August 2, 1978
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Thirty years ago today, the Republican Party of Virginia lost its leader, its architect, and its guiding force. The sudden death of Richard D. Obenshain, who at the time was the Republican nominee for a seat in the United States Senate, was a deep wound to the Party he had nurtured over the previous decade-plus. In helping to transform the Virginia GOP from a non-factor into a competitive alternative to the Democratic dominance that Virginians had become familiar with, he also laid the groundwork for the continued growth of the party that would extend well beyond his passing.
Beyond the personal reflection that comes with this day as I think about the loss of my uncle, today is always a day that I also think about what he meant to our Commonwealth and our Party. Simply put, I think about how best to honor his memory by committing myself to continue his effort to, in his words “have some significant impact in expanding and preserving the realm of personal freedom in the life of this country.”
Consder this an open thread to leave your thoughts, memories, and ideas about the legacy of Richard D. Obenshain and what his words mean for us today.
on 
I never met him but I wish I had. He shaped the GOP in the Commonwealth and his influence is still with us. I admire your uncle and share his goal.
Chris
In 2002, I was sworn in as a Virginia Circuit Court judge and had to make some remarks. The following is from that speech. Best regards to you and your family.
Brad
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And finally, I wish to thank the family of the Richard D. Obenshain for their friendship and their sacrifice.
Nearly twenty-five years ago, my life was forever changed when I went to work in the US Senate campaign for one of the great Virginians of the last century – Richard D. Obenshain. I was his assistant and driver, and together we traveled 50,000 miles across Virginia. And it is to his memory that I would like to dedicate this ceremony.
Dick Obenshain was an anomaly in politics.
He was a philosophical and thoughtful man in a profession that is often pragmatic and cynical.
He was a visionary in an age of shortsightedness.
He was a faithful and loyal friend in a trade where shifting alliances were often are the coin of the realm. But he inspired his followers to pursue a better way, and I am one of those followers.
During the years I knew him, and we first met in Governor Holton’s campaign in 1969, when Dick was running for attorney general at age 33 and I was a teenage envelope suffer. But during those years, Dick took a special interest in me and in my future. Most importantly, it was Dick Obenshain who persuaded me that there was more to politics than the fight, than the speeches, than winning and losing. He taught me that the bottom line was doing good public service for your city, state and country, and that going to law school and becoming a lawyer would be the best to gain the tools I would need to serve. At the time, all I wanted to be was a newspaper reporter, but I was listening.
And it is by some words he spoke that I have tried to guide my life and career ever since.
“The most important goal in my life,” he said, “is to have a significant impact in expanding and preserving the realm of personal freedom in the life of this country.”
Those words are inscribed on this medallion given to my in 1978 by his widow, Helen Obenshain Newton. It is been on my desk at every place I have worked over the years.
During my years as a lawyer in private practice, as a trial lawyer and working on regular basis with the members of the General Assembly, I was fortunate to not only to be able to represent good clients, but also to be able to work to preserve and expand the realm of freedom for our citizens through our legislative process.
After I was appointed to the Office of the Attorney General, I would consider most issues that came before me with an eye to how best to expand and preserve the realm of individual freedom through our executive branch functions.
Now, I have joined our third branch of government and, again, my goal will be the same as Dick Obenshain’s–to expand and preserve the realm of personal freedom for the citizens of this great Commonwealth.
Personal freedom is defined in our Virginia Constitution as “that all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity.”
Personal freedom as ordered in our Constitution “by the recognition by all citizens that they have duties as well as rights, and that such rights cannot be enjoyed save in a society where law is respected and due process is observed.”
Personal freedom as protected in the Federal Constitution that no person shall be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” nor denied “the equal protection” of all laws.
To serve as a judge of this court – next to the home of John Marshall, down the street from a church in which Patrick Henry pledged himself to “liberty or death,” and in the shadow of Thomas Jefferson’s Capitol—a great temple of our Republic—and which houses the statue of the country’s indispensable man, George Washington – these things can’t help but give one a feeling of a special relationship to our Virginia Founders, their followers, of all creeds and colors, and the ideals about freedom for which they stood and risked their all.
These are the ideals of which Dick Obenshain spoke and taught.
As I assume the duties of this office – given to me in trust, for the benefit of the sovereign people of Virginia – I make a sacred commitment that the words and dreams and visions of our ancestors for equality, justice, and liberty will be renewed daily in my courtroom for all of the people.