Jeff Frederick Wows Hampton Roads
By Greg L | 14 March 2008 | RPV | 11 Comments
An interesting observation popped up on Bearing Drift this evening about Delegate Jeff Frederick’s candidacy for Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, and a meeting of the Republican Committee in Chesapeake:
Also of interest, Del. John Cosgrove’s legislative aid, Christie Craig, advocated on behalf of Del. Jeff Frederick for party chair. Two other distinguished GOP members also spoke on Frederick’s behalf. In what was perhaps the surprise of the night…nobody advocated for Hager.
This isn’t much of a surprise to those of us who know Jeff Frederick, but I can understand how this might be new to folks down in Hampton Roads that haven’t seen Jeff in action don’t quite get what’s going on here. On one side of the slate we have John Hagar who has accomplished all sorts of things since he took the job. Let’s see, maybe I can come up with something… Sorry, nope. We lost the Senate, lost some seats in the House of Delegates, and are faced with the prospect of trying to claw our way back into getting a majority in the Senate and winning some state-wide seats in the next election. I’m not seeing a whole lot of success here, nor any indication that there’s all that much of a prospect of success showing up on the horizon. All I see is more of the same.
Then you have a young, energetic Jeff Frederick who has consistently won elections in a pretty tough district by enormous margins, energizes a tremendous corps of volunteers who are fanatically devoted to him, has a solid conservative voting record that never seems to put him in the position of apologizing for his actions, and has often championed hugely popular policy initiatives in the House of Delegates. This is the no-brainer of the decade, folks — an opportunity to put someone who has actually proven that he knows what he’s doing into a position where he can get a lot of important things done. So when something like this happens, and activists who know what’s going on start jumping up to talk about how good a candidate for RPV Chairman Jeff Frederick really is, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s the only rational conclusion that someone who knows what’s going on here can possibly arrive at.
The state GOP “establishment” is deathly afraid that voters will hold Republicans responsible if compromises aren’t made around things like fixing the mess that the last transportation compromise left us in. This is despite the fact that Democrats control two-thirds of the Virginia government, and really are the ones responsible for governing. It’s fear-based leadership, which plays not to lose instead of playing to win, and the result is that Republicans aren’t winning in the state because they’re not even trying to. The grass-roots, which nominally control these conventions where the RPV Chairman are chosen, are getting fed up with this loser strategy and the folks that refuse to consider that there’s another way to operate. They’re ready to start looking for alternatives.
That alternative for the RPV Chairman is Jeff Frederick. Governor Kaine sees him as a threat and used to call him out as a target until he figured out that all this does is give Jeff more ammunition to shoot back with. RPV needs a new face and a new direction, and Jeff Frederick provides a tremendous opportunity to revitalize the RPV and make it what it should be. That folks who understand the dynamic here are rallying around his candidacy should come as no surprise at all.
UPDATE: If this seems fanciful to any of you, take a look at this and tell me I’m wrong.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
You can follow the discussion through the Comments feed.
11 Comments
Views: 914
Loading ...
Del. Frederick spoke at our 6th District meeting three weeks ago, and I was quite impressed with him. He is talking about building the party from the grassroots up. He also voted against HB 172. My ears are open to what he is saying.
RPV must have someone of Jeff’s caliber in charge. With all due respect to those of years past, it is a different world now and we have to adjust while maintaining our core principles. Jeff is the guy that can and will do that.
Just keep in mind that only people who sign up with their local GOP can actually vote on the GOP Chair race on May 31. If you don’t sign up by your local party’s deadline, all you can do is complain about Hager. Luckily, Jeff has also taken the lead in designing a campaign website at www.votejeff.org that makes it easy to click on “how to vote” and pull up your county to see actually how to do it.
Frederick is more over-reated, and has a less impressive background, than Obama. I don’t get why people are so “wowed” with him.
My concern is that Fredericks, constantly seems to “Play-it-Safe”, (ie, Transportation Bill, Gimore Endorsement) When you occasionally have to take risks, Time will tell.
Jeff is both grassroots savvy and a savvy techie. He owns an internet company and will use that resource to it’s fullest. RPV needs better leadership in both areas. Jeff is the man to do it.
Check out http://VoteJeff.org
I don’t want a “play it safe” ,I cannot decide how to vote so I will just skip my vote on HB3202 Frederick either. He just is not even close to being ready to run for chair of a statewide party.
I certainly hope he will not contract out his own company to do business should he win. This would be the ultimate conflict of interest, padding ones pockets from personal business by being chair of the RPV.
Charlie Judd’s son’s company does the website for RPV. No conflict of interest there?
Anonymous 15 Mar 2008 at 12:30 pm:
I hate anonymous comments that hint to “potential” wrong doing, like “I hope he will not”…. It’s kind of like hinting a mud sling.
I know, he can be chair, do the website, then sue himself and RPV like he used to threaten!
Are you saying you don’t care if he gives himself business from his own company as RPV chair? I think he should at least commit to NOT using his own company to contract business. This could potentially be a huge conflict of interest.