He refuses to work with GOP types who do not want to do exactly what he wants to do, and insults the GOP in the other house who will not follow his lead-he did it this year (when the house agreed to raise revenue) and did it two years ago (then referring to those who would not vote for the tax increase). At the same time, he gives cover to the democrats who do not have to fight for their plan but only have to point to GOP infighting as reason to change horses.

That is why he must go…because his fight is no longer one of integrity or courage, but one based in his own obstinacy to have things his own way. In doing so, neither party has to stand on its own and by its own words and actions.

Cromwell’s words to the Long Parliament could now be correctly applied to John Chichester…”You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

I think there is a kind of boogie-man mentality about certain people and things in certain elements of our party. Chichester gets demonized because he is inconvenient for the easy-way-out crowd in the legislature. Chichester’s positions on matching revenue streams to expenditures is an essentially conservative fiscal concept and one which has been AWOL in a lot of contexts. I don’t really have strong feelings about the guy, but I put up comments like that to get people to think. Chichester is an old-fashioned fiscal, bean-counting, conservative. It doesn’t mean he’s right, but it also doesn’t mean he’s some pinko-communist. The appropriate attack on Chichester, if you or anyone else cares to make it, is that Virginia has evolved beyond Byrd-land budgeteering and that modern demands require creative use of debt and taxes to raise revenue. In other words Pay-Go is dead. It’s a little kid argument to say that Chichester is some kind of Dem in disguise. That’s better applied to some of the big-spending Rs in Congress.

Calling him a conservative just adds icing to this ridiculous cake. I’m stunned.