The latest brouhaha over judges in Virginia (Daily Press) has brought Marty Williams back into the spotlight (where he does not belong). When a deal between the Republican majority in the House and the Democratic majority in the Senate on judges collapsed due in part to a refusal by the Senate Republicans to play ball, House negotiator Bill Janis blamed ex-Senator Williams, because one of the judges who was spiked was the sister of Williams’ leading in-party nemesis – Tom Gear.
I wouldn’t have paid much attention to this until Williams, who blames Gear for his primary loss to Tricia Stall, laid the feet at his local opponents (again) for losing the GOP Senate majority (Press again, diffferent page):
“Tommy Norment is the minority leader, instead of the majority leader, and Gear wants to go over there and ask for a favor?” Williams asked. “That’s incredible.”
Actually, what’s incredible is that people still listen to Marty spew this nonsense.
Now, I’ll confess, I can’t stand it when Republicans (including Republican bloggers) treat the Senate elections last year as a we-were-so-close-if-only-this-hadn’t-gone-wrong story. The fact is, the party paid dearly for HB3202 (i.e., the transportation tax hike of 2007), and in fact, we had a few things go right; otherwise the Senate caucus would have been even smaller.
In fact, it is from a recap of the 2007 election that my first objection to Willams’ assertion comes. How is Williams so sure the other 39 districts would have gone exactly the same with him as the GOP nominee instead of Stall?
Take a look at the funds raised from the 1st District Senate race (VPAP), and you’ll see that Senator John Miller (VPAP) actually raised about $44,000 more than Stall (VPAP one more time) – without “in-kind contributions,” the difference is actually $99,000. Now, with Williams as the nominee, a lot of that money could be have been re-routed elsewhere in the state, but the Democrats could have done the same.
The closest Republican win in the State Senate was in the 37th (Ken Cuccinelli’s district), and $44,000 would have been nearly 2% of all the funds raised in that race in 2007 (more VPAP). That may not seem like much, but Cuccinelli won by less than one-third of one percent (State Board of Elections). This doesn’t take into account the fact that Stall’s opposition of HB3202 drew at least somesupport that wouldn’t have translated northward (Cuccinelli backed HB3202), whereas allof the partisan energy (funds, volunteers, etc.), could have been rerouted to Janet Oleszek.
In other words, with Marty Williams running instead of Tricia Stall, the odds are just as good that the GOP would still be in the minority in the Senate – only with Marty Williams instead of Ken Cuccinelli. Does anybody (except Marty) really think that would have been a good trade for the GOP?
The other objection I have is trickier, especially for the more partisan folks in the blogosphere. Would we have really been better off with a Republican majority in the State Senate?
Think about it. Had Williams become the 20th GOP Senator, odds are the Senate leadership would have breathed a huge sigh of relief, insisted they did the right thing with HB3202 (it’s not like Howell would have differed with them), and then gone right back to their tax-hiking ways. The door would have been wide open for a HB3202 resurrection, or even worse, a statewide tax increase.
Instead, the Senate caucus was forced to recognize that something went very wrong, and thus came together as one against the tax increase plans of Kaine, Saslaw, et al. The Senate caucus has been far more friendly to the taxpayers as a minority than they had been as a majority. In fact, odds are the only reason we have been spared another version of HB3202 is because Howell is dealing with Saslaw and Colgan (who want statewide tax increase) instead of Marty Williams.
More to the point: had the Senate GOP not been so terrible on taxes in recent years, they’d still be in the majority – and Marty Williams might still be among them.
This is the lesson Marty simply refuses to learn, and it’s why I rip him repeatedly in this space. Odds are, no one would have even run against Williams if he hadn’t voted for three separate tax increases in four years. Moreover, without the millstone of HB3202, Jay O’Brien would probably still be a State Senator today (and perhaps even Nick Rerras would have survived).
What we must remember (and sadly, so many Republicans have forgotten) is the fact that the Republican majority is non-existent without the support of small-l libertarians. Instead of winning them over with low taxes and limited government, the Virginia GOP has been driving them away by calling for a higher tax increase than Mark Warner wanted (as the Senate GOP did), pushing tax increases Tim Kaine did not request (Senate GOP again, in 2006), and the 3202 debacle. Those voters no longer see a difference between the parties on economic matters, and as such, they’ve voted on social issues: i.e., for the Democrats.
We can win these voters back, but only by returning to lower taxes and limited government, not listening to Marty Williams try to justify his ego.
