John Brownlee, Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, and Dave Foster gathered together one final time in Hampton Roads to make their case as to why they should be Virginia’s next Republican candidate for Attorney General. At a gathering of the Republican Party of Virginia Beach, what started as a relatively collegial and benign policy debate turned into something so much more interesting towards the end.
For the most part, tonight was an explanation of things we already know.
Clearly the candidates had their comfy security blankets with them too.
The tried and true talking points were on full display: Foster has been practicing law for nearly three decades and won as a Republican in the “Peoples’ Republic of Arlington”; Brownlee is a conservative, former U.S. attorney, veteran, and claims he has appeal all across the commonwealth; and Cuccinelli says that he not only talks about being conservative, but delivers on that conservatism in office, yet is still elected as the only GOP senator of ten from NoVA.
As we have seen before, both Foster and Brownlee went after Cuccinelli for his vote on the Triggerman Rule.
Brownlee said that the rule should be abolished and that every Republican senator, except for two, one being Cuccinelli, voted to abolish it. Foster said that both Brownlee and Cuccinelli should remember that the Attorney General does not prosecute criminal cases, but defends criminal appeals and defends Virginia values in court. Therefore, if they feel so strongly about this rule, Foster says that Cuccinelli should still vote on it in the Senate and Brownlee should still prosecute it. Cuccinelli defended his vote as preventing the largest expansion of the death penalty since 1976 and that the bill’s patrons in the Senate (Obenshain) and the House (Gilbert) still have endorsed his candidacy.
The candidates also staked out their positions on E-verify, without too much differentiation, other than the fact that Cuccinelli and Foster explained that a pilot program at the government level would make for a good start and Brownlee pointed to other states that have the law already in place and that Virginia should follow.
Then, the interesting stuff started. (This is where the audio begins – my apologies for the echo, but that was the nature of the room: it was a gym!)
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In defining themselves as Republican activists, Brownlee chose to defend his choice to vote in the Democratic primary in 2006 between Harris Miller and Jim Webb. [4:15 of podcast]
Saying that he had read Webb’s books and considered Webb a considerable threat to Allen, he felt compelled to vote in the primary to protect Allen.
“I went out and voted against Jim Webb in their primary. Why?” Brownlee rhetorically asked. “Well, because Susan Allen asked us to.”
Foster said such an action is inappropriate and cedes the high-ground to the Democrats.
“I don’t see, no matter what the motivation for it, how we can criticize Democrats for crossing into our primaries if we are going to vote in theirs,” said Foster.
The event continued to get interesting when a libertarian emerged from the crowd and asked about the privatization of prisons. [8:00]
Cuccinelli is for it, as long as the contractor is “reliable.” He mentioned that there were provisions in the state government for such a partnership to exist.
Foster is open to it, as long as it could “achieve good results.”
Brownlee said that he would “proceed with caution” and that “running prisons is different than building highways.”
Finally, a heated moment came right at the end of the debate when Virginia Beach City Councilman Glenn Davis, in a state of clear agitation, wondered why Cuccinelli would oppose light-rail legislation in Virginia Beach when most Beach legislators were for it. [15:30]
Cuccinelli did not shy away from the answer and pointed to the Dulles rail project as Virginia’s “Big Dig”, only “without the water.”
“I will not suspend my independent judgment,” Cuccinelli scolded. “I will not go along to get along.”
Brownlee then used the opportunity to attack Cuccinelli for supporting H.B. 3202.
“One man’s pet project is another man’s pork,” said Brownlee. [20:20]
Brownlee claimed that the $400 million that went to projects in Northern Virginia associated with H.B. 3202 caused Cuccinelli to “compromise.”
“John’s been out of school awhile and he’s not doing his homework,” said Cuccinelli. [28:52]
He said that former Senators Chichester and Potts voted the opposite way from him on H.B. 3202 and “that should give you a measure of who voted the right way on the bill,” he said.
“Everyone’s a conservative when they want your vote,” said Cuccinelli. “But I’m the only one with a record to back it up.” [31:00]
