The latest from the Augusta County War

OK, perhaps “War” is a bit much, but Larry Roller sure seemed upset with the 6th District committee vote to recognize Kurt Michael as Augusta County Chairman.  This is the latest in the Augusta County brouhaha; Roller has already said this will be appealed to the RPV (Yankee Philip).

At this point, I’m not really sure what’s bothering Roller and his chief ally (Emmett Hanger) so much.  After all, Michael has already promised to resign once the state convention is over, so if Roller genuinely believes he won the mass meeting election on April 10, he can just get his people to show up once more.

Either way, for those of us outside Augusta - or outside the Valley, to be precise - this battle is not as important as its effect on local legislators, particularly Hanger, who should know he is losing votes everyday that this goes on.  Perhaps he’s hoping Roller will have enough heft to push the 24th District Senate committee to hold a primary rather than a convention.  However, there is no guarantee Roller - even if he is declared Chairman by RPV - would win the Chairman election in 2010.  Meanwhile, we do know that Hanger might have already been replaced by Scott Sayre but for Bill Howell’s efforts to get HB3202 passed.  The 53% he won in the June 2007 primary was his ceiling, not his floor.  So even if he does get the primary he wants, this makes it far less likely that he will win.

For the folks inside Augusta, however, this whole thing has been quite the eye opener.  They will likely never look at their elected officials the same way again (SWAC Girl).  If they remember this (If?  Did I really write that?  Of course they will), it will make for very interesting times if the Augusta Board of Supervisors ever tries to pass a tax hike, or a bloated budget, in the future.

Nearly everyone has heard the saying: “We’ll remember in November.”  However, when something like this goes down, they will remember in May, June, and every other month on the calendar.  The repercussions of this will be felt for a long, long time, and rest assured, that is a good thing.