Overheard: clucks and yucks

People shouldn't talk so loudly at restaurants, especially if they intend it to be a private conversation. But, in their enthusiasm, a couple of Staunton area Republicans, err... libertarians, err... wingnuts did just that, disturbing the conversation at our table, in more ways than one.

The initial focus of their conversation was finding candidates to run for the Staunton School Board. Candidates who would promote choice, if not school choice, then teacher choice (every mom could tell the school which classroom to assign her child to). There was considerable teacher-bashing claiming most teachers just "see it as a job" and "discourage parents from being involved." While under Virginia law parties cannot nominate for school board, they can support candidates and often encourage and nurture them as part of building a farm team to run for other local and state offices. With Staunton's electoral trends running against them, the city GOP desperately needs to rebuild that farm team.

Their conversation drifted to Delegate Chris Saxman and Delegate Steve Landes (sorry Emmett, guess they don't consider you to be one of them) and wondering if either was on an education committee in the General Assembly. Now, if these two were really GOP activists (one implied he was on the Staunton committee), you'd think they'd be better informed... Landes has long been a member and currently chairs the House Education Committee. At any rate, they didn't have much confidence that the General Assembly would do the kind of things these two wanted, one saying, "all they do is throw money at it." Hum, over the next few weeks local school boards will likely find some of that thrown money was written on bad checks.

Shifting from the topic of education they found common ground in bashing Democrats saying all the nation's new majority party wanted was to make everyone equal and to do that would take away liberty. This led to one declaring that government had no place in any kind of "charity" work.

Other interesting and disturbing? points they made:

• Joe McCarthy didn't find all the reds in Hollywood - the place has long been infested with them. Find out all about it in the neocon book, Red Star Over Hollywood. Not sure what prompted this topic except maybe Sunday's Oscars had their bile churning.
• They ought to get new "Win the War!" yard signs that say "Win the War, DAMMIT!" Yes, he spelled it for everyone in the restaurant.
• Churchville area residents Alex Avery and Dennis Avery are great role models. Google 'em and judge for yourself.

As lunch wrapped up they promised each other to stay in touch and the older gentleman said he'd let the other know when the Staunton Republican Committee would be meeting. The conversation lingered a moment more - gotta get the right candidates to get "education under control." As they pulled out of the lot, I noticed one of their SUVs was still plastered with multiple McCain/Palin stickers. Living in the past?