Republican Leadership Changes? Hmmm.
By Greg L | 15 November 2007 | Virginia Politics | 15 Comments
The Richmond Times-Dispatch is reporting that the Cooch is potentially challenging Republican Walter Stosch for the leadership of the Senate Republicans. It’s an interesting idea. Cuccinelli has been a strong conservative leader in the Senate with an outstanding record, and while his neighbor Jeannemarie Devolites-Davis tried to rescue her seat by acting like a liberal Democrat and lost, Cooch stayed true to his principles and ran a hard race with a solid get-out-the-vote effort. I think there’s a lot Cuccinelli could offer.
A Republican leadership team of Cuccinelli and Howell would be a strong and principled team. Cooch and Delegate Jeff Frederick as House Speaker would probably be even better, We’ll have to see how things shake out this weekend, but we’d probably be a lot better off with some changes here.
H/T: Mason Conservative, who provides an interesting analysis.
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Simply put, the moderates have the votes in the caucus. The leader may not be Stosch, but it won’t be a VCAP senator.
This assumes he keeps his seat. If he does, he’ll be out in 4 years. If someone competent had run against him this year he would have lost.
Not going to happen. He woud need NOVA senators support and thanks to the PWC Repbulican Party, he is the only one left.
These legislative Caucus contests are never decided by any substantive matters….just by the cliques. Sometimes there is some consideration as to who has the best relationships with the major donors, but essentially they are run just like a contest for fraternity President…who is most popular and has the deepest friendships within the club. I hardly see the possibility of change on the House side….possibly the Senate since Stosch had to spend his money on himself this time instead of others, but it won’t be Cooch.
But, heck, Norment couldn’t topple Stosch because he lectures the caucus about the rules too much and they don’t like that. If a conservative makes a run at it, it would have to come from Martin or Obenshain, but I’m not heairng any of that. McDougle is the other ambitious up and coming Senator, but he’s gearing up to run for AG, so he won’t make any waves.
Just for background, here are some numbers on any inner-caucus matters or just “in general.” The moderate GOP Senators start out with 9 votes (Blevins, Hanger, Quayle, Ruff, Stolle, Stosch, Wagner, Wampler, Watkins); the conservatives start out with 4 (Cuccinelli, Martin, Newman, Obenshain), then you have 2 ambitious guys that will fall to one side or the other depending (Norment who is more moderate, and McDougle who is more conservative), then the Freshmen will probably split 2 moderate (Hurt, Stuart), and 2 conservative MAYBE (Smith, Vogel)…I say maybe because both will need to be moderate on some things based on their districts and things they have done in the past.
So, you see…the moderates have a solid grip on the Senate Caucus. The leadership won’t change much, if at all.
That’s why I can see in some respects why we have better committee Chairmanships then we had before. We CERTAINLY have a huge improvement with Colgan taking over Finance, but that’s a whole different subject.
I’ve already come out in favor of Bob Marshall for Speaker (http://right-wing-liberal.blogspot.com/2007/11/bob-marshall-for-speaker.html), but Frederick would also be a vast improvement.
Is anyone challening Howell?
I honestly think Howell is going to be ok. For now.
The real change needs to be in the Senate right now, they are the most egregious offenders. We lost, but we didn’t get blown out in the last election. I don’t think we need to go nuclear in terms of our total leadership in the General Assembly. Howell has better people around him. The Senate was a different story.
The House, and especially House Speaker Bill Howell, ARE the issue.
Senate is now Democrat-controlled and, as pointed out above, the liberals (led by Stolle, Stosch and Wampler) seem to have the votes in the Republican Caucus.
HOWEVER, it was the House, especially House Speaker Bill Howell, who rammed through the abusive-driver, regional tax authorities, tax-and-fee hike bill.
AND, it was the House, especially House Speaker Bill Howell, who engineered the tax hike getting out of committee and then passing two years earlier.
The chances of either Frederick or Marshall being speaker or gaining any kind of substancial leadership roles are
near 0%. You don’t skip the biggest vote of the year and become Speaker and you don’t buck the caucus like Marshall does time after time and get into leadership. Both of these guys are good conservatives but they will never make any leadership in the house caucus because they attempt to make themselves look like model conservatives at others expense. Not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely not a good way to make friends and influence people in the caucus. Thats just the way it is.
The question on the House side isn’t whether Howell will remain Speaker, but whether Howell has enough of a Vance Wilkins streak in him to exercise righteous retribution against Marshall and the rebels. Whether Howell becomes more conservative or more moderate ideologically for the next two years is less interesting than whether he’ll grow a backbone one way or the other.
Since the original post mentions Jeannemarie: I noticed that she is one of the only Republican candidates who did not send out a mass e-mail to her supporters after the election thanking them for their donations of time and hours. Poor form not to say thanks, since Tom may need some of the same supporters to help him if he goes for reelection. Makes me think that he may not be running for reelection after all.
Cucinelli as minority leader might be a good move, but I kind of doubt Republicans from the rest of the Commonwealth will see it that way.
By Greg L | 15 November 2007 | Virginia Politics | 11 Comments
A Republican leadership team of Cuccinelli and Howell would be a strong and principled team. Cooch and Delegate Jeff Frederick as House Speaker would probably be even better, We’ll have to see how things shake out this weekend, but we’d probably be a lot better off with some changes here.
Are you serious? First of all, Cuccinelli has only been in office for 5 years; long time senators like Norment, Newman, Stosch and Stolle, Wampler and Quayle would never let that happen. This is why the Republican Party lost control of the Senate…because they are so focused on these extremist candidates, like Cuccinelli…why don’t you all wake up and smell the coffee…if you want to get anything done and return VA to the strong red state that it once was then you need to focus on the more moderate candidates. And frankly, after Cuccinelli’s narrowest of narrow wins the Republicans would never elect him as minority leader.
Hey Frederick, if you’re reading this, you gave a real classy (NOT) speech on behalf of Jost at the 1st district convention. Only you, would manage to piss off the next US Congressman and his supporters from the 1st in a NY minute! You really need to get over your Ross Perot look alike syndrome. As far as Frederick for Speaker?! It will NEVER happen. Cooch on the other hand, baring any ridiculous screw ups or comments, has a bright/promising future in the party..even in NoVa.
Anonymous said on 15 Nov 2007 at 7:06 pm: “…if you want to get anything done and return VA to the strong red state that it once was” - that’s the problem, “back in the day” red meant Democrats (since red is the color of socialism). By going moderate, you just give more power to the Dems.
What happens when Republicans go Left…ask Jeannemarie. And speaking of her, Red Woman, she DID thank her doners…she rolled over and said, “Thank you, Tom, for keeping the money in the family and not giving it to lesser candidates” - lol
What this all says is we have big trouble within the GOP Caucus of the General Assembly. The Senate Republicans live for “sticking it to” the House Leadership. The House Republicans just spend funds aimlessly until maybe a good issue hits them in the face so they can use it at election time. Neither body has any drive, nor core agenda of big picture items to push as a philosophy of governing…NOTHING….and they have lost the confidence and imagination of the voters.
We used to have a Joint Legislative Caucus that ran some semblance of a political/campaign operation…and the House and Senate actually tried to work together for united GOP themes. Those days are long gone because our GOP members have become just like everyone else there…”keep your head down, be friends with everyone, raise some bucks…get re-elected.” Sounds just like Congress doesn’t it? Well, it’s worse than that.
It’s sad that they are actually TRYING to be the minority party again and it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we didn’t have redistricting coming up. I’m not saying they need to take a hard right turn on every issue (although on some things like taxes and spending it wouldn’t hurt). I’m just saying they need to unify on some sort of agenda that MEANS something to the voters and effectively communicate it….and stop misreading the pulse of Virginia and blowing it with the arrogance that brought us the abuser fee mess.