Bacon's Rebellion

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HYPERVENTILATIONG ABOUT THE PRIMARY

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by

James A. Bacon
in

“Moderates Defeated in VA Primary: GOP Ideological Struggle at Heart of VA Races” shouts WaPo‘s front page.

Do not hyperventilate about the Primary results regardless of clan identity.

The following is based on the expertise that comes from being an Independent who supported some candidates that won and chatted up the political insiders who gathered at last night’s victory parties.

There were half a dozen prime RINOs in the hunt.

Two retired. The RINO-in-chief’s hand picked candidate won in a pre-Primary political process.

While Donkey clan members might rather run in November against the anti-RINO candidate that was indicted on 11 counts of election fraud during the primary campaign (See our post “I Am Not Making This Up”), they should settle for someone from Hunt Country when most of the votes are in the Valley where Potts was popular.

Of the other four, two won and two were defeated. All the margins were narrow, in light turnouts.

It is hard to believe there were not 758 Donkey Clan members in the First Senate District who like to get out on election day and who would rather see a new someone WaPo says signed a petition to end “government involvement in education” rather than an entrenched incumbent.

RINO hunters did not do that well — plus there is an ideological vs personality / incompetence spin that can be put on every race — in the contests which we know the participants.

It may sell papers but seems just plain silly to feature a quote from a RINO hunter such as “The people have spoken, and it is time for a change. It is time to stop raising taxes in Virginia.”

True conservatives would do better to urge their supporters to start saving more and consuming less and buying a lot of insurance.

Governance of contemporary society is expensive. Effective government that addresses pressing issues of Mobility and Access, Affordable and Accessible Housing, Food Security Air Quality, Water Supply and Adequate Health Care will be spending a lot more money.

What this election said to many we spoke to was that the political process is broken, badly broken.

It is to easy, however, to see the glass half full when your candidate won.

EMR

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Comments

9 responses to “HYPERVENTILATIONG ABOUT THE PRIMARY”

  1. Reid Greenmun Avatar
    Reid Greenmun

    Marty Williams was shown the door.
    This is a victory for Conservatives.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Just remember that once those that signed the anti-tax pledge get into office, they are going to try and impose as many unfunded state mandates on local governments as they can. That way they can claim that they did not vote to raise taxes – directly. Watch and see.

  3. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Reid:

    Does Ms. Stal have an opponent in the November election?

    EMR

  4. Reid Greenmun Avatar
    Reid Greenmun

    Not yet, but the Dems are talk’in about it now.

    They will lose if the run someone.

    I think they are looking at someone named Miller, but I’m not too sure.

    I don’t hang out with too many Democrat Party folks.

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    How is our process broken? Have we — GOP & DEM — created such a redristricting mess that now elected officials choose their voters? I am growing of the opinion that we have created legislative districts that reflect nothing. We have the rise of third party ideological hit squads enforcing discipline. Yes our system is broken.

    GhostofAlexanderHamilton

  6. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I’ll be a wag here…

    it looks to me that some elements of the conservatives are doing everything in their power to force middle/independent NOT to vote for the conservative candidates in urban and urbanizing areas of Va …

    If those folk stay home.. the Conservatives win.. but if those same folks vote – they lose.

    We’ve seen this already in NoVa… they held their noses for a few years, until they could not atand it any longer.. and so now, it’s been tending “purple” of late.

    and in the irony department…

    if elected HR/TW conservatives were to propose doing away with the HR/TW transportation authority – their conservative colleagues from rural Va would probably go along with it without much convincing..

    but trying to get those same rural colleagues to go along with a statewide gas tax increase – pay for HR/TW roads won’t be near so easy .. not even to mention how those conservatives would explain their “no tax increases”.. except for the gas tax … stands…

    of course.. I probably have all of this wrong .. and welcome comments from those who can show me the errors of my ways…

    🙂

  7. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Ed, Weighing in from afar… I find a morcel of good news in the primary results. A large number of Republican Party activists (those who bother to vote in primaries) are fed up with Business As Usual. Of course, these guys don’t define Business As Usual the same way we do. But they’re clearly fed up with the explosion of state spending by unaccountable politicians. What we don’t hear from the newly nominated politicians is a clear explication of how or why the system isn’t working, much less legislative proposals that delve deeper than the level of cliche. I interpret the election results as an inarticulate cry of rage.

    In my book, an inarticulate cry of rage over out-of-control and unaccountable spending is a step forward from where we were a few years ago. That suggests to me that a significant portion of the electorate may be willing to entertain ideas that the establishment politicians have refused to endorse.

  8. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Jim:

    You are right but we are running out of time and the “inarticulate cry of rage” has to be transformed into an intelligent action agenda.

    That will not happen with partisan politics and 14th century analogies.

    EMR

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    or as I like to say anyone can complain it takes real intelligence and guts to propose solutions to issues

    the real irony is when you actually start to read Bollings limited ideas they start to sound fairly similar to the donkeys

    NMM

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