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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (71965)	6/13/2008 9:10:57 AM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 543106

Local paper editorial reflects the currents in Virginia politics: Editorial: GOP Endorsements of Mark Warner (Created: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 7:25 AM EDT) Former Del. Vincent Callahan and former state Sen. John Chichester, both venerable establishment Republicans, on Monday voiced their support for Democrat Mark Warner's campaign for U.S. Senate. In so doing, they repudiated the gubernatorial legacy of Jim Gilmore, who has been nominated as the Republican candidate for the Senate seat being vacated by John Warner. You can, if you choose, dismiss Callahan and Chichester as cranky retirees who are angry that the state party has gone a direction other than the one they would have wished. Perhaps the Gilmore people will try to slip that characterization under the radar screen - or simply trash the two publicly. Or, you can say that Callahan and Chichester are veteran political pros who know that the commonwealth's long-term success in recent decades has come only because of pragmatic leadership that works across party lines. That's clearly what the Mark Warner campaign will have you believe. Both characterizations have some degree of truth about them. And just maybe, toss in the possibility that Chichester and Callahan don't particularly like Gilmore. They wouldn't be the only ones within the Republican ranks to have been rubbed the wrong way by him. For this particular campaign, the endorsement by a few non-office-holding Republicans for the Democratic candidate may all be an academic discussion, as Mark Warner is seen as odds-on favorite to defeat Gilmore easily, if not overwhelmingly. A few endorsements, in either direction, are not likely to change the math; Northern Virginia this year could well provide such a huge margin of victory for Democrats that it will be difficult for Gilmore to use the rest of the Old Dominion as a safety net. But the state GOP is facing some of the same choices the national party will have to grapple with: is it a big enough place for the Callahans and Chichesters to feel comfortable in, or is an exclusive hard-right club, with purity tests on certain social and economic issues, required for admission? Each option brings with it challenges, but it's hard to believe that making moderates feel unwelcome is a winning strategy for a party that, in Virginia, had risen to great heights, only to fall (largely due to its own missteps) from the grace of the public.