How Bob Marshall will win (Part II)

What with Christmas now receding from the rear-view mirror, and 2008 barrelling down the road, it is time to once again focus on our upcoming U.S. Senate race, and why Bob Marshall is the best choice.

Almost none of the reaction I have encountered questions Marshall’s record; this does not surprise me, as the record is fantastic.  Instead, the main concern seems to be about electability, and its mainly coming from folks who are not in Northern Virginia.  I can understand that, too – if you haven’t followed Northern Virginia politics, you wouldn’t see how Marshall has repeatedly defied every effort by the lefties to get rid of him.  IN fact, as I mentioned earlier, Marshall ran ten points better than his up-ballot State Senate candidates last month.  He even beat the Democratic Senate candidates by six points (58% for Marshall, 52% for the Democratic Senate hopefuls – three of whom went on to win their seats, while the fourth held the Republican victor below 50%).

Also, as I must mention again, Marshall’s district at the top of the ballot (State Senate) was more Democratic than the rest of the state (the Dems only won 48% of the vote statewide).  Translated to a Presidential election, that means Marshall could pull out a win even if the GOP nominee loses Virginia 60-40, which is all but certain not to happen here.

Yes, I know, that’s a rough, swiss-cheese-like extrapolation, but my larger point still holds: Bob Marshall can win Democratic and independent votes; indeed he has for the last 16 years.

Two ancillary concerns spread from this, one of which was presented by outgoing Senator Brandon Bell, while the other has been unspoken so far.  Bell expressed his concern (see comment five here) thusly: “guys running in a generally homogeneous state house district have issues speaking to the concerns of broader constituency-in this case the entire state.”  The second one deals with whether Marshall - a Delegate since 1991 – can handle the shifting political sands that Virginia has witnessed in this decade.

Oddly enough, both concerns can be addressed in the same manner – by looking at Marshall’s district.  In the fall of 2001, Marshall represented 47,108 voters.  This was already larger than most districts despite the redistricting of the past spring, but it was nothing compared to what was coming.

Last month, the number of active voters in Marshall’s district totalled a whopping 81,709.  That’s an increase of over 34,600 voters over six years.  To give the reader an idea of how dramatic that is, the following is the list of Delegates who had fewer than 34,000 total voters in 2007: Matt Lohr (R-26th; 32,630), Adam Ebbin (D-49th; 28,981), Jackson Miller (R-50th; 32,214), Franklin Hall (D-69th; 31,041), Dwight C. Jones (D-70th; 33,528), Jennifer McLellan (D-71st; 32,076), Paula Miller (D-87th; 28,179), Kenneth Cooper Alexander (D-89th; 32,765), Angie Howell (D-90th; 30,468), and Lynwood Lewis, Jr. (D-100th; 30,629).  That’s a count of ten Delegates who have fewer total voters than Bob Marshall has in post-2001 voters alone.

For Mr. Bell (who I’m guessing is more familiar with Matt Lohr’s District than any other on the list), think of it this way - take Matt Lohr’s entire district and move into Marshall’s; you’d still be almost 2,000 voters short of what actually happened there.  In other words, Marshall has felt the demographic wave in northern Virginia as much as any other elected official (yes, I’m answering second concern first), but as Prince William and Loudoun County shifted to the Democrats (Kaine and Webb carried both), Marshall has remained strong.

Hopefully, this by itself will allso show Brandon and others that Marshall’s district is hardly “homogenous.”  Still, just in case, I have one more interesting tidbit to mention.  With over 81,700 active voters, Marshall represents more voters than Yvonne Miller, Ralph Northam, and Henry L. Marsh, III.  Here’s the significance: the aforementioned three are State Senators (Marshall easily has the most populous district in the House; his closest competition on that are Loudoun delegates Bill May and David Poisson – neither of which are within 20,000 voters of him).

For what it’s worth, Marshall also won more votes (14,826) than five Senators, although only two (Harry Blevins, R-18, and Marsh) had opponents; the other three were Miller, Maime Locke (D-2), and Ken Stolle (R-8).  Of course, the next time Stolle opens his mouth to justify tax hikes, runaway spending, or some other nonsense, feel free to remind him that Bob Marshall won over 1,500 more votes than he did.

To conclude (I know, waaay too late), Bob Marshall is no ordinary Delegate, and his district is no ordinary district.  He has stayed true to his convictions, and because of that, he has succeeded in a dramatically changing environment that sunk many Republicans of weaker stomachs.  For these reasons, he is the ideal candidate, and will be a terrific Senator.

Cross-posted to Bloggers 4 Bob Marshall

Hey Ben, what year was that redistricting again?

In his latest attempt to scare Tom Davis into retirement, Ben Tribbett (a.k.a. Not Larry Sabato) made a huge mistake.  Ben attempted to show how the Fairfax County and City portions of Davis’ district has dramatically changed.  This is what Ben’s “analysis” produced (link can be found at his site, colors have been removed, emphasis added):

Overall in Fairfax- 111 Precincts

What Tom Saw at 2001 Redistricting
69 Precincts Have A Republican State Senator and Republican Delegate
15 Precincts Have One Republican Legislator and One Democratic Legislator
27 Precincts Have a Democratic State Senator and a Democratic Delegate

TODAY
7 Precincts Have A Republican State Senator and Republican Delegate
30 Precincts Have One Republican Legislator and One Democratic Legislator
74 Precincts Have a Democratic State Senator and a Democratic Delegate

That seems like a compelling case.  There’s only one problem: Ben’s numbers are wrong.

When the new lines were drawn in 2001, there were only two Republicans in the Virginia Senate who represented parts of Fairfax – Bill Mims, who ended up with a handful of precincts that were all in Frank Wolf’s district, and Warren Barry, who by then was a nominal Republican and whose son switched parties in 1999 to knock off the Republican incumbent for Sheriff.  More to the point – Barry only shared 21 precincts with Davis under the new lines, not 69.

Now, I’m guessing Ben will say that he really meant after the 2003 elections (in which Devolites was elected and O’Brien re-elected after a special election for the 39th District seat in 2002), but that doesn’t work either.  Take a look at his Fairfax City “analysis” (same deal as above):

Fairfax City- 6 Precincts

What Tom Saw at 2001 Redistricting
6 Precincts Have A Republican State Senator and Republican Delegate
0 Precincts Have One Republican Legislator and One Democratic Legislator
0 Precincts Have a Democratic State Senator and a Democratic Delegate

TODAY
0 Precincts Have A Republican State Senator and Republican Delegate
0 Precincts Have One Republican Legislator and One Democratic Legislator
6 Precincts Have a Democratic State Senator and a Democratic Delegate

That’s completely wrong.  Until the new lines were drawn, Fairfax City was split between Barry and Democrat Leslie Byrne in the State Senate, while Delegate Jack Rust had all the city’s precincts.  Under the new line, the entire city was placed in the 34th – Byrne’s district.  Byrne held the seat until Devolites was elected in 2003; meanwhile, Rust was defeated in 2001 by Democrat Chap Petersen.

In other words, at no time did Fairfax City have a complete Republican delegation to the state legislature.

It should be noted that Ben created his parallel universe to make it look like the Republicans had a far more dramatic fall than they actually had, but I digress.

The fact is, the GOP has had it hard in Fairfax County and City, in no small part due to squishes who were willing to raise taxes in the teeth of voter disapproval (like Tom Davis’ wife, outgoing Senator Jeannemarie Devolites).  But Ben didn’t need to puff up his numbers for that – the Democrats’ success in 2004 and 2005 would have been enough to make that case.

Of course, one doesn’t have to go deep into precinct calculations to see that; such granularity is Ben’s specialty -or to be more precise, it was before today.

Words of wisdom from Bob Dole

The 1996 GOP nominee gives Dukakabee a verbal smackdown:

As a veteran, I worry about the future security of the good people of Iowa and all other Americans. We are engaged in a global war on terror which will not disappear because you imply a willingness, without any preconditions apparently, to sit down with the enemy. Sure we can all find fault with President Bush and his Administration on policy matters and phases of the Iraq policy. I doubt however Iowans will applaud second guessing more than five years after the agony of 9-11, particularly since you have been either silent or supportive during the interim as far as I can determine.

The Foreign Affairs piece is a perfect example of 20-20 hindsight, and wishful thinking in most instances.

I couldn’t have said it better myself (h/t Stephen F. Hayes at Worldwide Standard).

OK, the Club should have waited a day, but Dukakabee is still wrong

I only hope CFG’s well-deserved criticism of Huckabee’s de facto call for corporate compensation regulation doesn’t go awry because of the day CFG made it.

If Bill Howell and company have any guts, they’ll defund this thing pronto

Just before everyone skipped town for Christmas and New Year’s, Governor Kaine signed an executive order to “establish a Governor’s Commission on Climate Change.”  As one can read in the order, a whole slew of agencies will have resources diverted (and thus, are likely to ask for more requisite funding) in order to “cooperate fully with the Commission and provide any assistance necessary, upon request of the Commission or its staff.”

Mind you, this order comes just as it becomes clear that the planet’s temperature has been flat for the last decade.

If the Republicans in Richmond want us to believe they’ve learned their lessons from this past November, they’ll make sure the funding for this nonsense is absolutely zero, and furthermore, bar any diversion of personnel or other resources from any state agency.  Budgets are about setting priorities; this one doesn’t make the cut.

Cross-posted to the Republican Liberty Caucus of Virginia

Reality continues to intrude on the “global warming” hysteria

It was roughly at the turn of the millennium that I remember hearing talk the debate on “global warming” was “over.”  Supposedly, the scientific consensus was at hand – the Earth was heating up; we were to blame; and without dramatically reducing our “carbon footprint” (i.e., taxing and regulating ourselves into near-automaton status) we were all toast.

I always wondered what led to the dramatic shift in rhetoric – after all, the notion of a scientific consensus is truly specious (at best).  I suspected ulterior motives – you know, something like a leading politician desperately looking to protect his investments (NewsBusters via Brutally Honest).

I had no idea just how right I was; turns out that the millennial crossing was just about when the Earth’s supposedly inevitable carbon-driven warming came to a screeching halt.  Check out David Whitehouse (BBC Science journalist for nearly two decades) at The New Statesman (via Small Dead Amimals, emphasis added):

With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months.

But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.

. . .

For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact.

I remember when 1998 was dubbed “the hottest year on record.”  I also remember that we were told over and over again that this wouldn’t be the case for long – that 1998 would quickly lose its record status.

In fact, 1998 did indeed fall from the top spot this past year, but it was passed by 1934, after NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies was forced to correct a long-running measurement error (Climate Audit via SDA).  In fact, none of the last nine years have matched 1998, despite increasing carbon output.

Yet Al Gore is still out there, insisting on a “consensus.  The green-tinged McCarthyist has even asked MSM to join him in silencing those who disagree (Las Vegas Review-Journal).   Have you no sense of decency, Al?

Somewhere in the great beyond, Queen Mary is smiling

From Cristina Odone, formerly of the British Catholic Herald, writing in the London Daily Telegraph (emphasis added):

When I was editing the Catholic Herald in the early 1990s, we thought we were living through the most momentous times for the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

We were witnessing the conversion of such Establishment figures as the Duchess of Kent, Ann Widdecombe and the Telegraph’s Charles Moore, but we never dreamed that one day an ex-prime minister would himself cross the Tiber. Or, indeed, that this news would be overshadowed by an even more important development: that for the first time since Henry VIII, there are more Catholics than Anglicans in this country.

A tremendous day for the Mother Church.

A pleasant surprise

Huckabee has one of his broken clock moments (always right twice a day).

Time (once again) to dispel some myths about Afghanistan

Yesterday witnessed the opening of Charlie Wilson’s War, a film I have not seen and will not review here.  The film is a madcap, yet apparently inspiring, story of how Congressman Charles Wilson helped fund the Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion, helped liberate the nation (temporarily) from the Soviets, and helped win the (first) Cold War.  Now, the film appears largely devoid of the CIA-funded-Osama-bin-Laden myth (Washington Times) – although that my not have been the original plan (Timesagain) – but it is practically certain that some will take this as the perfect time to start peddling it and some other myths about the Afghan theatre of the Wahhabist-Ba’athist-Khomeinist War.  So, without further ado, let’s stand ‘em up and knock ‘em down, one at a time.

Myth: Osama bin Laden was funded, trained, and/or in some way supported by American intelligence.

Fact: Osama bin Laden was indeed in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion (1979-89), but he steered clear of the Americans (and most Afghans, for that matter), concentrating instead on recruiting Muslim outsiders (like himself) and getting Saudi money.  Here’s Peter Bergen (CNN) on the Osama and America during that time (emphasis added):

This is one of those things where you cannot put it out of its misery. The story about bin Laden and the CIA — that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden — is simply a folk myth. There’s no evidence of this.In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn’t have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn’t have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently.

Still not convinced?  Well, not even Bill Moyers (yes, that Bill Moyers) is willing to make the connection:

Son of a wealthy construction magnate, bin Ladin had taken to the religious sermons of Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian and disciple of Sayyid Qutb. While he participated in few actual battles in Afghanistan, bin Laden became known for his generous funding of the jihad against the Soviets.

However, bin Laden’s ambitions extended beyond the boarders of Afghanistan, and he began to develop a complex international organization. He set up a financial support network known as the “Golden Chain,” comprised mainly of financiers from Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf states.Using this immense new fund, bin Laden and Azzam created a “Bureau of Services,” which helped channel recruits for the jihad into Afghanistan. With Saudi Arabia and the United States pouring in billions of dollars worth of secret assistance to rebels in Afghanistan, the jihad against the Soviets was constantly gaining momentum.

Now, given that Moyers is one of the most partisan Democrats on Earth (he was the force behind the anti-Goldwater “Daisy” advertisement in 1964), odds are he would be shouting from the rooftops if he had anyevidence that Reagan Administration help went to bin Laden.  However, all he can do is use guilt by association.  The fact is, Osama had his own operation in Afghanistan, which brought in a few foreigners and spread his own money around – none of it coming from Washington.

What brought Osama to Afghanistan?  The Soviet Union, by invading the place.  Today, leftists around the world insist that George W. Bush “created” al Qaeda in Iraq by liberating that nation in 2003 and providing a theatre of operations for them (I don’t buy that – al Qaeda had a presence there during Saddam’s time), but they say nothingabout the Soviets creating a venue for Osama and what would become al Qaeda – because, of course, the left has had a hard time blaming the Soviets for anything.  But I digress.

Myth: The Taliban arose out of the mujahedin resistance to the Soviet invasion.

Fact: The Taliban did not exist until 1994 (MSN Encarta), two years after the Soviet-backed regime fell (ironically, the Afghan Communists outlasted their supposed protectors by a few months).  It’s chief benefactor was never the United States; it was Pakistan (BBC).

Myth: The Clinton Administration’s focus on al Qaeda was blurred by President Bush, leaving us less prepared than we could have been.

Fact: The following are the words of Steve Coll (Washington Post, emphasis added): 

Members of the Bush Cabinet met at the White House on Sept. 4 (2001). Before them was a draft copy of a National Security Presidential Directive, a classified memo outlining a new U.S. policy toward al Qaeda, Afghanistan and (anti-Taliban leader Ahmed Shah) Massoud.

It had been many months in the drafting. The Bush administration’s senior national security team had not begun to focus on al Qaeda until April, about three months after taking office. They did not forge a policy approach until July. Then they took still more weeks to schedule a meeting to ratify their plans.

Among other things, the draft document revived almost in its entirety the CIA plan to aid Massoud that had been forwarded to the lame-duck Clinton White House — and rejected — nine months earlier. The stated goal of the draft was to eliminate bin Laden and his organization. The plan called for the CIA to supply Massoud with a large but undetermined sum for covert action to support his war against the Taliban, as well as trucks, uniforms, ammunition, mortars, helicopters and other equipment. The Bush Cabinet approved this part of the draft document.

. . . the CIA was told that it could at least start the paperwork for a new covert policy — the first in a decade that sought to influence the course of the Afghan war.

In other words, the Bush Administration – in just under eight months and before9/11/01 – adopted a tougher policy on the Taliban and al Qaeda than its predecessor had in eight years.

There is a credible argument to be made that the United States dropped the ball on Afghanistan in 1992 as the country dissolved into civil war, or that several Administrations did not pay enough attention to the Wahabbization of Pakistan during the regime of General Muhammed Zia ul-Haq.  However, so many on the left have become so desperate to make the right look bad on national security that they have created and spread the three terrible myths above.  Now, dear reader, you know better.

Mike Huckabee and his anti-Catholic host

The year is 1884.  James G. Blaine, Republican nominee for President of the United States, is the favorite in what is expected to be the seventh straight GOP presidential win (going back to Lincoln’s first win in 1860).  On October 29, he attends a campaign event in New York City.  He is introduced by Reverend Samuel D. Burchard, who ends his address with these now infamous words:

We are Republicans, and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.

For the historically uninitiated, “Romanism” was the 19th Century insult for Catholicism.  Blaine ignored the Reverend Burchard’s speech, and delivered his own with no comment on Burchard’s slur.  The Democratic press seized the phrase (and Blaine’s lack of disavowal) and spread it to every corner of the country.  Thousands of Catholic New Yorkers abandoned Blaine for the Democratic candidate: Grover Cleveland.  Cleveland went down in history as the only Democrat to win the White House between 1860 and 1910.

Fast forard to 2008.  Mike Huckabee, the man who all but screams “bigot!” to anyone who questions his record as Governor of Arkansas, is just about to share the pulpit (literally) with Reverend John Hagee, a preacher who has a long history of virulent anti-Catholic statements (Catholic League).

I get the feeling Huckabee is about to learn a very painful lesson in religious politics.  Coming from the state with the third lowest percentage of Catholics (Ask a Catholic), he likely doesn’t see followers of the ancient faith as a major constituency.  He will soon learn just how wrong he is.

Of course, Huck could take the time to disassociate himself from Hagee’s anti-Catholic rants; that would be enough for me.  Some Catholics (say, Shaun Kenney and Chris Beer over at Mason Conservative) may not be happy unless the appearance is cancelled.  Either way, if Huckabee does what I expect him to do on this subject (namely, nothing) he will reap the whirlwind.

For years, evangelicals have assumed they were all alone in fighting the lonely fight for social conservatism.  Many (but not all) have been unwilling or unable to notice the millions of Catholics who stood beside them.  Among other things, this has led evangelicals to assume they are stronger than they really are.  However, Huckabee may just give millions of bonafide social conservatives Reason Number 1 to never vote for him – ever.

Tomorrow could be the beginning of the end for Mike Hucakbee.

Cross-posted to Virginia Bloggers Against Mike Huckabee