Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Bearing Drift’

Has Dave Brat Changed His Stripes?

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , , , on May 27, 2014| 2 Comments »

We are just a couple weeks away from the 7th Congressional District Republican Primary and if you are like me, you can’t wait for this to end.  On the way to Lake Anna yesterday to spend Memorial Day with friends, you couldn’t miss all of the Tea Party homemade billboards along Rt. 33, some trashing Congressman Eric Cantor and some singing the praises of Randolph Macon Econ Professor and challenger Dave Brat.  Cantor’s campaign has painted Brat as a “liberal professor” that advised tax raising former governor and now U.S. Senator Tim Kaine.  Brat and his supporters (some of whom have been strong supporters of Cantor in the past) have cried foul.  There may be some hyperbole in that claim but Brian Kirwin has a post over at Bearing Drift that indicates the label “liberal college professor” may be on target, or at least may have been about nine years ago.

Now, Brat would not be the first person to change his views over time. But, his writings from 2005 does make one wonder just how thoroughly the Tea Party folks vetted their challenger or if it was simply “anybody but Cantor.”  And, those writings might explain why Tim Kaine chose Brat for his economic team.

Note: As of today, the NRA Political Victory Fund web site has not posted ratings for the June 10th Primary, but in 2012, Cantor earned the NRA-PVF highest rating of “A+”.  He has done nothing in the last two years that would indicate he will get a lower rating this year.

 

Read Full Post »

Did Democratic Senators Threaten Retribution for Endorsing Cuccinelli?

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

That’s the question Bearing Drift is asking this morning.

Democratic Sens. Dick Saslaw, Janet Howell and Barbara Favola all sent emails to members of the Northern Virginia Technology Council PAC when word got around that the PAC was going to endorse Ken Cuccinelli rather than Terry McAuliffe. The email from Howell, excerpted in the Washington Post, was scathing:

The Post article mentioned on Bearing Drift reports that the lobbying effort by Saslaw, Howell and Favola was “intense.”

“For them to endorse a guy with his views, a supposedly enlightened group of people — ­science-oriented — would have been the same as in the 1960s, the NAACP supporting George Wallace,” Saslaw said.

The Post noted that when the two candidates interviewed for the endorsement, that Cuccinelli came off as an intelligent, serious candidate, and that McAuliffe came off as, well, McAuliffe.

Terry-McAuliffee

“Terry was his normal, flamboyant self,” said a board member present for both interviews. “He didn’t want to get pinned down to any details. He didn’t give any details. He was all about jobs, jobs, jobs — ‘I’m just going to take care of the situation when the time comes. I’m just going to do it.’ It was all [expletive].”

The endorsement was due out last Friday but the McAuliffe campaign protested, leading to what the Post said was an “intense lobbying effort.”  It’s clear McAuliffe is not ready for prime-time, does not know the issues and is in no way prepared to be Governor of Virginia:

On a question about whether Virginia should stay in something called the “open-trade-secrets pact,” Cuccinelli gave a thoroughly researched response, the person said.

But McAuliffe answered, according to the source: “ ‘I don’t know what that is. I’ll have to look it up later.’ And then he turns back to the guy [who asked] and said ‘Well, what do you think we should do?’ And the guy says, ‘We want Virginia to stay in it.’ And then Terry says, ‘Okay, we will.’ ”

We have less than two months before the election.  Here is one more example of why we need to keep McAuliffe from leading this state.

Read Full Post »