I know, I know, there have already been two posts on BD regarding Jeff Schapiro’s Richmond Times-Dispatch column on the fate of the RPV, but it’s not my fault that neither Shaun Kenney nor Matt Hall caught the piece of actual news buried in Schapiro’s ode to wealthy Republicans that were considered persona non grata just three years ago when one of them was aiming for the White House.
I refer you to Schapiro’s seventh paragraph (emphasis added).
Many of the duffers who refused to give up their golf games have given up on the GOP altogether, concluding that it’s interested only in refighting the battles it’s lost or is losing. Among them: the ban on same-sex marriage; a reliable, long-term source of transportation funds; new taxes for schools, police and human services; and depoliticizing redistricting.
What was that? New taxes?
I get that Schapiro was more focused on the PRV infighting…and I especially get that Shaun and Matt did, too. However, it doesn’t change that fact that Schapiro is clearly expecting another push for tax increases, possibly as soon as next year.
Are we already seeing fallout from the June primaries? Maybe.
More to the point, while all of the factional battling has been going on, voters outside the Republican Party see a group who (1) love to beat each other up, (2) have allowed or pushed for three major tax increases in a dozen years, with a fourth possibly coming in the middle of a presidential election, and (3) only seem to agree that marriage equality is bad…something Virginians themselves no longer believe, and are increasingly unwilling to even tolerate among those they would elect to office.
Shaun and Matt (among others) are all talking a great game about (1). No one else seems to care about (2) and (3).
Voters notice these things.
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