March 17, 2009 [LINK / comment]
Mounting pressure on Frederick
All five Virginia Republican congressmen have written RPV Chairman Jeff Frederick, asking him to resign: Rep. Randy Forbes (4th District), Frank Wolf (10th District), Robert Wittman (1st District), Bob Goodlatte (6th District), and Eric Cantor (5th District). So they are finally catching on to what lies behind the catastrophe that has befallen the Grand Old Party. Frederick is obviously doomed as party leader at this point, but neither he nor his supporters are giving up. As reported in the Richmond Times Dispatch, he is positioning himself as champion of the little guy, battling the stodgy old titans of the Establishment:
All the status quo, all the top-down opposed me.
...
Clearly it is the sentiment of the grass-roots membership of the party to move in another direction.
"Clearly?" Well, not exactly. Those folks who actually pay attention to Virginia politics know all too well about the pattern of disruption and interference brought about by the "SWAC" leadership in recent years, culminating in the Augusta County Republican "Meeting of Mass Destruction" last May. Let's take a trip down memory lane and see how the "grassroots" operate, up close and personal:
To sum it up, the candidate who won the election for party chairman by a wide margin (141-103) was later deemed to have lost by higher party committees, who cited procedural irregularities but ignored a fact-finding report and refused to let Dr. Roller speak. In other words, it was top-down power that kept an incumbent party chairman in his position, contrary to the will of the people -- the exact opposite of what "grassroots politics" is supposed to be. Here are some very pertinent quotes from narrative captions near the end of that video:
Here's my question:
Why do the self-proclaimed "grassroots activists" rely on connections with political insiders to get their way?
Hm-m?
There's something very "fishy" going on in the Republican Party!
Is ignoring popular sentiment the road to victory -- or will it lead to further defeats??
I believe we learned the answer to that question in November. ¡Hasta luego, Jeff! (He's the lone Hispanic-American in the Virginia General Assembly.)
The 2nd District race
Democrats in Virginia picked up three House of Representatives seats in November, including the 2nd Congressional District (Eastern Shore), where incumbent Thelma Drake lost to Glenn Nye. I am told by Carl Tate that a guy named Chuck Smith declared his candidacy for the 2010 race. Can the GOP retake that seat? Yes, we can!
Fannie Mae history lesson
In the midst of this awful economic recession, many Americans remain clueless about the origins of it. Indeed, many people have no idea about the role played by congressional Democrats in perpetuating the risky mortgage lending practices that have brought the capitalist system to its knees. Watch them stall and make excuses, while Republicans vainly try to prevent the crisis from erupting, at youtube.com; hat tip to Steve Kijak.