In this week’s Virginia Politics On-Demand Shaun Kenney, Jane Dudley, and Jason Kenney joined me at Sine, a restaurant and pub on Cary St. in Richmond, to talk a little politics and drink a little beer.
We started off by talking about the Georgia/Russia situation…”The commies came down to Georgia, they were looking for some land to steal,” said Shaun. But we actually discussed it from the angle of the presidential campaign and not necessarily geopolitics.
Jane joins us to describe the Jennifer Byler Institute, why it’s important, and how it’s motivating and activating Republican women to enter public service and encourage grassroots participation. She also offers some great insight as a constituent of Rep. Eric Cantor’s on how they feel about the prospects of him becoming vice president.
“He’s very popular in the party, extremely popular within his district, he’s reliably conservative, gives a great interview, is as smart as can be, he has absolutely zero skeletons in his closet: I think he would be an outstanding addition to the ticket. Realistically, I don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Jane.
Jason counters by saying that Cantor is effectively leading the “guerrilla” Congress fight while Nancy Pelosi has gone on vacation for her book tour.
I bring up the discussion that Virginia matters nationally again. While we were all disappointed about George Allen, Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner all dropping out of the presidential race, suddenly Kaine and Cantor are now hot-commodities…something none of us expected.
However, what ensues is a minor debate between Shaun and I on the merits of picking a candidate to win a state’s electoral votes.
We then move onto talking about Cliff Garstang, Democrat from the Sixth Congressional District, who wrote last week that terrorists had more “principles” than Republicans. Needless to say, the general consensus was that Garstang should be publicly reprimanded by the party and asked to resign. Especially given that Democrats have shown a propensity to do so (aka Howling Latina).
“Democrats look upon Republicans trying to get rid of their more moderates as a witch hunt, Democrats do it because it’s principle…you know, it’s all about the progressive principles…I just think it’s the wrong kind of extremism within their party that they’re trying to deal with,” said Jason.
We also get Jane’s take on the Gilmore campaign and Shaun follows with some thoughts for the Marshall supporters.
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Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. 
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The comment posted above regarding the Democrats and their moderates, if I understand correctly – the proposition seems to be that the Dems are eliminating moderates? Is simply not true.
If anything the Democratic Party has gone out of its way in the past few election cycles to run moderate/ conservative/ blue dog Democratic Candidates – this is part of the reason why the only Iraq war veteran in the House is a Democrat – and undoubtly why the Democratic Party will continue to win elections nationally.
Ragnar – Tell that to the Leslie Byrne faction that has now turned on Tim Kaine merely because he didn’t back their far left candidate.
I think you’re right in what the Democrats have done in the recent past, running folks like Jim Webb, but now that they have a bit of control and feel they can weed out the more Conservative elements, expect to see a weening out of the “moderates” more and more.
Jason – there has always been a left and a right within the Democratic Party’s big tent. Moreover, the Blue Dogs are not something from the “recent past”. Rep. Charlie Wilson, recently credited nicely by Hollywood with winning the war in Afghanistan/ defeating the Soviet Union, was a Blue Dog Democrat. He, like many of us, is liberal on some issues and conservative on others.
This is perhaps what you and your Republican friends fail to understand about the Democratic Party. The GOP wants to paint the Dems with a broad brush when no brush broad enough to encompass the variety of opinions, beliefs and thoughts within the tent exists. Your post is emblematic of both the GOP’s misunderstanding of who the Democrats are, and simultaneously, wishful thinking that we could be painted so simply for the purposes of (negative) campaigning.