An axe for Saxman's bills

Delegate Chris Saxman (R-20) saw several of his bills get a well-deserved axe in the Virginia Senate yesterday. The delegate had ginned up lots of attention for a constitutional amendment to protect Virginia's right-to-work laws. Totally unnecessary - those laws are well enshrined in state law and culture. It was all grandstanding for the anti-union crowd.

Saxman also saw his bill to designate royalties from off-shore drilling go to Chesapeake Bay cleanup, transportation, and renewable energy. While CCC can support each of those goals, there is one problem - Virginia gets zero royalties because there is currently a federal moratorium on off-shore drilling. Another bit of grandstanding to kiss up to the "Drill Here, Drill Now" fanatics. The delegate's bill was ill-timed - bring it up again if/when there is off-shore drilling. It makes no sense to mandate specific spending today when future priorities may be very different.

And the Staunton delegate again cringed when his tax credits for organizations that provide scholarships bit the dust. He's been pushing some variation of tax credits/vouchers for private schools since he's been in the General Assembly. It is never the right time for public money (either vouchers or tax breaks) to support private schools (unless they meet the same SOL standards of public schools), but these tax credits at a time of severe budget shortfalls was absurd. Senator Emmett Hanger abstained - in previous years he's voted against his GOP friend.

Tonight is the night for Delegate Saxman's 15,000 home conference call for him to listen to voters. He'll probably talk about each of the kill bills to eek out a little political propaganda. Ought to be interesting to find out (not that we ever will) how many people (1) answer the phone, (2) stay on the call more than a few minutes, and (3) get a chance to ask the delegate a question. I'm all in favor of communication between the people and elected officials, but the possibility that Delegate Saxman does more listening than talking is as remote as the Dolly Sods. Bob Dickerman, the Staunton Democratic Chair, said it better in his letter to the editor.

Cross-posted at We Will RockDem.

Chicken litter

We're 10 days out on the election and both teams seems to pulling out all the stops. A random selection:

The Daily News-Republican endorsed Bob Goodlatte and took a swipe at Sam Rasoul. No surprise in either. Their endorsement could have been predicted a year ago, even a decade ago because the facts and the campaign don't really matter to the editors there. Well, maybe I'll have to eat a little (very little) crow after we find out their views on the Senate race.

Speaking of the DN-R, their letters to the editor frequently are a rehash of libelous BS, many so obvious in their intent and apparent in their stupidity that I think they actually hurt their cause. Then the editors place certain letters in shaded boxes (print edition) or designate it "letter of the day" to, I assume, give them eye appeal and seem more important. Is it just my imagination that this favored treatment is more often given to Obama-bashing letters?

The News Leader has a story about hateful and racist literature showing up in newspaper tubes in the Staunton and Waynesboro areas. Staunton Democratic chair Bob Dickerman referred to the flyers and negative robocalls as "atrocious." On the other hand, Staunton Republican chair Anne Taetzsch denied knowledge of the literature and said it didn't come from the campaign. She said, "my whole thing is the negative approach doesn't work." What? How can she say that with a straight face? After all she's in tight with Chris Saxman the Virginia McCain co-chair whose campaign has used robocalls and mailers spewing the same negative and false information. And isn't Ms. Taetzsch a big supporter of state GOP chair Jeff Frederick, whose racist comments went too far for even the McCain campaign?

On another and more positive front, former Delegate Jim Dillard, a Fairfax Republican, is making calls for Barack Obama. He does get in a jab at McCain/Palin for their negative campaign and lies, but his message is overwhelmingly one of positive support for Obama/Biden. While there has been a lot of news about national Republican figures supporting Obama, there is a groundswell of Republican support among state and local politicians as well.

And the latest counter punch in the sign wars is "You can vote for the chick, but I'm rollin' with Colin." Haven't seen one yet, but understand a few have appeared around Staunton.