Good Morning!
You know you're doing something right when you face down your detractors, and then they steal your ideas. We may need to start referring to Virginia's Senior Senator, John Warner, as Virginia's "Senior Plagiarist" after he set about to steal the Democrat's Iraq plan and make it his own. Check out what the Nitpicker has to say:
Mr. Warner said he decided to take the Democratic proposal and edit it to his satisfaction in an effort to find common ground between the parties on the issue. (Emphasis Nitpicker's.)Of course, when a Democrat takes the freely offered talking points of an ally and uses them in a letter, it's called plagiarism. When a Republican just edits a Democratic plan and presents it as a Republican plan, then that's a "grand vision."
Democrats seem to be heeding Governor Mark Warner's call for the Democratic party to re-take the high ground and claim their rightful place as the party of ideas. While the ideas of Conservatives are old as Egypt, it's the Fighting Democrats who are going to get us out of the mess they've made of this country.
In Virginia's 5th congressional district, Al Weed yesterday announced that he will run against former Democrat, former Independent, current Republican Virgil Goode. In his last bid for Goode's seat, Weed got well under 40% of the vote. That was, of course, before Waldo and USA Today started covering the bizarre monetary relationship between Goode and a Defense Contractor called MZM.
In a closely related story, Goode may have been sleeping under a rock for the last 4 months. Clearly ignoring the Kilgore defeat, Mr. Goode has come out in favor of the BIG SCARY WALL plan to curb illegal immigration. Clearly that tactic worked great for Jerry Kilgore, Mr. Goode, you just keep on keepin' on.
SouthNOW blog, today, has a nice rundown of the Senate races that will effect our southern neighbors. Keep an eye on SouthNOW this week. They're doing a full-scale 2006 preview including Governors, Congressional Seats, important themes and key races. SouthNow fully appreciates the power of blogs and their precap includes good blog links for every race.
In Virginia, we saw that blogs now play a major role in state races as well as national ones, and the discussions that happen there often bleed into the campaigns and the traditional media outlets.
Raising Richmond: The Times Dispatch has a stirring look at aging, poverty and Medicare this morning, and also reports that Governor Warner's workforce commission has proclaimed the need for a "Workforce Czar" to oversee training efforts in the Commonwealth.
Warner Watch: Governor Warner got down to business yesterday awarding a nearly $2 billion contract to Northrup Grumman for an extensive overhaul of Virginia's information technology infrastructure. Warner's solid management and electoral success has the whole world asking, "Is this the man to put the Democrats back in the White House in 2008?". Oh, and the Staunton News Leader envisions Warner as Just Dreamy.
Bob Gibson of Charlottesville's Daily Progress has some keen observations on the GOP's NOVA problem. The Richlands Free Press doesn't quite get how Virginians don't understand the importance of voting. The Hampton Roads Pilot works up the staggering abuses taking place under the USA Patriot Act, and the similarly staggering abuses taking place under Virginia Election Law..
Finally, the headline of the day award goes to UVa's Cavalier Daily with their brilliant, "Cocky Little Elephants".
From John Kerry's loss last year in Virginia to Kaine's win, Democrats experienced a 14-point swing. That should be a huge warning flag to Republicans both here and in other red states who have come to expect victory as long as they trumpet social issues and tax cuts and slime their opponents as "liberals." This election has proven that such cocky expectations are beginning to spell trouble for the Republican Party in the heart of its base, and that the Democrats are more than ready to make them pay, should they cling to them.
Ok, this also wins Quote of the Day.