How did Charlottesville untie its June 11 primary election?

(This article appeared originally on Virginia Politics on Demand on June 17, 2013.)

While last [June]'s primary elections were ho-hum throughout most of the Commonwealth of Virginia -- only 144,435 voters cast ballots in the Democratic contest for lieutenant governor, or 2.6 percent of possible registered voters -- the situation was different in Charlottesville, which had the most crowded ballot among Virginia's 134 counties and cities.

While a handful of localities had primary contests for the House of Delegates, Charlottesville was the only city with several local offices on the ballot. In addition to the top-of-the-ticket choices for lieutenant governor and attorney general, Charlottesville's Democratic voters also chose among candidates for commonwealth's attorney, commissioner of the revenue, and city council. (There were no Republican candidates on the ballot. The local GOP nominated two candidates for City Council, Mike Farruggio and Buddy Weber, in a late-April mass meeting.)

Charlottesville City Council candidate Wes Bellamy speaks to news media after his defeat

 Incumbent Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman beat former Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Deaton in a landslide. (Chapman was first elected in 1993, when he defeated Deaton narrowly in a Democratic caucus. He has never faced a general-election opponent.)

Newcomer Todd Divers more narrowly defeated fellow newcomer Jonathan Stevens for the party nod for Commissioner of the Revenue. (They were both seeking to succeed retiring Lee Richards, another incumbent Democrat who never had a general election opponent.)

Chapman will again be unopposed in November but Divers will have two independent candidates running against him, Taneia Dowell and John Gunter.

The real fireworks came in the City Council race, which was not decided until Friday afternoon because of an exact tie between two candidates on election night.

There were five candidates seeking two nominations by the Democratic party. One was incumbent Kristin Szakos, who took first place handily.

When the results for Charlottesville's nine physical precincts were tabulated, it looked like the second-place finisher would be Bob Fenwick, who had 1,025 votes while third place was held by Wes Bellamy, with 1,006 votes.

City Council candidate Bob Fenwick speaks to news media after his narrow win was announced

All that was left to tally were the 201 ballots cast in the Central Absentee Precinct. Of those, 178 voters had cast their ballots in person on the eSlate electronic system and 24 paper ballots had been returned by mail. (One of those paper ballots was disqualified, so only 23 were counted.)

As the memory card with the machine totals was inserted into the tally computer, we knew the race would be close between Fenwick, who had twice before run as an independent candidate for City Council, and Bellamy, a first-time candidate. Little did we know how close it would be.

After the electronic absentee votes were added to the total, the count was Fenwick, 1,081, and Bellamy, 1,080. If nothing else, we knew a recount was a distinct possibility.

All that was left were the hand-counted paper absentee ballots. I watched over the shoulder of one of the election officials as she read the numbers off the statement of results so they could be added to the spreadsheet of all the other votes. Reading ahead, I exclaimed aloud, "Oh my god! There's going to be a tie."

Indeed, Fenwick received another 7 votes and Bellamy another 8 votes, so that they were tied: 1,088 to 1,088. What would happen next?

Well, there were still provisional ballots to be counted. There were five from Walker Precinct that we were fairly sure would qualify because they had been cast when there was a malfunction of the electronic pollbook early in the morning of election day. There were three others that we knew about, plus one or two "provisional ID" ballots that were issued because the voter failed to bring an acceptable identification document to the polls pursuant to the new voter ID law that took effect in 2012.

We learned at the canvass the next day that there were a total of 12 provisional ballots.

In the meantime, we were exploring the possibilities for what would happen if the election turned out to be an exact tie. It turns out Virginia election law is quite clear about this, which comes as a surprise because so much else about the code is rather muddy.
§ 24.2-674 says:

If two or more persons have an equal number of votes for any county, city, town, or district office, and a higher number than any other person, the electoral board shall proceed publicly to determine by lot which of the candidates shall be declared elected.

The term "by lot" is not specifically defined, but it is generally meant to be any game of chance, usually a coin toss but the category also includes drawing straws, a roll of dice, a hand of poker or blackjack, or even rock-paper-scissors.

When the canvass met on Wednesday morning, we had to move from our usual location in a small conference room in the voter registration office to a much larger room in the basement of City Hall. Observers from the Democratic party -- including local chair Jim Nix -- and both the Fenwick and Bellamy campaigns were there. The local news media were there in force: both TV stations, three local newspapers, and at least one radio station sent reporters and photographers.

They all had to sit through the tedium of the canvass -- which I described to Ed Sykes of NBC29 as akin to "watching paint dry" -- as we checked the paperwork from all the precincts. In the process, we found two discrepancies that had not been recorded on election night that had not affected the outcome of any race. It was not until 11:00 a.m. that we opened the main event, the provisional vote precinct. That is what everyone -- candidates, party officials, and journalists -- was waiting for.

In the event, we found seven regular provisional ballots and disqualified one of them because the voter was registered in Albemarle County. Six of them were accepted as valid and we counted the votes. Bob Fenwick picked up three more votes and Wes Bellamy received none. The count now stood at Fenwick, 1,091; Bellamy, 1,088.

At that point, it became necessary to discuss what we would do with the remaining four provisional ballots, which had been cast because the voters, whose names were properly on the pollbook, had shown up at their precincts on Tuesday without appropriate identification.

The law says that those voters have until noon on the Friday following the election to present their IDs to the electoral board. They can do so in person, by fax, by U.S. Postal Service, or by commercial delivery service but not by having it delivered by a third person (such as a family member.)

Wanting to speed up the process as much as possible, the Electoral Board readily agreed to the suggestion that the four voters be contacted by telephone or email to remind them that they had the opportunity to bring their IDs to the office.

Later in the day, a local talk-radio host complained that this was "coddling" the voters and that making those telephone calls might even be illegal, and wondered what the State Board of Elections would have to say about the Electoral Board's action.

The propriety of the Electoral Board's directing the general registrar to make these phone calls is unquestionable. There is a section of the administrative code of Virginia, 1VAC20-60-60, which states plainly:

The electoral board or general registrar may attempt to contact an individual who has voted a provisional ballot when required by § 24.2-643 of the Code of Virginia and remind the individual that he is permitted to provide a copy of a form of identification as specified in subsection B of § 24.2-643 of the Code of Virginia to arrive no later than noon on the Friday after election day. However, there shall be no requirement that the electoral board or general registrar contact such individual.

The statutory authority for this provision is found in § 24.2-103 of the Code of Virginia.

That said, it should be pointed out that this is all new territory for election officials. The voter ID law took effect on July 1, 2012. (A new one will supersede it on January 1, 2014.) There was never a need prior to the November 2012 election to even consider telephoning voters about their missing IDs. The form each voter fills out on the envelope containing a provisional ballot, however, includes a space for a telephone number, so even without the clear guidance set out in the administrative code, the implication by the design of the form is that the State Board of Elections intended that the phone number be available for use by Electoral Boards and registrars.

Even so, callers to that radio program were complaining as late as Monday afternoon about the "dubious" practice of the Electoral Board to request that phone calls be made to expedite the completion of the canvass and election process.

When the board reconvened on Friday afternoon at 1:30 p.m., the crowd of observers was slightly thinner than it had been on Wednesday, but there were still more people present than at a "normal" canvass. Three of the four voters had provided an ID, so their votes would be counted.

In the end, Bob Fenwick received two more votes while his nearly-equal opponent, Wes Bellamy, received none from the provisional precinct. Fenwick ended up the winner by five votes, 1,093 to 1,088, and Bellamy graciously conceded and said he would not seek a recount, which would be within his rights as a losing candidate when the difference between the two was less than 0.5 percent of the total. He explained that, having observed the Electoral Board's canvass, he trusted the accuracy of the results.

All in all, the 2013 Democratic primary election in Charlottesville brought a lot more tension and excitement than had ever been anticipated or wanted. (The election official's prayer: "Dear Lord, we don't care who wins, as long as it's by a big margin.") Still, having seen a precise tie on election night, observing the rare occasion of an election decided "by lot" would have been an unforgettable event, one that is unlikely to happen again in Charlottesville for a long, long time.

As for the rest of the Commonwealth, a tie is still a mathematical possibility. So watch out.

NOTE: Virginia Politics on Demand contributor Rick Sincere has served on the Electoral Board for the City of Charlottesville since March 2004.

Nigel Ashford to Speak on Human Rights at University of Virginia

Nigel Ashford in Charlottesville 2011

One week after the world-wide discussion of human rights coordinated through Blog Action Day, Dr. Nigel Ashford, senior program officer at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, will speak on Wednesday, October 23, on the Grounds of the University of Virginia on the topic of "Human Rights: What They Are and What They Are Not."

Ashford's lecture is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. in Maury Hall, room 104.  The event is sponsored by the Liberty Coalition at UVA and Young Americans for Liberty.

In an email, Ashford summarized his lecture by saying that  "some parts of the UN Declaration of Human Rights are human rights, some are means to protect human rights, and some are not human rights at all but demands for social and economic benefits." He explained he is basing his remarks on the chapter on human rights in his recent book, Principles for a Free Society, published by the Jarl Hjarmalson Foundation in Sweden.

In that book, according to the Foundation's web site,

Dr Ashford describes the fundamental principles and values essential for a free, democratic and open society. Words such as democracy, freedom and equality are frequently used but rarely understood. Principles for a free society examines twelve central ideas, demonstrates why they are necessary for a free society and applies them to political controversies. Readers are given the intellectual tools to contribute to debate about the future of their country and the world.

Principles for a Free Society is available as a free PDF download in these languages: English, Russian (Русский), Lithuanian (Lietuvių), Serbian (Srpski), Spanish (Español), Swedish (Svenska), Turkish (Türkçe), and Arabic (العربية).

In an interview I conducted with Ashford when he spoke at UVA two years ago, he described the work of the Institute for Humane Studies as

“an educational program that supports classical liberal ideas aimed at young people and students.”

To promote its aims, he said, “we run lots of seminars. We’re running 15 summer seminars [in 2011] throughout the country on a variety of different issues.”

IHS also sponsors “internships for people to work at think tanks and advocacy groups, both in Washington, D.C., and around the whole of the United States,” as well as journalism internships for students to work at newspapers and magazines, and production internships in television and radio.

The Institute for Humane Studies, Ashford added, also runs “a series of web sites now, some aimed at academia, called Kosmos; some aimed at public policy, called Liberty Guide; and a new web site, called Learn Liberty, which is more educational, where we [post] short videos about economic issues and other sorts of issues.”

In addition to his most recent book, Ashford -- formerly professor of politics and Jean Monnet Scholar in European Integration at Staffordshire University in England -- is also the author or co-author of A Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought (with Stephen Davies); Public Policy and the Impact of the New Right (with Grant Jordan); The Kiwi Effect (with Robert O'Quinn); US Politics Today (with Edward Ashbee); Neo-Conservatism and the New Class; Dismantling the Welfare State: Why and How; Equal Rights, Not Gay Rights; Open Borders:  The Morality of Free Trade; and Özgür Toplumun İlkeleri, among other works.

Blog Action Day 2013

Blog Action Day 2013: Property Rights Are Human Rights

Blog Action Day 2013

Today is Blog Action Day around the world, with the invitation issued to bloggers to discuss the theme of "human rights" in all its aspects.

In a somewhat obscure but important decision in 1972 (Lynch v. Household Finance Corporation), the U.S. Supreme Court explained: "Property does not have rights. People have rights. The right to enjoy property without unlawful destruction, no less than the right to speak or the right to travel, is in truth a 'personal' right." The court went on to declare that "a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right to property."

Property rights - a shorthand term for the rights of people to own and use property - and human rights are indistinguishable. One cannot exist without the other. The right to a free press is impossible without the right to own ink or a photocopier, a computer or a blog's domain name. The right to free exercise of religion is not possible without the right to own churches and seminaries and cemeteries and Talmuds and schools.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to hold property and to make contracts using that property. The Fifth Amendment makes plain that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." The widespread negative reaction to the Supreme Court's 2005 Kelo decision -- and efforts to fix and overturn it legislatively -- demonstrates how deeply felt this right remains among Americans despite the encroachments of government. (See, for instance, "Richard Epstein notes how Kelo sparked more scrutiny of eminent domain.")

Even setting aside Kelo and eminent domain takings, property rights are under assault throughout the United States. Through taxation and regulation, state and federal governments are impeding our rights to do what we please with our property, even if we are not harming other people or their property.

Towns and cities across the country, for example, designate certain neighborhoods as "historic districts," usually without the consent of homeowners in those neighborhoods. This designation is accompanied by hundreds of restrictions regarding what homeowners can do with their property, such as whether they can repaint their homes, put up aluminum siding, replace a roof, cut down a tree, and so forth.

This is not a trivial issue. It affects any person who owns property, whether a residence or a business. "Historic district" designations strike at the root of individual liberty and should not be dismissed lightly. Much is at stake. In fact, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled a similar law unconstitutional because it took away the decision making capacity of homeowners in favor of a politically defined "public good," thus taking private property for public use without just compensation.

Environmental regulations do much the same. Thousands of acres of farms, ranches, and residential areas have been declared "wetlands" that deserve government protection. The owners of the designated property are not permitted to plant crops, graze cattle, or build homes or factories on government-designated "wetlands" unless they can cut through miles of red tape.

Thinking about property rights as human rights reminds us of the fundamental importance of private property and the way it undergirds our civilization. Any protection of property rights protects all other rights and freedoms.

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From the Archives: 'Don't Let the Feds Be Thought Police'

This article was originally published in the Roanoke Times & World News on April 9, 1991, under the all-caps headline "DON'T LET THE FEDS BE THOUGHT POLICE." It was written in response to legislation that had been introduced by long-time Congressman Henry Hyde, who died in 2007 after 32 years representing Illinois's sixth congressional district.

- - -

I AM AS close to a free-speech absolutist as anyone can imagine. I believe that the survival of a liberal, democratic society depends on broad application of First Amendment protections for speech, assembly, religion and the press.

But I disagree with a bill introduced by Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, the Collegiate Speech Protection Act of 1991. The act would prohibit any private college or university that accepts federal money from making or enforcing "any rule subjecting any student to disciplinary action solely on the basis of speech or other communication" that the First Amendment normally protects from government restrictions.

One impetus for Hyde's bill was Brown University's expulsion of a student for shouting anti-Semitic, anti-gay and anti-black epithets in a college courtyard in the middle of the night. This incident has been widely misinterpreted as punishment for the student's speech or ideas, rather than his rude and uncivil behavior. On other campuses, sanctions have been used against students and faculty for the expression of "politically incorrect" ideas.

Hyde relates his bill to the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, which says the federal government can regulate any and all aspects of a college's operations if it accepts federal funds directly (in the form of research grants, for instance) or indirectly (by accepting tuition payments from students receiving federal scholarship aid).

Under these criteria, only Grove City College in Pennsylvania and Hillsdale College in Michigan would be exempt from the new law; they alone refuse, as a matter of principle, to take financial aid from the U.S. government.

The First Amendment does not prohibit private individuals or entities -- parents, corporations, churches, fraternal associations, colleges or newspaper publishers -- from restricting speech or expression of those in their employ or under their contol. It only applies to government.

Speech-suppression codes, now all the rage on U.S. campuses, are generally a bad idea. They are broadly and vaguely written, poorly administered, and serve to undermine the very cause they seek to advance -- deterring speech and behavior offensive to minorities defined by race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. Moreover, the codes inhibit robust discussion of controversial and discomforting thoughts in the environment best suited for free-wheeling discourse.

Far worse than well-intentioned but nebulous standards of "political correctness," however, is the idea of extending the reach of the federal government to regulate the content of speech at private educational institutions.

Non-public colleges and universities are private, voluntary associations that should be able to set their own standards of civility and demarcate their own boundaries of acceptable behavior. Their members -- students, faculty and staff -- are free to leave if they disagree with those standards.

A "religious exemption" in Hyde's bill for denominational colleges acknowledges this, but too narrowly. Why should a church-related college be allowed, say, to prohibit a public lecture on the theory of evolution while a non-sectarian institution, no doubt animated by an integrated educational philosophy all its own, be barred by law from prohibiting a lecture on creationism?

We should not expand the realm of government interference in the private lives of citizens and their freely formed associations. The only thing more fearsome than self-anointed campus leaders taking on the raiments of thought police is federal bureaucrats doing the same.

AUTHOR NOTE: Richard E. Sincere Jr. is an Arlington writer and member of the Libertarian Party of Virginia.

Gubernatorial Candidates Weigh in on Alcoholic Beverage Laws and Regulations

Two of the three candidates for Virginia governor in 2013 have addressed questions concerning the state's alcoholic beverage laws, with special scrutiny on the Alcoholic Beverage Control board (ABC) and the scope of its authority.

Ken Cuccinelli in Charlottesville on May 20, 2013

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli characterized as “overkill” an ABC sting operation in Charlottesville that resulted in a University of Virginia coed spending a night in jail and being charged with three felonies.

Cuccinelli, who is also the 2013 Republican nominee for governor, made his remarks during a July 3 interview with radio host Coy Barefoot on WCHV-FM in Charlottesville.

The April 11 incident has received national attention since the charges against Elizabeth Daly were dropped by Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman on June 27. Change.org circulated a petition demanding that the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control apologize to Daly and her two companions and to discipline the officers involved.

Late in the evening of April 11, Daly and two friends purchased cookie dough, ice cream, and canned sparkling water at the Harris Teeter store in Barracks Road Shopping Center. A group of six ABC agents, mistaking the water for beer, approached them.

The women did not recognize the agents as law enforcement personnel, called 911 to report their fears, panicked, and drove away. Daly was subsequently charged with striking two of the agents with her car and evading arrest, charges that brought with them the threat of up to 15 years in prison.


Well-placed concern
“I think your concern for overkill is well-placed,” Cuccinelli told Barefoot. “Mind you, I have not spoken to the agency about this,” he explained, so his knowledge of the situation has been based upon press reports.

However, Cuccinelli added, “these folks have a job to do, but do you really need a half dozen of them. Let's say this was hard liquor” that Daly allegedly bought. “So what?”

Based on the descriptions he had seen, the Attorney General said, “it seems to me that frankly – even if she bought beer or something – she got more than enough punishment in jail.”

Cuccinelli said, putting himself in the shoes of the women that night, “if I see a bunch of men surrounding me, that's going to instill a lot of fear in me.”


'Extreme measures'
Noting that, as an undergraduate at UVA, he had helped start a sexual assault prevention group on campus, Cuccinelli explained that he is “glad it didn't turn out worse than it did. It would have turned out worse for the agents. If I'm defending myself and I'm in my car, and I'm a young woman worried about sexual assault, I'm going to use extreme measures to keep myself safe.”

Why, he asked, “do we have six ABC agents staking out one store? It doesn't seem particularly wise.   You end up with confrontations like this that could turn out a lot worse.”

Asked by Barefoot if he would teach his daughters to behave with the same sort of caution that Daly and her companions displayed that night, Cuccinelli exclaimed: “Absoflippinlutely!”

“I would never suggest to my daughters that they just trust what they've been told,” by people who might or might not be law enforcement officers. Those women, he said, “did exactly the right thing” by calling 911 and attempting to drive to the nearest police station.

“The important thing for us on the law enforcement side is we need to learn from this,” Cuccinelli said. “We need to be more concerned about the perspective of the person on the street.”

He pointed out that “the average person buying alcohol, even if they're buying it illegally, do not have the idea of escalating [the act] violently to complete the crime.”

Cuccinelli expressed confidence that higher-level officials at the ABC has “had some serious conversations with [the agents] about their tactics.”

Looking forward, the gubernatorial candidate concluded, “what the rest of us need to do is [to ensure] the likelihood of this ever happening again gets as close to zero as we can make it.”

In an interview with me at a campaign stop in Richmond, Libertarian Party gubernatorial nominee Robert Sarvis expressed his own views on Virginia's liquor laws.

Robert Sarvis in Charlottesville on August 5, 2013

When current Governor Bob McDonnell took office in 2010, the first major proposal that made was to privatize the wholesale and retail sales operations that put Virginia in the liquor business. “Privatizing the ABC” was a rallying cry for the McDonnell administration through the summer and fall of 2010, but when the General Assembly considered his proposals during its 2011 session, it rejected them.

'No-brainer'
“ABC privatization is just a no-brainer for a lot of reasons,” Sarvis said. “That's something that I'm going to press for.”

Sarvis's “approach to liquor laws should be part of a greater push for reform of drug laws,” he added. “We should rationalize our laws in both areas so that we're not having government try [to] do everything and micromanage our lives.”

How could Sarvis succeed where McDonnell failed?

“I'm uniquely positioned to work with people in both parties on issues that would just be non-starters if you have a major-party governor,” he said. “The opposing party in the legislature is going to be obstructionist but” Sarvis believes he can work with the General Assembly “on that and many other issues.”

Success, he said, depends on “not just ramming through what I want” but “it's giving voice to the people” that matters.

'Freedom creates responsibility'
“We should enable people,” he explained, “to engage in activities they want to and be responsible. Freedom creates responsibility just as responsible citizens appreciate freedom. You can't have one without the other.”

The government monopoly on liquor sales in Virginia, Sarvis said, is “partly a nanny-state thing and partly a government-control issue. The government is afraid of relinquishing control over that – it's a moneymaker – [but] we should not be having the government run industries for the purpose of raising money” to add to state coffers.

On a related matter, Sarvis said he is “certainly open to” returning Virginia's minimum legal drinking age to 18.

“Our prohibitionist mentality and treating people like children oftentimes creates the problems that we think are being addressed by the laws that we've created,” and that includes drinking-age laws, he said.

In considering changing the drinking-age laws, Sarvis said, “I'm really pushing for respecting people's freedom and responsibility.”

Sarvis also addressed ABC issues at a press conference in Charlottesville on August 5.

The candidate spoke outside the ABC store located in the Barracks Road Shopping Center, the place where Elizabeth Daly and her companions were ambushed by ABC agents on the night of April 11.

(This article is adapted from two previously published pieces on Examiner.com.)

Virginia gubernatorial candidates speak at Buena Vista

Delegate Lacey Putney, grand marshal of the Buena Vista Labor Day parade

(This article appeared originally, in slightly different form, on Virginia Politics on Demand on September 2, 2013.)

Over the past 43 years, the Labor Day parade and festival in Buena Vista has come to be viewed as the official launch of the political campaign season for Virginia politicians. Like its eastern counterpart, Shad Planking, it began as a Democratic Party event but has grown to encompass all parties, including Republicans and Libertarians.

This year's festivities, however, seemed to be thinner than in years past. Even Delegate Lacey Putney, who was honored as grand marshal of the parade, commented about the paucity of the crowd this year. Putney should know -- he's retiring after 52 years in the House of Delegates (a record) and he's had plenty of time to observe events like this.

Others noted the smaller crowd, too. Even compared to last year, when the headliners were U.S. Senate candidates (and former governors) George Allen and Tim Kaine, the number of people along the parade route and under the pavilion to listen to political speeches appeared fewer.

One explanation could be there is diminished interest in politics in 2013, a gubernatorial year, compared to 2012, a presidential year. Yet there was a standing-room-only crowd (as I recall) in 2009, when Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds ran against each other for governor.

Even though all seven candidates running for statewide office were there -- plus U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte and Delegates Ben Cline and Putney -- they did not seem to drag large numbers of their supporters along. Perhaps there were other Labor Day events around Virginia competing for interest.

Will the small turnout in Buena Vista today presage a small voter turnout on Election Day? We'll find out in just about two months.

The three candidates for governor -- Republican Ken Cuccinelli, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, and Libertarian Robert Sarvis -- all spoke. McAuliffe was called to speak first and quickly departed; he had later engagements in Covington and Newport News.

Cuccinelli was next. He was introduced by Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA6).

The third gubernatorial candidate to speak was Libertarian Party nominee Robert Sarvis.

Lieutenant governor candidates E.W. Jackson (R) and Ralph Northam (D) and attorney general candidates Mark Herring (D) and Mark Obenshain (R) also spoke. Click on their names to see their speeches on YouTube.

From the Archives: 2013 Nobel Peace Prize Recalls Chemical Weapons in Africa

Yesterday in Oslo it was announced that the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize will go to a group that monitors and discourages the use of chemical weapons in violation of international law.

As Alan Cowell reported in the New York Times,

Urging the destruction of an “entire category” of unconventional weapons, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2013 Peace Prize on Friday to a modest and little-known United Nations-backed organization that has drawn sudden attention with a mission to ensure that Syria’s stocks of chemical arms are eradicated.

The award, to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, surprised some Nobel watchers partly because of the unprecedented nature of its current task: overseeing the destruction of a previously secret chemical weapons program quickly amid a raging civil war.

The award brought to mind an article I wrote almost a quarter-century ago about chemical-weapons use by the Soviet Union and its Cuban ally in Africa. Published in the New York City Tribune on July 25, 1989, the piece appeared under the headline, "Nerve Gas Use Poisons U.S. Relationship with Soviets." The headline is somewhat inaccurate, as the article is about calcium cyanide gas, not nerve gas (a distinction brought out in the text).

One sentence stands out as though it could have been written in recent weeks about the situation in Syria:

While 400 or 500 poison gas casualties among tens of thousands of Angolans killed by conventional mean in the past few years seems militarily insignificant, it appears that the Soviets and their Cuban surrogates are using Africa as a laboratory for inhuman experiments.

So far as I know, this article about chemical weapons deployment in Angola in the 1980s has not previously been available on the Internet.

- - -

Is the CIA covering up the use of chemical weapons by Soviet and Cuban forces in Angola? This question was raised recently when strong evidence came to light showing that calcium cyanide, a deadly poison with no known antidote, has been used by Cuban forces against Angolan civilians and supporters of UNITA, the anti-Marxist freedom fighters led by Dr. Jonas Savimbi.

Despite the physical evidence, which has been verified by teams of scientists in Austria, Belgium, Britain, and West Germany, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies refuse to acknowledge that the Soviets have a new chemical weapon nd that they are using it in Angola.

Prof. Aubin Heyndrickx, a distinguished toxicologist from the University of Ghent in Belgium, came to the United States recently to bring his findings regarding these chemical weapons to the attention of American policymakers. He said that U.S. officials are afraid to acknowledge the use of calcium cyanide in Angola for political reasons, because there is a “direct implication of Russia” in the evidence. The United States, he said, “is one of the most difficult countries in the world to accept realism.”

Prof. Heyndrickx describes calcium cyanide as unprecedently effective. It is, he says, faster at producing death than nerve gas. In doses too small to kill, it causes irreversible brain damage, skin burns and abrasions. The surviving victims, he said at a luncheon sponsored by the International Freedom Foundation in Washington, need our humanitarian assistance. They need new clothes, because often all the clothing in their villages has been contaminated by the poison. They need medical care. But most of all, they need recognition by Washington officials of their plight.

The overarching reason for official U.S. skepticism on this issue is the renewal of detente and good relations with Moscow under Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika, and the fear of damaging East-West relations. But the more immediate concern for American diplomats as well as others (from Cuba, Angola, and South Africa) is the success of the Angola-Namibia settlement agreement signed last December. This agreement, the result of eight years of hard negotiations under the leadership of Chester Crocker, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs, could be scuttled if news of chemical weapon use by Cuban forces became public.

In fact, Congress has mandated that if the president confirms that the Cubans are using chemical weapons in Angola, then the United States cannot provide money for the United Nations peacekeeping and transition forces in Namibia. The Bush Administration is hesitant to let Congress know – officially – that 400 to 500 Angolans are suffering the acute effects of calcium cyanide poisoning, not to mention the hundreds who have died since 1985, when the weapon was introduced to the Angolan conflict. As a result, despite the need for medical care in Western hospitals, the United States, Belgium, and the United Kingdom have denied entry visas to Angolans in great pain from cyanide gas poisoning. The authorities are afraid the victims' stories, once made public, will threaten fragile diplomatic efforts.

Still another reason why the intelligence community is afraid of this news coming to public attention is misplaced professional pride: the CIA and other agencies are embarrassed for not having discovered this new Soviet weapon. Moreover, because there is no known protective measure against this type of gas, nor any known antidote, its existence would throw NATO planning into a tizzy.

All the gas masks, all the poison gas pills, all the detection devices issued to NATO soldiers – all would be useless in the face of a Soviet calcium cyanide attack on the European front. Coincidentally, it has been demonstrated that in Afghanistan, Soviet troops have been testing new protective clothing and new types of gas masks. A captured gas mask is currently being examined by scientists in West Germany; no results of their investigation have yet been announced.

That is why this situation is worrisome. While 400 or 500 poison gas casualties among tens of thousands of Angolans killed by conventional mean in the past few years seems militarily insignificant, it appears that the Soviets and their Cuban surrogates are using Africa as a laboratory for inhuman experiments.

Like the Nazis and the communists who faced each other down during the Spanish Civil War, using the plains of Spain to test new weapons as a prelude to World War II, the Soviets and Cubans are testing this previously unknown poison on innocent Angolan civilians caught in the crossfire. Captured Angolan army officers have told Western intelligence agents that they themselves are not allowed to handle these weapons; only the Cubans use them under strict Soviet supervision.

Fortunately for the Angolan people, there has been no recorded use of these horrid weapons since April of this year. Still, that use came after the settlement agreement that is bringing an end to the 15-year-old conflict in the region and bringing independence to Namibia. It constitutes a violation of that agreement – not a minor violation, but a major breach of trust by one of the parties (Cuba) against the others (South Africa and the United States).

In light of the Soviets' use of poison gas against their own people in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi a few months ago, this situation should not go unnoticed. The Bush Administration should order a full-scale investigation.

Department of Defense scientists should go to Jamba in Angola, where an unexploded calcium cyanide bomb has been captured by UNITA soldiers and sits ready to be examined. The State Department should hurry along visa applications to allow gas victims to come to the United States for medical care.

President Bush should put pressure on our NATO allies to release the results of scientific studies that are currently being hidden from public view for political reasons, studies that demonstrate conclusively that new Soviet poison gas weapons have been used in Angola. The Soviets and Cubans should be called to account for this violation of human rights and the treaties that banned the use of such weapons more than 60 years ago.

Most of the world applauds the diplomacy that led to the Angola-Namibia settlement late last year. It would be foolish to jeopardize that agreement for trivial reasons. However, that risk is worth taking in order to expose to the world the Soviet Union's use of dangerous, new chemical weapons.

Richard Sincere is a Washington-based policy analyst who writes frequently on African affairs.

Water Taxis and Eliminating Government's Transit Monopolies

Yesterday's Washington Post includes a front-page a Metro section story with the headline, "Water taxis in Washington could be viable, study finds."

The article begins:

A water taxi that would ferry commuters across the region’s rivers is economically viable given the area’s burgeoning population and the proliferation of jobs along the water, according to a consultant’s study.

The year-long study found that at least four of two dozen possible routes across the Potomac, Anacostia and Occoquan rivers have enough demand to support a daily water taxi service that would be operated by a public entity or as part of a public-private partnership.

Well, well, well -- it's about time.

On April 21, 1995, the Arlington Journal published an article I wrote about meeting mass-transit needs through creative, free-market solutions that included this paragraph:

■ Restore the Potomac's status as a highway. The cities of Washington and Alexandria lie where they are because the Potomac River was once a major transporter of goods and people. A water-taxi service between Old Town Alexandria and Georgetown, with stops at the Washington Marina and in Arlington, could make the Potomac once again a significant people mover.

Why did it take so long for local governments to pay a high-priced consulting firm to come to the same conclusion that I did -- for no charge -- 18 years ago?

The piece also included suggestions for permitting private jitney services and for instituting sliding-scale highway tolls based on passenger occupancy.  (Something like that latter idea has been adopted on the interstates in Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs.)

From the archives, here is the full text of "End the government monopoly on mass transit service":

- - -

Some local government officials are moving in the right direction as they discuss the future of Metrobus service (“N.Va. systems threaten transit giant,” April 11), but most see too wary to step toward creativity and market-based decision making.

These local government officials deserve credit for their willingness to consider privatization of Metrobus routes as a means to make the system more cost-effective. Unfortunately, it seems that to them “privatization” is still limited to a county- or city-owned bus system to replace Metro or – at best – a government-granted monopoly to a private company within a single jurisdiction.

Why not consider more and varied alternatives that, when used together, will have the ultimate effect of reducing costs, improving efficiency, increasing mass-transit usage, and alleviating pollution.

Here are some examples:

■ Legalize jitney service. Jitneys are vehicles smaller than buses, such as vans, that operate independently (like taxis) but on a predetermined route (like buses). The operators set their own fares, which they can base on distance traveled or on other factors. Different jitneys can compete for the same passengers along the same routes, or a fleet of jitneys can divide up territory. Jitneys could operate within and across jurisdictions, feeding into Metrorail or connecting Tysons Corner to Silver Spring.

Island Queen ferry docked in Bayfield, Wisconsin

■ Restore the Potomac's status as a highway. The cities of Washington and Alexandria lie where they are because the Potomac River was once a major transporter of goods and people. A water-taxi service between Old Town Alexandria and Georgetown, with stops at the Washington Marina and in Arlington, could make the Potomac once again a significant people mover.

■ Turn Interstates 66 and 395 into toll roads, with tolls based on the number of passengers. For instance, instead of the dreaded high-occupancy vehicle lanes, we could charge vehicles a toll based on a sliding scale, such as $2 for lone drivers, $1.50 for two-passenger cars, $1 for three passengers, 75 cents for four passengers, and no charge for more than four. Such a scheme would persuade some people to take Metrorail, some to take the bus, some to car pool, and some to bear the economic price of the toll, depending on their preferences.

■ End the government mass-transit monopoly. These three examples only touch the surface of creative, market-based solutions that are there for us to consider and to use. The best way to encourage more use of mass transit, however, is to make more types of mass transit available, and to give commuters and travelers more choices than they have today. Allowing private services to compete with Metro on the same routes will be a good first step.

After all, we would never think it proper to grant Giant a monopoly in Fairfax County and Safeway a monopoly in Arlington County, and not let them compete against each other – or against 7-Eleven. If consumers can pick a grocery story, why not let them pick a type of mass transit? And why not let entrepreneurs give them what they want?

Richard E. Sincere Jr. of Arlington chairs the Libertarian Party of Virginia.

Spiro Agnew Resigned as Vice President 40 Years Ago Today

Another piece from the archives, marking the 40th anniversary of Spiro T. Agnew's resignation as vice president on October 10, 1973. Agnew left office under a cloud in the midst of the unfolding Watergate scandal, leading to the first use of the 26th Amendment procedures for selection of a vice president by Congress to fill a vacancy in that office. (Previous vacancies had gone unfilled throughout the rest of the presidential term.)

This article appeared in The Metro Herald in September 1996 as "Spiro Agnew: Up from the Memory Hole?" It was written on the occasion of Agnew's death on September 17, 1996.

- - -

Early in 1973, a Sunday "Doonesbury" comic strip by Garry Trudeau showed eight panels of the south portico of the White House. Phones are ringing; suddenly a recording answers: "Good morning! This is the White House. We are sorry but all our lines are busy right now. Please hold on. A service representative will be with you in a moment." There is a beep and a pause, followed by: "Good morning. Thank you for calling the White House. May I help you?" "... Ah ... yes," says the caller. "I'm trying to reach Mr. Agnew." Comes the reply: "Speaking."

To many people, this is the predominant image of former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who died late Tuesday evening [September 17, 1996] at the age of 77. In the swirl of controversy that defined the Nixon White House -- Vietnam, Watergate, the Energy Crisis -- Agnew was a but a blur, a minor player relegated to the lower levels of the administration; indeed, he was little more than a messenger or telephone operator.

Plucked from obscurity on [August] 8, 1968, by Republican presidential nominee Richard M. Nixon to be his running mate, Spiro Agnew had served as Baltimore County Executive and Maryland's Governor. Though some may claim he remained obscure throughout his truncated tenure as Vice President, the fact is that President Nixon assigned him major duties in both the domestic and foreign policy realms. Those who do remember him recall his lurid turns-of-phrase in his role as the administration's political attack dog.

"Nattering nabobs of negativism" was how Agnew characterized the press in one memorable speech in 1969. Spoken by Agnew, that phrase is ascribed to speechwriter Patrick Buchanan. (Is it necessary to ask, "Whatever happened to him?")

Spiro T. Agnew as Maryland governor

A year later, during the midterm election campaign, Agnew spewed forth against the administration's liberal opponents, saying that "ultraliberalism today translates into a whimpering isolationism in foreign policy, a mulish obstructionism in domestic policy, and a pusillanimous pussyfooting on the critical issue of law and order."

Agnew did not limit his criticism to Democrats, either. During that year's campaign season, he turned his sights on New York Senator Charles Goodell, who as a "Rockefeller Republican" was fairly liberal in his voting record. Goodell was in a tight three-way race that included Conservative candidate James Buckley. Nixon was upset by Goodell's attitude toward the administration's Vietnam policy, and wanted to undercut his re-election efforts in an attempt to favor Buckley.

So Agnew was sent out on the attack. At a meeting of newspaper editors in New Orleans, Agnew suggested that Goodell's most recent statements about Vietnam were wildly inconsistent with the statements and votes he had made as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. By comparing his earlier and later statements, Agnew said, "you will find Goodell is truly the Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party." (Jorgensen, in the 1950s, became the first person to have a successful sex-change operation.) Ms. Jorgensen, by the way, was not pleased at the comparison and objected to being used by Agnew as a "political pawn." (Goodell, by the way, lost his race to Buckley, who lost in turn to Daniel Patrick Moynihan six years later.)

Nonetheless, Agnew's role in the Nixon administration was more than just fodder for the media. Behind the scenes he performed important tasks. Henry Kissinger notes in his memoirs, for instance, that Agnew was one of the administration's point-men in the negotiations to end the Vietnam War, and during the drawn-out bargaining of late 1972 was always on stand-by, ready to fly to Paris to sign a peace treaty on the President's behalf.

Agnew's downfall, of course, was petty political corruption. I remember clearly the night of October 10, 1973, when Agnew resigned the vice presidency. My high school classmates and I learned a new Latin phrase: "nolo contendere" (no contest), the plea entered by Agnew that was short of an admission of guilt but still earned him punishment for accepting bribes (and failing to pay taxes on his bribery income) while he served, not only as Governor of Maryland, but as Vice President.

Strangely enough, Agnew treated his graft practices with an eerie sort of lightheartedness. One of the contractors who had delivered thousands of dollars in bribes to Agnew was being pressured to give money to the Nixon re-election campaign in 1972. After hearing his complaint, Agnew said to the man: "Tell them you gave at the office."

Agnew resigned; Nixon appointed Gerald R. Ford to succeed him. When Nixon himself resigned just 10 months later, Ford became "the accidental president." Had Agnew forestalled his own troubles for less than a year, he too could have been president -- and perhaps the second U.S. chief executive to resign in disgrace. What an ironic twist to history that would have been.

Calvin Coolidge and civility

(This article originally appeared on Virginia Politics on Demand on June 20, 2013.)

One day in 1905, while running for the school committee in Northampton, Massachusetts, future U.S. President Calvin Coolidge ran into his opponent on the street. Biographer Amity Shlaes relates the story like this:

The school committee campaign, she said,

would be a tight race: his Democratic opponent, John J. Kennedy, was someone he liked. "Calvin, I think I've got you beaten," teased Kennedy when they met. "Either way, they'll get a good man," Coolidge shot back. There was no point, he was learning, in making enemies.....

Within weeks, he did lose to Kennedy, albeit by less than a hundred votes. That was all right. A neighbor told him he had voted for Kennedy for the school post because Kennedy, at least, had children. Coolidge [then a newlywed] came back with good humor: "Might give me time."

That turned out to be the only election Calvin Coolidge lost as he made his way through the state legislature, lieutenant governor, governor, vice president, and president.

The anecdote about Coolidge and Kennedy struck me as so out of sorts with our own political times that I asked Shlaes about it when I interviewed her at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in March. What did that story say about civility in politics?

"That's the most important thing," she replied, "and I hope you write about that."

Coolidge, she explained, "was so civil."

Right now, with this book, a lot of people are trying to get me to attack other people. I don't want to attack people. We all should respect each other. One would hope all of us would hope to be like Coolidge and be fair to one another. He won without attacking and that's interesting. Coolidge won more than a dozen times but he was running for election every single year. In Massachusetts at that time, you had to run for governor [and virtually every elective office] every year.

... they had to run for office so often, that would be another way of testing their probity, wouldn't it? They got inspected by the customer -- the voter -- more often than we do [every] four years or something, right?

[Coolidge] just said, be civil, it'll pay off. It's in his autobiography, as well... He had a wicked tongue but it didn't behoove him to use it. He had a lot of kindness in his heart for all his opponents.

One could write off Coolidge's kindnesses for his opponents as mere political posing. Yet the encounter with John Kennedy was a private one; Coolidge had no points to score. He was genuinely amiable and civil with his rival, and he genuinely believed Kennedy could do just as a good a job on the school board as Coolidge could himself.

There are many adjectives used to describe Calvin Coolidge -- parsimonious, reticent, reflective -- but "obsequious" is not among them.

Twenty-first century Americans have a lot to learn from Coolidge and his era, which was just as rambunctious politically as our own, with real lines drawn on policies of public importance.

During the 1920s, there was a robust debate about the proper size and scope of government and another on the role of the United States in international affairs in the wake of the Great War. Policy differences were stark.

Yet Republicans and Democrats (and even Progressives) were able to discuss the issues of the day without devolving into the sort of tribalism we find ourselves in today. They may have had profound disagreements but nevertheless were able to conduct public business without demonizing each other.

As I said in the Richmond Times-Dispatch a few years ago, we could use a dose of Coolidge today.

No News Is New News: Revisiting the Somali Crisis of 1992-93

With the release on October 11 of the new Tom Hanks' movie, Captain Phillips, which is about the capture of an American cargo ship by Somali pirates; with the attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi by Somali terrorists affiliated with al-Shabaab; and with this week's anniversary of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu (later chronicled in the book by Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down, and the 2002 Ridley Scott film of the same name), it seemed timely to revisit the Somali crisis of 1992-93 by looking at old video.

The video, in this case, is an episode of “On the Line,” which was produced by the Voice of America (VOA) for its Worldnet television network. The date was October 8, 1992. The occasion was the George H.W. Bush administration's lame-duck decision to send American troops to Somalia to protect the deliveries of humanitarian assistance, which had been obstructed by thugs and warlords.

On the Line: Crigler, Sincere, Untermeyer, Natsios

This troop deployment came to an insidious end just a year later, when the Clinton administration decided, after the debacle later portrayed in Black Hawk Down, that U.S. forces should be withdrawn from Somalia.

The guests on “On the Line” that day were Andrew Natsios, at the time director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance within USAID and President Bush's special representative for humanitarian assistance in Somalia; Frank Crigler, the penultimate U.S. ambassador to Somalia (1987-90), who had retired from the Foreign Service earlier that year; and myself, then the director for African affairs at the International Freedom Foundation in Washington.

The host of the program was Chase Untermeyer, then director of the Voice of America and later U.S. Ambassador to Qatar.

Untermeyer asked me to explain the causes of the conflict in Somalia. My reply:

The causes are deep-seated, of course. The collapse of the government could have been a temporary power vacuum in which another government would come to power quickly. But in fact we see rival factions arising all over the place and the fact is that these factions are hostile to the humanitarian aid that's coming into the country and that is what is causing the technical problems in solving the disaster.

He asked Natsios, “Who is in charge in Somalia?” Natsios replied:

In terms of Somalis, no one is in charge of Somalia. In fact, I wish this were a civil war, at least we could negotiate with the two sides as we've done all over the world. In the Angolan civil war, the Mozambican civil war, the Sudan civil war, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, this is not like that. Even if the warlords agreed, they don't control half the militias. There are just bands of young thugs running around with guns who are high on the drug called khat, an amphetamine. They are uncontrollable and they don't answer to anybody.

Then Untermeyer said, “Mr. Sincere, is it correct to refer to Somalia as a country. Does it have any semblance of national order or rule at the moment?”

I answered:

I think that the best description for Somalia today was actually written by Thomas Hobbes 400 years ago, [in] Leviathan:  it's the state of nature, a war of all against all. It's something almost unprecedented in 20th century history. We're simply unused to a situation like this. And that is why it's so difficult for the United States, the other Western democracies, and the United Nations to get a handle on this and to actually help the situation.

Ambassador Crigler added to my response:

Let me comment on that, Chase, because I think this is a situation that's not going to remain unique. I don't believe it's unique even today. I think we're seeing something not unlike that in Yugoslavia, or what's left of Yugoslavia, and even, as we speak, in Georgia in the former Soviet Union – a situation in which the state of nature seems to be the only substitute for a repressive state structure.

(I find it interesting that both Georgia and the former Yugoslavia have settled into stability, with several former Yugoslav states joining NATO and the European Union. Somalia remains anarchic by comparison.)

Crigler continued:

The state structure in Somalia was really imposed from without, in any case, there was never really a nation-state as we know it in Somalia before, and that has collapsed since [President Mohammed] Siad-Barre's fall because that rigid structure is no longer there and simply crumbled of its own and there was nothing left to take the place of it. What has happened over the years under that rigid structure is that people have lost the talents for settling their ethnic differences by peaceful means. Traditionally, as Andrew [Natsios] was suggesting, the elders were able to moderate those differences. Those skills were lost during this period of repression and I'm afraid that's not a unique situation we're going to see in the world today.

Later, Andrew Natsios suggested that, if the rival Somali factions didn't resolve their own problems, the United States would withdraw its troops. (That prediction came true, if in tragic fashion.) Untermeyer asked me if I agreed that that is a good policy. I said:

I think it's the best policy. This is ultimately up to the Somali people to solve for themselves. Order cannot be imposed from outside. Humanitarian assistance cannot be provided if rival clans are actually shooting the humanitarian assisters. It's a tragic situation and it is ultimately up to the Somali people to get together and say, “We no longer want to have this war. We must live peacefully.” And it's not up to us to impose that on them. We can prod them, we can cajole them, but beyond that, there's not much we can do.

At that point, Untermeyer asked Ambassador Crigler about Somalia's strategic importance, and then posed the same question to me. My answer:

Well, certainly, from a geopolitical standpoint, Somalia always will have a strategic value to the United States and to any rivals the United States might have. But I think the point should be made that a comparison has often been made that the United States is paying more attention to Yugoslavia than to Somalia and the accusation has been leveled that this may be of racist origin but in fact the amount of aid that the United States has sent to Somalia has far outstripped what's been sent to Yugoslavia in the same period of time. I don't think the United States has fallen down on the job in this at all but the fact is that the hostility that we're facing in the region is blocking our ability to solve the problem.

Twenty-one years later, and we are still facing a region that is blocking our ability to solve the problem.

Here's the complete video of episode 24 of “On the Line,” just under 20 minutes, as recorded in the VOA studios on October 8, 1992:

Debate and dissension on GOP's future will continue

College Republican National Committee's report on Millennial voters

(This article originally appeared on Virginia Politics on Demand on June 6, 2013.)

Like it or not, members of the Republican party and the conservative movement are engaged in a strenuous debate about the party's (and the movement's) future. The various factions of the movement that were first brought together under James Burnham's "fusionism" in the 1950s have split apart, reorganized, reconfigured, split again, redefined themselves, and reunited on numerous occasions over the past six decades.

Taft vs. Eisenhower, Goldwater vs. Scranton, Reagan vs. Bush (yes, Reagan vs. Bush), and Mitt Romney vs. practically everybody else were just the figureheads in a struggle that has included traditionalists, libertarians, isolationists, internationalists, anti-Communists, country-club Republicans, Eastern liberal elites, fiscal hawks, social conservatives, and all manner of single-issue advocates on topics ranging from the Second Amendment to free trade to sexual permissiveness to home schooling ad nauseum.

A few weeks ago, the Republican National Committee published its lengthy post-mortem analysis of what went wrong for the Republican Party in the 2012 presidential election. The results of the RNC's survey were not encouraging, and its prescriptions for improvement met with a range of responses from "meh!" to outrage.

This week, the College Republican National Committee brought out its own 95-page report on why the GOP fails to connect with the Millennial generation of voters aged 18 to 29. Among its findings: 58 percent of this age group get most of their news about current affairs from Facebook, while only 21 percent get their news through either talk radio or NPR. For fully a quarter of this cohort, the fact that the GOP is hostile toward marriage equality is a "deal breaker" -- they won't vote for Republican candidates regardless of their views on other issues.

As the Cato Institute's David Boaz summarizes the CRNC's report,

young voters are very much against excessive government spending (though they do support higher taxes on the wealthy) and are strongly in favor of gay marriage. They want to reform entitlements but see the Republican party as “closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”

Yesterday on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, the last GOP candidate elected to be lieutenant governor in the deeply-blue state of Maryland, gave his take on the current discussions:

The old way doesn't work. The old strategies don't work. I think Reince Priebus proved that. Surprisingly, he didn't learn from me when I was chairman that you can't go back to the old model, and you cannot have a strategy that has a conversation with a 21-year-old, you know, African-American entrepreneur at the same time you're having that conversation with a 35-year-old mother, white mother of two.

So, you know, the reality is the reality. You're not going to change that. So adapting, recognizing that those core ideas of individual liberty, opportunity, responsibility, freedom, matter to people. Now how they translate that in their everyday life is up to them, but we can lay out some broad policy views and principles that they can then pull into their lives and say, oh, yeah, I like the idea of, you know, having the freedom to choose where to send my kids to school and what that means for me as a parent, how that empowers me as a parent, versus being stuck with the old model of having to go to the failing school in the neighborhood because it's in the neighborhood, and I live in that district.

So those are the types of opportunities and choices that I think are valuable to voters that I think the party needs to talk about and not losing sight of the fact that you raised about the numbers. In fact, I think that's the incentive to get off of the old stick and recognize the new opportunities.

In response to a listener's question, Steele specifically addressed how the GOP can win the votes of young people:

Millennials are changing the way we do politics. They deconstruct those old institutions. They break them out into pieces. And so their response to a problem is we can build an app for that.

We can create a universe of people that can generate action and activity around a particular issue without necessarily relying on these old institutions and these old strategies. We can bring something fresh to feeding people, clothing people, employing people. And I think that that's going to be very definitional for both parties. I think is uniquely opportunistic for the Republican Party to grab that energy that was just released in the report, for example, that came out this week from the [College] Republican National Committee - that talks about these words and these terms that are very important to people and how we translate that.

Steele also had advice for Republican candidates running in Democratic areas:

[T]here's a way which I think Republicans in blue states do win, and I always say it: Just be yourself. Our values, our ideas, our principles align with voters when we lay them out for them in an open, honest way, without trying to cherry-pick or make them like us.

You know, Republicans should run in the communities as they find them, not as you want them to be or think they are. And the moment you sort of get past that pretense and that falsehood that, you know, everybody, you know, is with you because they're with the other guy, you can have a conversation about the things that matter. You can have a conversation about the things that matter to people, as opposed to matter to your party.

Virginia is the first post-2012 state where the GOP can test new messaging techniques and improve upon ways in which the Obama campaign capitalized on social media. Whether the Republican ticket in the Old Dominion wins big or loses big, there will be lessons to be learned -- as long as we're willing to pay attention.

And as far as "like it or not"? I like it.