Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but it’s been candidates who have appealed to RINOs during their campaigns (Earley 01, Kilgore 05, Allen 06, Howell et al 07) who lead us to crushing defeats. Principled limited-government campaigners, on the other hand, win here (Allen 93, Gilmore 97 and 99).

When we try to outbid the Democrats with the taxpayers’ money, we lose. How often does it have to happen before you notice the problem?

Same coalition of voters? I don’t think so. I voted for Gov. Allen, Gov. Gilmore, but wrote in names when Early and Kilgore ran for Governor. To confuse you more, I’d happily vote for Cuccinelli. I’ll leave it to the “experts” to spin why certain candidates didn’t get enough votes. So yes, I think he can win but, it won’t be the exact same supporters.

Yes….that’s a brilliant strategy…attack the fact that somebody can pull contributors from the other side. That’s the problem now. The contributors have all gone to the other side and we need to find ways to get them back into the GOP fold.

I would say that your approach just helps us move deeper into minority status.

Bottom line is that Cuccinelli has a strong conservative record where Brownlee doesn’t. That hardly means Brownlee is less conservative but it does mean that we don’t have reason to know that he is. Surely that is a reasonable observation.

1.
“Do Ken Cuccinelli’s supporters honestly think he can win with the same coalition of voters as Mark Early and Jerry Kilgore? I certainly don’t.”

Really? We are going to start talking about Mark Earley and Jerry Kilgore as paths to victory? REALLY? It also helped that both Kilgore and Earley defeated very weak Democrat opponents. Sen. Cuccinelli has had the entire weight for the State Democrat Machine from Warnerkaine on down breathing down his neck since 2002 and he’s won every time.

2.
“I wish Cucchinelli would defend his Senate seat as vigorously as his supporters have gone after Brownlee…

Exactly what is to be gained by our statewide electeds if the General Assembly in in Democrat/ic hands?”

So anyone who is not in a safe senate district should be disqualified from running for statewide office? That will help . . . When will the state party understand that one of the major reasons we aren’t winning in Northern Virginia is that the GOP has a reputation of being all southern with no voice from the area in any real leadership position. They keep coming up here saying they support us, but we never really believe it because the state party has never shown the least bit of interest in treating Northern Virginia with anything but mild contempt.

Now Brownlee himself seems to take issue with the fact that Cuccinelli has a better, longer, and more substantive pro-life record — and does this by point out a vote on the triggerman rule?

Clearly, someone hit a nerve.

Look — I am not a fan of the circular firing squad. Nor do I give short thrift to the Brownlee crowd for early, direct, and nasty attacks on Cuccinelli when there’s work to be done in 2008.

But facts are facts. If missteps now encourage a closer look to see if Brownlee is as conservative as Cuccinelli, folks are going to look. And when I see that Brownlee’s major donor is a huge Kaine supporter, a backer of the moderate Republicans in the Senate, and goes straight to work attacking Cuccinelli’s pro-life bona fides in one of the oddest gaffes I have read in recent memory… I have to pause.

Now if certain individuals want to hold Southwest Virginia’s votes hostage (which is what I’m reading in this post) in order to demand that Brownlee receive a “full and fair consideration”, so be it. That’s the regional hostage politics I’m more used to seeing from Northern Virginia politicians, who whine and complain when a NOVA moderate doesn’t get a statewide podium.

The bottom line is that Cuccinelli has a record, a long record, and it is consistent with every conservative principle we know works. Those are facts. They may bother Brownlee. They may even encourage Brownlee (and his supporters) to take cheap shots at a man they profess to admire.

But Cuccinelli’s record is proven. Brownlee has no record. That is a fact, and it is either recognized and lived with, or it is viciously attacked — and Brownlee chose the latter.

That’s unfortunate, IMO.

All we have done is note Brownlee’s errors in his own statements and point out a contributor with a RINO history. No one has raised a question about Brownlee’s character.