CvilleDems.Org

Virgil Goode showed off his comic chops at the 5th District Republican convention on Saturday, April 26. There, Goode made the following promise:

 ”I have not been politically correct during my tenure in U.S. House of Representatives. If re-elected, I won’t be either.”

While the convention included other moments of similar hilarity, so too was it tinged with sadness as the GOP faces the chickens coming home to roost.

ShaunKenney.com does a wonderful job of live-blogging the convention. (Liveblogging is a style of blogging in which the blogger writes about an event contemporaneously with observing it.)

Goode touched on a number of other issues, including offering a preview of the Republican’s election strategy for the fall with a robust defense of the Mexican American War.

According to Kenney, the crowd was on its feet, chanting “”Virgil! Virgil! Virgil!”

I looked over the Perriello website, and as far as I can tell, Tom does not have a position on this conflict.

Seriously, I strongly recommend redeading the entire liveblogging session to everyone. It reads quickly. Some of it is just descriptions of party business, but it paints a sowworful portrait of the Republican Party in Virginia today.

Besides Goode, there was a speech from projected Republican Gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, who cleverly quipped, “I’ve never understood Obama’s “hope and change” message… but now I get it, because you better hope you have change left after he’s done.” HaHaHaHaHaHa.

Jim Gilmore unwittingly argued against his own election as Senator by noting, “I’ve always done what I’ve said I’m going to do.” Unfortunately for the citizens of Virginia, that was the case when Gilmore was elected Governor.

All in all, however, based on Kenney’s account, the GOP seems like a tired and uncertain party bereft of ideas and aware that it lacks the confidence of the people in Virginia. It is trying to hang on by recycling the same old divisive issues and slogans, the same misdirection, that it recalls from its brief, shining moment in the sun a dozen years ago, but there is no energy behind it anymore. It’s as if they don’t even believe themselves anymore.

About 200 injured. Gov. Kaine declares state of emergency:

Bloomberg.com: U.S.

From the Virginia Department of Emergency Management

VAEmergency.com > Newsroom & Archives > News Release Archive > 2008 > Governor Kaine Declares Statewide Emergency

Latest from AP (about 8 a.m.)

3 tornadoes rip through Va.; more than 200 people hurt - Yahoo! News

Lowell at Raising Kaine drew my attention to this chart from the Swing State project measuring how competitive challengers were in House races by comparing their cash on hand with that of their incumbent opponents.

As the Swing State Project explains their methodology by noting it is great if you, as a challenger, have $500K cash on hand, but if your opponent has $2 million, well, it don’t look so great. So their chart measures the challenger’s CoH as a percentage of the incumbents.

Tom Perriello ranks 15th on the list. His $500K CoH is about 84% Virgil Goode’s amount.

The only other Virginia race in the top 20 is VA-10, where Judy Feder’s $700K is 98% of incumbent Frank Wolf’s $716K.

If one needed any confirmation that Virginia is moving from a red state to a purple one – beyond the Democratic Party’s recent dominance in statewide elections, that is — look no further than the speculation surrounding potential vice-presidential candidates from the state.

It is to be expected on the Democratic side. While the result of endless Democratic primary remains, as of this writing and at least in theory, up in the air, one thing is for sure: the top of the ticket will be a Yankee.

The last winning Democratic ticket that did not include a Southerner was Franklin Roosevelt and Henry Wallace in 1940. And while Obama, should he be the nominee, may need to use the VP slot to solidify Ohio and Pennsylvania, two critical states in any Democrat’s path to the White House, should he reach south for help, Sen. James Webb is both a logical and intriguing choice (Gov. Tim Kaine, apparently, is not interested in the slot) who, with his military cred, could help him carry this state and others.

But it was a recent name floated on the GOP side that made me say “Huh?”

In an April 23 column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Bob Raynor wrote that Congressman Eric Cantor “could make the perfect running mate” for John McCain. He cited his age, 44, and his seat on the economically oriented House Ways and Means Committee as compensating for two of McCain’s perceived weaknesses.

Raynor also cited the fact that Cantor would be the first Jew on a national GOP ticket, which he said would benefit McCain by amplifying the suspicion with which Jewish voters are already thought to regard Obama. (Incidentally, Cantor is the sole Jewish Republican in the House, as well.)

“The congressman from Richmond,” Raynor writes, “would keep Virginia and Florida in the GOP column and could help McCain in Northeastern states, such as New Jersey, where the Arizona Senator appears to be running better than recent Republican presidential candidates.”

Incidentally, Cantor’s wife is, among other things, on the Board of Directors of Media General, which owns the Times Dispatch.

Raynor is probably right that Cantor on the ticket would not hurt in the retirement areas of South Florida, although the Obama camp already seems to be torpedoing any chance it has in the state anyway, and we’re not sure why Cantor would be needed.

As for Virginia, we are baffled what his presence on the ticket would actually do. His district, the Seventh, is already solidly in the GOP corner, and while he is a member of the GOP leadership in the House, he doesn’t seem particularly well known in the state.

And as for New Jersey, we’ll never under the GOP’s fascination with the home of the Boss. Jersey used to swing, but not anymore.

The reason we were baffled, however, is why anyone think to mention Cantor in the first place? This isn’t a judgment on Cantor’s abilities, about which we know little and could care less, but rather on whether he is ready to run for national office.

For McCain to win in the fall, he will need to distance himself from George W. Bush, the most unpopular president, at least according to Gallup, in living memory. A running mate who voted with Bush some 95% of the time is probably not a good way to accomplish this.

Nor I see Cantor’s youth as a positive.

It’s not like voters will average his and McCain’s ages to find a greater comfort level. McCain’s advanced years cause concern because they create the perception he may not survive the entire term. This problem is not alleviated by youth on the other spot on the tick – it’s not like voters will average their ages. In fact, voters will more than likely be trying to imagine McCain’s running-mate as a president in his or her own right.

Cantor does not meet this test. He makes Dan Quayle seem like Abraham Lincoln.

I wish I could even say that Cantor’s name was an interesting one to float, but I can’t, outside of the thought that McCain might need a Virginian, even one as unready for national office as Cantor, to hold on to a state that has not voted for a Democrat since 1964.

Bush’s disapproval number of 69% set a new record. The old record was 67% by Harry Truman in 1952.

Disapproval of Bush breaks record - USATODAY.com

BTW, besides losing the presidential election in 1952, we lost 2 Senate seats and 21 House seats.

… on HR 2082 to a small paper in Southside, The Southside Messenger. For those of you who have not memorized the actual legislation behind Congressional bill numbers, HR 2082 was the law that prohibited torture, including waterboarding. The President vetoed it, and the House was trying to override the veto.

Goode, of course, voted against. Here is why, in his own words:

Some people don’t understand how this works. We vote on the entire bill, not on each page. I decide if the package is best for Southside Virginia and vote in the interest of Southside.

I have often suspected Virgil did not care about us up here in the C’ville area or vote in our interests, but it is still surprising to hear him confirm it.

From InRich.com:

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is going back to school — sort of.

Virginia’s top elected official is heading to Charlottesville on Monday to address Larry Sabato’s “Introduction to American Politics” class at the University of Virginia. The guest lecture will take place at 3 p.m. in Wilson Hall Auditorium.

The Danville Register & Bee wrote an interesting editorial today about Tom Perriello and Faithful American.org. The group, of which Tom was co-director, raised money and ran an ad on al Jezeera television apologizing for American torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. The Register & Bee recently ran a story on it, and two observers of the Virginia political scene, Tim Craig of the Washington Post and Bob Gibson of the Daily Progress, both thought it was damaging to Tom.

It was an odd sort of editorial, lauding Tom for acting honorably in helping to condemn torutre, but then concluding that as a result of acting honorably, he hurt himself politically.

Here is, as they say in the News biz, the nut graf:

For Perriello to be involved in a public relations outreach to the people of the Arab world was a decent, honorable thing to do. 

And here is the conclusion the Register & Bee draws from that:

But it won’t help him in his race for the 5th District congressional seat. 
Local conservatives have shown little concern over how the Iraq War has been prosecuted. They generally support the president and have little use for the likes of al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. 
At best, the reports of prisoner abuse in Iraq were greeted locally with shrugs, indifference or a hostility toward the news media for reporting those crimes. Those folks want more stories about our troops with happy, smiling Iraqi kids — which is a part of what’s going on over there — and view anything critical as being anti-soldier and anti-American. 

The Register & Bee, Craig and Gibson are all wrong. The validity of their opinions depends on the cynical belief that most people in the 5th District can’t tell the difference between right and wrong.

If this kind of garbage is all Virgil Goode has to run on, then I say we should all get in the habit of calling him “Former Congressman Virgil Goode.”

Regardless of who you might support in the presidential campaign, Eric Boelhlert, who writes for Media Matters, is one of the sharpest media critics around. Here he is on last week’s bizzare New York Times Magazine cover story on Chris Matthews:

 Media Matters - For Chris Matthews, misogyny pays

Enjoy tonight’s debate!

The first quarter fundraising reports just filed with the Federal Election Commission showed that Democratic challenger Tom Perriello has outraised incumbent Rep. Virgil Goode for the third straight quarter in the race for the fifth congressional district.

Incredibly, in the first quarter of 2008 alone, the Perriello campaign raised more support from inside the district than Goode raised in all of 2007. Perriello raised over $340,000 in the first quarter of 2008, with 98% of donations coming from individuals.

On the other hand, as the Perrillo campaign points out much of Goode’s fundraising over his years in Washington, DC, to the tune of over $1.5 million, has come from corporate and DC lobbyists, including over $100,000 from oil, gas, and electric utility interest groups.

“People from every corner of the Fifth district are responding to our focus on right and wrong instead of right and left,” Perriello said. “People clearly want new leaders who care more about fixing problems than finding someone to blame for them. We need jobs for Southside, healthcare for all, and a sustainable solution in Iraq.”

With seven months until Election Day, the Perriello campaign has already raised more than any previous Democratic challenger to Goode, more than $600,000. The campaign reports over $500,000 cash on hand.

Perriello has been on the road for the past two weeks, meeting with voters from 14 different counties and municipalities. The campaign has opened offices in Franklin County, Danville, and Charlottesville. 

Based on Perriello’s record-breaking support from across the district, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently added the race to its list of national target races.