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Virginia GOP–The Party that Couldn’t Shoot Straight

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Dick Hall-Sizemore
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By Dick Hall-Sizemore

The conservatives on this blog have been spending a great deal of time lamenting what the Democratic majority and progressives are doing to the state’s universities, public schools, and life in general. However, there has been very little mention of the Commonwealth’s other major political party.  Frankly, I do not blame them for doing everything they can to distract attention away from the Republicans. That party cannot agree even on how to select its candidates for the upcoming gubernatorial election.

First, there was the usual fight in the State Central Committee over whether to have a convention or a primary. As in prior years, the proponents for a convention won out. There was one major problem with that decision, however. There is a pandemic and a large convention would violate the prohibition of large gatherings. Of course, the party could probably ignore that Governor’s executive order and go ahead with a mass convention. I doubt if the police would try to shut them down. But, doing that would be a public relations disaster.

The next option would be to arrange for some sort of virtual voting around the state, an “unassembled convention.” To do that would require a change in the party rules, but such a change would need a 75% vote in the Central Committee. The split on the committee made achievement of that level of agreement doubtful.

The Central Committee then announced that there would be a one-day “drive in” convention at Liberty University. But, there was a minor problem with that plan. Liberty University announced the next day that it had not agreed to that idea. Oops!

The legal deadline for notifying the state Department of Elections that the party wishes to hold a primary has passed. So, the options now are even more limited. To save face over the quick demise of the Liberty drive-in convention, party chairman Rich Anderson recently announced that it was not feasible. “The convergence of as many as 4,000 automobiles and 70 buses at a single venue makes that impossible,” he said. Anderson is obviously frustrated. In a message to party members, he lamented, “To be frank, I and most Republicans are fatigued by this process.”

With only two months left before the scheduled convention, they still have not figured out to how to do it.

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18 responses to “Virginia GOP–The Party that Couldn’t Shoot Straight”

  1. vicnicholls Avatar
    vicnicholls

    Dick, there is a huge difference between internal issues (which the Dems have) and bills/laws passed that hurt either the local area or commonwealth as a whole. Tell me how the R’s not getting their act together hurts you or another group, compared to religious discrimination or gun control laws.

    While we’re at it, explain why a newly elected African American male delegate removed his endorsement from an African American female running for Governor and gave it to a Caucasian male, *under duress/threat to his political career* and how that is indictative of the Democratic party.

    Thanks.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      The Republicans not getting their act together means that they present less of a challenge to the Democrats. Any party needs a viable challenge to keep it from going off the rails.

      As for your reference to a Black delegate being pressure to change his endorsement, I missed that, so I can’t respond.

      1. vicnicholls Avatar
        vicnicholls

        Since you are not a conservative or Republican, why does it matter to you? Internal matters of the Dems don’t matter to me.

        Well look up Clinton Jenkins, Jennifer Carroll Foy and McAwful. Then come back and tell us how bad the R’s are when the D’s aren’t impressing.

        1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
          Dick Hall-Sizemore

          That is an interesting story about Jenkins and Lucas. If true, I am not surprised at Lucas’ involvement. Of course, you seemed to imply that this was a black vs. white thing, but with Lucas being the one allegedly doing the pressuring, that changes the equation to just normal hard ball politics.

          1. vicnicholls Avatar
            vicnicholls

            I’m not a R, however the original questions of:
            1) who cares what the R’s do, unless you are an R. If the D’s have no competition, that’s for the D’s to rejoice over but does nothing in terms of the garbage laws enacted on party line votes, pretty much universally D’s that have hurt Virginia and their specific localities.
            2) The D’s are all about diversity, the example I gave shows the hypocrisy in D’s.

            We watched yesterday Guzman get slaughtered by Davis on education, because she isn’t up to the task. Complaining on how bad the R’s are, does nothing to get the D’s that are useless as mammaries on a bull, as a rep of how good the D’s are. Or that she was elected on something other policy.

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            But if you think the Dems are wrong/terrible but you don’t care what the R’s do – then not sure what the point is if you want change…. seems like change will only happen with D’s or R’s, in the GA and Governor, no?

          3. vicnicholls Avatar
            vicnicholls

            Larry I won’t bother with you because you’ve been called as clueless so many times by so many that I don’t bother with your posts. So save yourself the trouble, you won’t get an answer. Start learning how to critically think and read both sides of an argument, then when folks indicate you have grown up and expanded, I’ll reconsider.

          4. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
            Dick Hall-Sizemore

            That’s OK if you don’t want to ignore Larry’s comments, but there is no need to insult him.

          5. vicnicholls Avatar
            vicnicholls

            We’ve been insulted enough over the time frame, guess what progressives it works both ways.

          6. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            So… if you felt I was insulting you VC, my apologies… it was just a question, really! 😉

      2. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
        James Wyatt Whitehead

        What about old fashioned Ring Tournaments like the annual at Buffalo Springs? From colonial times into Reconstruction Virginia local politics was settled at elaborate Ring Tournaments. It was a cross between Prom, a steeple chase with jousting on top. Closest thing we have now is NASCAR.
        http://nationaljousting.com/history/romantic.htm

  2. Matt Hurt Avatar
    Matt Hurt

    The Republican Party in Virginia has a bigger problem than that. They don’t have a unifying narrative that drives what they do, other than “We’re against the Democrats”. The Democrats, on the other hand, have a very strong narrative that unifies folks of a certain mindset. Their narrative is that they have the moral high ground and they’re fighting to undo all of the racist, misogynistic, bigoted policies which were purposefully put in place to keep people of color, women, and anoy other marginalized or “vulnerable” group subjugated. This is not only the case in Virginia, but on the national level as well.

    I truly believe that folks are generally wired to tend to one of these parties or the other. The deciding factor seems to me to be whether an individual believes in the perfectibility of humankind/society with the right leadership (Democratic mindset) or the primacy of the individual over the collective (Republican mindset). I’m not sure if I precisely have this nailed, but this is at least somewhere in the ballpark- I’m sure folks could argue the semantics to better define this in a way that most folks would agree. It seems to me that these mindsets are fairly even distributed across our population in this country, as the national elections tend to be fairly evenly divided. Within that distribution are varying degrees of alignment- think of this as a Democrat/Republican spectrum.

    If the Republicans want to do anything in Virginia, they must develop/adopt a story or narrative that drives their base. From all accounts, it appears that Amanda Chase has been the closest to doing that, much to the chagrin of the Republican leadership. One of the many problems with that is that Chase’s narrative is not palatable to those folks more in the middle of the spectrum.

  3. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Seems like both in Va and in other states, even in Congress there are now two wings of the GOP representing two different flavors of conservatism.

    We’ve seen changes right here in BR as conservative narratives have morphed from long-standing traditional Conservative values like globalism, free trade, immigration, fiscal conservatism to more and more culture war issues.

    Compromise is seen as an evil – even within the GOP itself as we see in Virginia except for their equally-shared fear of the “radical left” of which they sometimes consider even in their own ranks – the despised CINOs.

    I read Conservative views now days that disavow historic Conservatives like Bush and wonder…. if the GOP in this country and Virginia will end up as two separate wings and we no longer really have a two-party system except in the sense of which faction of Conservatives has gained control of the GOP.

  4. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Dick. Good post. A huge problem is that Donald Trump leads the GOP while conservative bloggers here pine away for the days of George Allen and Bill Howell. As noted my others and me for months, the Republicans, who tend to be Main Street types, have pretended that Trump doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, they have abdicated influence to party members who have made Amanda Chase the leader in gubernatorial race polls and who cluelessly made Liberty University the site of a drive in convention. It was news to Liberty. The bumbling continues as the state turns bluer.

  5. William O'Keefe Avatar
    William O’Keefe

    For too long the Virginia Central Committee has resembled the gang that couldn’t shoot straight or wanted to appear that way. In fact, for too long it has wanted to control the outcome by favoring conventions which limit participation. Today, we call that voter suppression.

  6. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    If nominated, I’m voting for Amanda Chase in the general election. If they’re gonna hold the coffin nail, I’ll hit it for ’em. What’s the adage, “When the competition is committing suicide,…” or words to that effect?

    The Dumbing Down of America party is hoist on their own dunce cap.

  7. Publius Avatar
    Publius

    Dick Hall Sizemore is correct that the Republican Party of Virginia is inept. The Communists, oops, Democrats know how to exercise power. I’m not saying they are right or their policies are good. Does anyone doubt that if Gov Coonman Blackface had been a Republican he would have been gone? Or Fairfax or Herring? (What a maroon Herring is – decried the Gov, and later had to admit that he had done Kurtis Blow…)
    If the country clubber side had held their noses, Cuccinelli would have won… (Senate? Gov? I think Senate) but he was icky and associated with Baptists and said abortion was wrong…
    At some point you need to win elections. You can’t just rely on the Dems to finally be so horrible that some nameless, lose more slowly Republican wins… When an unwashed Republican wins whatever rigged process, the Never Trump Va Pubbies are embarrassed, vote for Dems, etc. When the lose more slowly Repubs win the cooked process, the great unwashed voters don’t show up for TweedleDum or TweedleDee… Might be time for trying something different…

  8. Andrea Epps Avatar
    Andrea Epps

    I think they figured it out a while back. So long as they don’t have enough support to amend the plan, one way or the other, the SCC will end up picking the nominees.

    The candidates have paid a fortune to get this result.

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