race. He's got a strong opponent for a change, a good strong opponent. So they'll duke it out and the best man will win. That's the way it goes."

At that point, panel moderator Larry Sabato replied, "I think Ed Gillespie could use that segment in a TV ad. We'll see whether it shows up to balance things out."

After the program ended, Mark Warner answered questions posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about the political climate and his challenger.

Cantor and Brat
Warner commented first on the results in the GOP primary in the seventh congressional district on June 10, when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was upset by Randolph-Macon College economics professor David Brat.

Saying that the anti-incumbent sentiment displayed in that election does not concern him with regard to his own re-election prospects, the Virginia senator added that “there were special circumstances in that race” that resulted in Cantor's defeat.

He did, however, note that the loss was not good for his home state.

“I didn't agree with Eric Cantor on a lot of policy issues but I think he was important for Virginia,” Warner said. His loss, he added, along with the retirements of Frank Wolf (R-VA10) and Jim Moran (D-VA8), “hurts Virginia's position in the Congress.”

Returning to the theme of the panel discussion – comity and civility in politics – Warner stated that what he finds “around Virginia is that people actually want folks who are willing to work together and be bipartisan. He asserted that he is “happy to take my record of that to the people of Virginia this fall.”

'97 percent'
His challenger, Ed Gillespie, disagrees that Warner has a record of bipartisanship. Instead, Gillespie has emphasized a claim that Warner has voted with President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "97 percent of the time."

Warner denied this.

“If I had that kind of record,” he said, “John Warner wouldn't be endorsing me for the United States Senate. I've got a record that shows [that for] every major piece of legislation I work on, I have a Republican partner.”

Warner said that he differs with the President on issues like the Keystone pipeline, export of natural gas, and the U.S. government's reaction to Syria.”

He said that on the budget, “I had a much bolder plan than either the president or, for that matter, even the Republicans, for fixing our debt and deficit I'm more than willing to step out on those positions” as he defends his record to voters in the 2014 election campaign.

The entire discussion between John Warner and Mark Warner, moderated by Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics, is available for viewing on YouTube.

SUGGESTED LINKS
Virginia Senator Mark Warner assesses situation in Iraq and the Middle East
James Carr assesses David Brat's defeat of Eric Cantor, plus Jack Trammell
GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie sees 'energized, excited' party activists
Virginia Senator Mark Warner discusses budget issues, independent voters
'Proselytizing for freedom,' Robert Sarvis bids for U.S. Senate in Virginia

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/senator-mark-warner-defends-his-record-against-gop-challenger-ed-gillespie

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