Sparring with the Speaker UPDATED

There is some light sparring underway in the undeclared contest between House Speaker Bill Howell and Susan Stimpson. Right now, we’re still at the broad talking points stage:

Susan Stimpson, a former chairwoman of the Stafford County Board of Supervisors and onetime Howell protege, said the time has come to examine Howell’s leadership. Stimpson said she is planning to take him on next year out of frustration with taxes and the state’s $2.4 billion multiyear budget shortfall.

“Unfortunately, [Howell] has lost his grounding, and it has become especially evident over the past few years when he squandered his super majority in the House,” she said in an e-mail. “After 28 years in office, he has made increased taxes and spending his legacy and that needs to change.”

The right has hung this charge around Howell’s neck since 2004. A few attempted to engineer a leadership challenge to him several years ago, but found no takers. The reason? Mainly it was because no one wanted the job. And they also knew that any challenge would fail, and leave them open to a life in the political wilderness.

Even so, Stimpson has potential as a challenger. Her name is known in the district and she can count on support, inside and outside its boundaries. But Howell is not going to be taken by surprise and would enter any such contest as the favorite. That said, he may want to tell some of his supporters to politely decline questions from reporters:

“Howell will beat Stimpson like a rented mule,” said Ray Allen, a Republican consultant and Cantor loyalist who has tangled with the conservative coalition.

Maybe. But saying it — to the press or anyone else — is unbelievably stupid. Unless Allen’s intent was to serve as a fundraising/GOTV hook for the Stimpson campaign.

Update

Mr. Allen has now apologized for his remarks:

Republican political consultant Ray Allen has apologized for the language he used to make a prediction to The Washington Post this week that Virginia House Speaker William J. Howell would defeat his primary challenger, former Stafford County Board of Supervisors chairwoman Susan Stimpson, like a “rented mule.”

“I used a poor choice of words and I apologize to Supervisor Stimpson,” Allen wrote. “I will learn from this mistake.”

The lesson: Consultants should be neither seen nor heard.

Still, Allen ought to appreciate just how much help he gave the nascent Stimpson campaign. He gave it a phrase it can use in fundraising appeals for months to come. And it may even be worth a couple of hundred votes on election day.

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