Here’s more evidence that General Assembly political dynamics will look very different in the post-Chichester era. Conservative Republicans in the state Senate are talking about challenging Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, for leadership of the GOP caucus. Writes Examiner.com:
Two conservative Northern Virginia Republican lawmakers plan to challenge the GOP leadership in the General Assembly, saying the Democrats’ victory in the Senate demands change.
The Republicans’ loss of four seats and the party’s majority in the state Senate and four seats in the House of Delegates revealed a weakness at the top, Sen. Ken Cuccinelli and Del. Bob Marshall told The Examiner Thursday.
“I think this party needs new leadership from top to bottom,” said Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax. He plans to be part of a challenge at the leadership elections Nov. 26 against current Senate Majority Leader Walter Stosch.
Stosch is looking weak right now. Not only must he, as former Senate Majority Leader, assume some responsibility for the loss of four seats, his willingness to play ball with retiring Sen. John Chichester, R-Northumberland, on tax and budget issues alienated a large segment of the voters back home. Despite his long-term incumbency and elevated status in the General Assembly hierarchy, he barely fought off a tough primary challenge by Joe Blackburn last summer.
I don’t follow Senate backroom politics very closely at all, but it doesn’t take a Larry Sabato (or a Not Larry Sabato) to note that the make-up of the Republican caucus will look very different this year. Gone are several bona fide members of the Axis of Taxes: Chichester, Russell Potts, R-Winchester, Marty Williams, R-Newport News, and Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, R-Vienna. Although Chichester will be replaced by a hand-picked moderate, no one can replace his commanding presence in the Senate.
However the dust-up between Cuccinelli, Marshall and Stosch transpires, we will see a very different GOP in the General Assembly. Three predictions:
(1) The 19-person Republican caucus will become significantly more conservative on issues relating to taxes and government spending. As such, it will become much more closely aligned with the fiscal conservatives in the House of Delegates.
(2) The GOP in the General Assembly will present a more unified face on tax-and-spending issues, in marked departure to the fractious years of the Chichester era, in which genuine conservatives like House Speaker William J. Howell made compromises on tax-and-spending decisions that badly tarnished the GOP’s brand of fiscal conservatism.
(3) Republicans will present voters with a much clearer alternative to the Democrats than they did over the past six years. After years of bitter infighting and compromise, which blurred ideological distinctions and positioned Democrats as the party of responsible, effective leadership in government, the GOP could emerge reinvigorated.
Those predictions may be no more than wishful thinking. As a former Republican who abandoned the party, which I felt had abandoned me, I may be yearning for the good old days. Meanwhile, I still worry that Republicans, like the Democrats, are captive to special business interests. (See my comments in “Who Rules Virginia?”) Also, I am terrified that a reinvigorated GOP may get more militant on culture-war issues that I regard as a distraction to the more pressing challenges of meeting the challenges of globalization and the emerging Knowledge Economy. Still, a guy can always hope, can’t he?
Update: More pressure on Stosch. SWAC Girl notes that Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, has joined the ranks of those calling for a change in Senate leadership. In a Nov. 13 letter, he wrote:
Since I joined the Senate, our leadership has consistently divided Republican ranks. Examples abound, including doing battle with House Republicans, dissolving the joint Republican Legislative Caucus, the functional dissolution of the Senate Republican Caucus and the establishment of the Republican Senate Leadership Trust.
It is imperative that we immediately refocus our attention on the ideas that brought the Republican Party to power in the 1990s. We must look for common ground, not just with a majority of our colleagues in the Senate, but also with our colleagues in the House. Towards that end, we must immediately move to reestablish the Joint Republican Legislative Caucus.