Garren Shipley has been covering Virginia politics since 2005. A native
of East Tennessee, he got his first political bylines covering the statehouse in Nashville. He is a 2000 graduate of East Tennessee State
University with a degree in mass communications and political science. He lives in Strasburg with his wife and daughter.
Cheap Seats HQ turned its attention from politics to legal matters on Wednesday, as the case of Edward N. Bell went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
I'm not going to write about the actual disposition of the case here for a couple of reasons. First, it's a highly complex matter that deals with abstract mental gymnastics that hurt my head, and second, it's a tragic, depressing affair that has no good ending for anyone involved.
But while the subject matter was less than desirable, watching arguments at the high court was a real treat. Supreme Court watching has always been a hobby here in the Cheap Seats, so getting to do it first hand was enough to make the drive from Strasburg to Vienna at 6 a.m. worthwhile.
Seeing the faces to go with the voices -- and the frequent looks of disgust, confusion and mirth they displayed -- added an entirely new dimension to the proceedings. It also explained why some judges have been so adamant about keeping cameras out of courtrooms.
The Supreme Court's courtroom is truly something to behold. It's like a giant art-deco temple of law. The only space I've ever seen that remotely approximates it is the interior of the Parthenon in Nashville. Of course, you can't take cameras (or even press ID) into the courtroom, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
The U.S. Supreme Court is also by far the friendliest branch of the federal government I've ever dealt with. Getting a seat in the courtroom was easier than getting into the courthouse in Loudoun County.
Unlike Loudoun County, though, the U.S. Supreme Court has a gift shop. Seriously.
The inbox here at Cheap Seats HQ was blissfully quiet late last week as Virginia's political establishment took a few days off to sober up (or mourn, depending on party alignment). But that came to a screeching halt last week.
Now that Election 2009 is in full swing, here's an early program to help handicap the contenders as we begin the long, merciless death-march to November.
Governor Democrats • Del. Brian Moran, D-Fairfax
Moran has been polishing his legislative credentials for this run for
some time now, in addition to traveling around the commonwealth
getting to know Democrats in places light years from the D.C. beltway. You know a Northern Virginia Democrat is serious about running for office when he stops in Toms Brook to meet n' greet.
• Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County. The only non-Northern Virginia candidate in the race this time out, Deeds knows a thing or two about a statewide campaign, having lost by a whisper to Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell in 2005. That also helps with name recognition. Deeds also rural cred, coming from one of the least-populous localities in the entire state.
• Former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe
The only contender with a national profile, McAuliffe announced this week that he's all but thrown his hat into the ring for 2009. Name recognition isn't likely to be a problem for the former Hillary Clinton adviser, and he's known as a prolific fundraiser. But the two other Democrats in this race who have been running for almost a year won't take kindly to having a third contender in the race. Indeed, Moran's team has already moved to paint McAuliffe as an "outsider from Washington."
Republicans • Attorney General Bob McDonnell Republicans hammered out their differences early this year, settling on McDonnell to be the party's standard bearer going into 2009. In addition to statewide name recognition from his current duties and the 2005 campaign, he's from Virginia Beach, the state's most populous locality. That's a handy thing to have.
Lieutenant Governor Democrats • Sec. Jody Walker Former Secretary of Finance Jody Wagner left her post to run for the state's number two job, and has been traveling around the state meeting and greeting the people she'll need to know to win in June and November. Republicans have already made it known they intend to hang Gov. Tim Kaine's bad revenue estimates around her neck come October.
• Russell County Supervisor Jon Bowerbank The lone entry in next year's field (as of now) from far southwest Virginia, Bowerbank has the advantage of being an outsider and a fresh face who isn't a known quantity on Capitol Square. He also has the disadvantage of being a fresh face who isn't a known quantity on Capitol Square...
Republicans • Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling Virginia's one-term limit applies only to the top of the ticket, and as of now, Bolling is on the fast track for the party's nomination. But there are rumors our there that some factions of the state GOP are unhappy with the way Bolling ran the state nominating convention this year that saw former Gov. Jim Gilmore chosen over Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, for the nod to take on now-Sen.-elect Mark Warner. Will that animosity bear fruit in the coming months? Ask me again in May...
Attorney General Democrats • Del. Steve Shannon, D-Vienna The former Fairfax County prosecutor hasn't made it official yet, but he's dropped a lot of solid hints that he wants to be on the ballot.
Republicans • Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax The one area where Republicans haven't settled their ballot promises to be an absolute donnybrook. Cuccinelli is the rarest of birds, a social and fiscal conservative senator from Northern Virginia. That's made Cuccuinelli a marked man in his Senate district. He barely survived a challenge in 2007 -- the margin was 92 votes. His appeal may prove to be broader outside his Senate district, though.
• Former U.S. Attorney John Brownlee Cuccinelli has competition for the "conservative" space at the convention this time out. U.S. Attorney John Brownlee stepped down earlier this year and has been quietly building his campaign, reaching out to lower-level elected officials. Branding himself "Virginia's conservative prosecutor," Brownlee doesn't have statewide name recognition. However, he was the Western District of Virginia's federal prosecutor, which gives him space to work with an "outsider" theme.
I spent a significant amount of time Wednesday morning talking Republican friends down off ledges, and convincing Democratic friends that the Republican party has not been sent to the ash heap of history.
Both interventions remind me of a talk I had with a died-in-the-wool Democratic friend in late 2000, not long after Bush v. Gore came down from the U.S. Supreme Court. My friend rattled off a laundry list of horrors she expected from the Bush administration, the "theft" of Florida and her concern that Bush would declare himself dictator for life.
"You know how you feel about Bush now?" I asked. She nodded. "That's how Republicans felt about Bill Clinton." The look of horror on her face was instructive. It had never crossed her mind that someone could hold such disdain for a politician she held in such high regard.
That's sort of where we are now. A number of GOPers have met the prospect of President Obama with the same level of anxiety and distaste that Democrats have held for President Bush 43.
But there's nothing like full immersion and experience to bring people back from the partisan edge. My career in reporting has taught me two significant life lessons that stand out on such occasions.
First, nothing is ever as good or as bad as it looks a first blush. Second, never underestimate the ability of politicians and government to disappoint.
Republicans took a good, solid thrashing, no doubt about it. Tuesday was the kind of beating you see in "The World's Most One-Sided Fist Fights Caught on Film." (Bonus points if you get the reference without Googling it.)
McCain under-polled anti-same sex marriage ballot initiatives in Florida and California, but his failure in Virginia is truly remarkable.
Evidence of the disconnect between McCain and rank-and-filed GOPers is
easy to come by in the cold light of dawn, but there's a particularly
telling anecdote from traditionally-GOP leaning Loudoun County. McCain
who ran as an anti-tax candidate, netted a little over 55,000 votes.
Meanwhile, a meals tax referendum came in with more than 80,000 "no"
votes.
Had McCain managed to bring home all of the votes his fellow successful GOPers had, he'd have been within 40,000 votes of winning the commonwealth.
But let's recall that President Obama won't come into office with the magic policy wand that politicians pretend they have on the campaign trail. He'll have to deal with a $1 trillion federal budge deficit, the biggest ever, in addition to an ailing economy and two wars.
Presidents can make lasting changes to the Supreme Court, but it's worth noting that the more aged members of the court are liberals, not conservatives. At most, pending some unforeseen medical event with Justice Antonin Scalia, Obama could at most preserve the status quo of a high court split down the middle, with Justice Anthony Kennedy making lots of important decisions.
America's perpetual battle between right and left has not been settled. It's simply taking a deep breath.
In Virginia, the pause is markedly brief. The struggle will move back into the General Assembly in January, the state-wide party primaries in June, the long race to November for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
It's probably a good idea at this point, especially given Virginia's
perpetual election cycles, to hear a bit of wisdom from Dr. Manhattan, of Watchmen
fame: "Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends."
When I said we've got something special planned for the Cheap Seats on Election Day, I wasn't kidding.
In addition to candidates dropping by and reports from our reporters and other corespondents around Virgina, I'm pleased to announce our all star panel to guide us through the returns as they come in.
Among the panelists who've said they'll be joining us are:
• Dean Rice, former South Carolina campaign manager for Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn. • Dr. Michael Bowen, Assistant Director of the Graham Center for Public Service at the University Of Florida. • Norman Leahy, Virginia blogger extraordinaire. • Charlie Jackson, former political reporter and communications chair for the Loudoun County Democratic Committee • Luke Shipley, undergraduate researcher and poll analyst at the University of Tennessee's political science department.
The legislative gallery may never be the same again...
Ever have one of those days? It's one of those days here in the Cheap Seats.
As thousands of you have no doubt noticed, and dozens have called in to point out, the headline on our story about former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's visit to Winchester was wrong. He was in fact stumping for Republicans, not Democrats.
We messed up, and we're sorry. We're fixing it as fast as possible.
For good or ill, newspapers are produced (mostly) by human beings. Mistakes happen.
That's one reason we started the Cheap Seats blog, so we could interact with our readers and let them tell us when we've gotten something wrong. As one of my editors often says, corrections are a badge of honor. We care more about getting it right than avoiding the taste of humble pie.
When screw-ups happen, they're fixed the next day in the same space the error occurred, as you'll see in tomorrow's print edition. I've seen editors here pull the plug on good scoops because they thought we needed more time to get the story exactly right.
In the hyper-charged atmosphere of a presidential election, and one in which Virginia could make the difference for either candidate, though, simple mistakes take on added significance.
One of my recurring nightmares is that something I write, an innocent choice of a word or phrase, will swing an election -- that the choice I make at the keyboard for reasons of prose will wind up in a campaign ad, and that ad will sway voters and the outcome of an election.
Here in the Cheap Seats, were about informing voters, not swaying them. I'd like to think we're something of experts on politics and the political process. But on policy choices, we're barely qualified to referee a kindergarten game of tick-tack-toe, let alone tell voters how to cast their ballots.
That's the reason this post is being written. A simple mistake is not an effort to sway an election, dishearten Republican voters or throw Virginia behind Obama. It was an honest mistake in a headline, one that we're fixing as fast as we can.
So in conclusion, we do know that Lt. Gov. Steele is a Republican and is pulling for Sen. John McCain. We screwed up, we're sorry and we're fixing it as quickly as we can.
Or, in the apocryphal words of President Ford, "Nobody's human."
Don't forget to drop by the Cheap Seats on Election Day for political chatter, live reports and other political junkie fun. We're putting the final touches on a live blog that promises to be a blast for all involved...
JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. -- Intensity is universal. If I had to sum up what I learned about the election during my few days on the road this week, that would be it.
Intensity is what I saw at the Washington County Courthouse in Jonesborough, Tenn., on Thursday. Family errands (and satellite radio install) sent me to the Volunteer State last week, but while I was there I had time to help a visually-impaired friend cast his early ballot.
What I found was a remarkable scene. Voters were lined up out the door. On Thursday morning. In a cold, stinging rain. They were lined up out the door with more coming every minute. A chatty deputy at the door said about 600 people per day were casting ballots, with far more voting daily just up the road in Johnson City, a place roughly the size of Lynchburg.
Virginia might be a swing state, but Tennessee remains deep, deep red if the polls are to be believed. Finding that kind of intensity in what polling shows is a deep-red, sure thing for Republican John McCain surprised me. Apparently voters are enthused in places other than swing states.
Meanwhile, back in Southwest Virginia, the United Mine Workers of America union is doing some damage control for the Democratic ticket. The union is running a radio ad on the area's highest-rated radio station, decrying Republican candidate John McCain's stance on clean coal.
The union has endorsed Democrat Barack Obama, but the campaign ran into some static when vice presidential nominee made inconvenient remarks about coal at a rope line in Ohio.
What does it mean? I'm not sure. But the fact that UMWA was on the air at all with an independent expenditure would seem to speak to the intensity of the race, even in places where there are more deer than people.
By Garren Shipley - Daily Staff Writer
Subscribe to this
blog's feed