The Frederick Fight (my term) has spilled over into the local blogging scene, thanks to Eric Martin.  For those who haven’t been paying attention (which is probably most of you), Ken Klinge (Tom Davis’ right hand) is calling for Frederick’s head (BD), as is Shaun Kenney  (UPDATE: whoops! Shaun was just reporting the news, not agreeing with it; sorry, Shaun) and Maximus over at The Contemporary Conservative.  By contrast, BVBL and Jim Bowden would prefer Frederick stay.

I should also note there is a sidebar to this regarding Mr. Frederick’s lack of contact with the blogosphere.  Several bloggers are unhappy withe Frederick on this score (Cathouse Chat, Scott’s Morning Brew, Crystal Clear Conservative, Virginia Virtucon, Below the Beltway, and The Write Side of My Brain, Leslie Carbone, and Jason Kenney at BD).  I tend to agree with the above bloggers on this narrow issue, but outside of Jason (UPDATE: Guess I shouldn’t assume that one either), I’m not sure how many of them also wish to see Frederick go.

FWIW, I, for one, do not support removing Frederick, and here’s why.

Frederick’s critics (which include many dear friends) are citing the recent election and an admittedly very bad fundraising record over the last six months.  The Chairman will certainly need to explain the fundraising situation (although a U.S. Senate nominee who was so uninterested in his own campaign he demoralized his own blogger-in-chief might have had something to do with it), but I’m not prepared to lay blame for our election debacle here at the Chairman’s feet.  For starters, the nation underwent a net shift of nine points away from the national GOP since 2004 (and an additional two points since 2006); that’s a very difficult trend to counteract.  Moreover, Virginia wasn’t the only previously beet-red state Obama carried.  North Carolina and Indiana also went Democratic for the first time in a generation (the latter representing a 20-point shift).  New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada all experienced double-digit gains for the Democrats.

As for the Congressional races, I would humbly submit that if Tom Davis hadn’t been burned out, he could have run again and held that seat (Frank Wolf actually increased his margin from 2006, even as Obama was carrying his district).  Now, Davis was frustrated in his Senate ambitions, but I’d have more sympathy for him if he really was the economic conservative he claimed to be (i.e., he didn’t try to get HB3202 passed in a failed attempt to save his wife’s doomed State Senate re-election campaign).  The Drake defeat was painful, but she won by a whisker in 2006, and this was - contrary to many Republican hopes - a worseyear than 2006 for House Republicans.  As for Virgil Goode’s race, well if you don’t remember the Great Blog War of 2006, I can see how you might look to Frederick as a scapegoat, but some of Frederick’s critics (especially the Kenney brothers UPDATE: see above) should know better.

Contrast all of this to 2007, when John Hager was in a similar position (in the Chair for less than a year).  Frederick’s critics have harped on the fact that Hager was never given the extended time for which Frederick is now asking.  However, the context is entirely different.  While we may not have noticed it here in Virginia, 2007 was a good year for the GOP.  Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour was re-elected; Bobby Jindal was elected Governor of Louisiana in a landslide; and Republicans made gains in the New Jersey legislature for the first time in over a decade.  The only place the party tasted defeat was in Virginia.

The reason whythat happened is the main reason I am not ready to see Frederick go: the RPV’s pre-Frederick tax-hiking history.  From 2002 to 2008, the Republican Party of Virginia supported or acquiseced to tax increases on four seperate occasions, including the HB3202 debacle in 2007.  John Hager did nothing to move his party away from that history: no apology to the voters, no harsh words for Bill Howell and company to never let that happen again, no assurance to voters that it wouldn’t happen again.

Frederick, by contrast, was Chairman less than a month before Bill Howell tried again in the special session with another tax increase proposal.  Unlike Hager, Frederick called Howell out in the Washington Times, and while there were a lot of critics of Howell loudly stating their case (including yours truly), I’d be a fool to say the words of the RPV Chairman didn’t have an impact.

We cannotrisk the RPV Chair being filled by someone who would be silent in the face of a Republican cave-in on taxes, or even worse, agreeing with a tax hike.  While the Democrats have been quiet for now, the yawning budget shortfall, coupled with the ongoing transportation debate, will give them every excuse they need for “revenue enhancements.”  As saw in 2007 and the first few days of this year’s special session, too many Republicans in Richmond need the shoes burned off their feet to do the right thing.  We can argue about Frederick’s ability to help turn up the heat, but he certainly won’t bring a fire extinguisher with him.

I have no such guarantee about a prospective replacement.  In fact, I don’t even know how Frederick’s critics have in mind; I’m pretty sure theydon’t know.  That’s reason enough for me to ne skittish.

Simply put, the Commonwealth of Virginia cannot afford a tax increase in 2009.  In my humble opinion, removing Jeff Frederick will make a tax increase more likely.

For that reason, I say keep him where he is.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

In a personal editorial that contains enough changes of direction to give a reader whiplash, Paul Akers, opinion editor of the Free Lance-Star (or, as I prefer to call it, the far more appropriate Free Lance-Black Hole) embarrasses himself and his newspaper.

He starts well, with a fairly decent critique of the domestic policy of President Bush . . .

. . . whose fealty to megabusiness is creating before our unbelieving eyes what FDR never dared: the rapid socialization of U.S. finance and industry . . .

It doesn’t take long for Akers to start losing the script.  Things get really bad when he switches to state government:

The last notable achievement of the GOP-run House of Delegates occurred in 2004 when 17 Republicans broke ranks to support a tax increase to boost education, health, and other neglected state obligations.

“Neglected state obligations”?  If Akers had actually taken the time to look at the numbers before deciding the big-government nonsense he hated in Washington was just peachy for Richmond, he might have noted that health-care spending shot through the roof in the Warner-Kaine era, enough to be more than three times the tax hike.  The only area “neglected” was transportation, but that was a deliberate action by Mark Warner in an attempt to force Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to raise their own taxes.

Things really get bad when Akers looks to next year:

When the General Assembly convenes in January, I expect no significant departure among House R’s from No New Taxes doctrine, whatever the public need.

Perhaps Akers wasn’t paying attention, but the Republican Party of Virginia is already on record as havng supported or acquiesced in four tax increase proposals in six years: the tax-hike “referendum” of 2002 (inflicted on voters by a Republican General Assembly), the tax-hike of 2004, a near-miss gas-tax hike in 2006 (rejected only by House Republicans), and the now-infamous HB3202 (which even Akers had to admit was a “Rube Goldberg funding mechanism”).  Has it even occurred to him that the GOP’s problems in Virginia have at least something to do with that recent history?

But this is Akers’ ridiculous coup de grace:

Whether the House GOP’s–warning: abrupt metaphor switch–parachute never opens (2009) or whether House R’s plummet a bit more slowly under a “Mae West” canopy (2011), the impact will be equally fatal. I say vote Democratic and get it over with, the better to hasten GOP reconstruction. I am quite fond of Howell and Mark Cole, may princes spring from their loins, but sometimes, to modify a bogus quote from the Vietnam War, you have to destroy the hamlet to save the village.

When total debacle shocks Republicans into intellectual reformation, I offer for party adoption a simple motto: Be competent.

How raising taxes in this economy would be even remotely ”competent” was left unexplained - and for good reason.

Also left out of the column was the fact that the House Republicans actually came up with a plan that tied road funding to economic activity, something no Democrat was willing to do.  Moreover, the House Republicans’ plan actually meant more money for NoVa and Hampton Roads transportation than the Dems’ tax-hike.

Sadly, Akers’ column merely reveals that the madness and ignorance that seized the FLBH during last summer’s special session went deep into the editorial leadership, and afflicts it to this day.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

The editors of the Free Lance-Star attempted to convince Spotsylvanians to join the Virginia Railway Express.  Their arguments sound good at first hearing, but fall apart when thoroughly examined.

Unlike most VRE skeptics, I’m also a VRE rider.  That forces me to give this a little more thought than most on either side of this issue.  In fact, my VRE experience all but jumped out at me when I saw this paragraph from their editorial:

The idea is simple and attractive: The STC hopes to draw companies that can band together to lure lucrative federal contracts to the center. Eventually there may be enough business there for Woodbridge residents to consider commuting to the area, justifying southbound commuter trains or an additional stop by existing Amtrak trains.

But for trains to stop, there must be a station. And VRE will build one, but only if Spotsylvania joins the system.

First of all, I can assure the folks at Summit Crossing (of which STC would be a part) that a VRE stop is not essential to win federal contracts.  For example, the Skyline City office complex in the Falls Church area (six buildings above the Target that used to be Skyline Mall) does not have a VRE stop, but it hasn’t prevented the Defense Department from practically monopolizing the office space in the complex (the Defense Health Program in particular).  What Skyline does have is a stop for two buses directly from VRE stops.

More to the point, given the rail demand already in existence (VRE north-morning/south-afternoon trains, Amtrak, and CSX freight), a VRE south-morning/north-afternoon trains will need a third track from Springfield to Fredericksburg, which will take more time and cost than VRE backers are willing to admit, even to themselves.  VRE would also need to double the number of trains on the F-burg line, another hidden cost.

So the benefits of VRE for Spotsylvania would be delayed, and come with costs that haven’t really been discussed.  There is, however, one cost that is well known - the 2 cent gas tax increase.  The FLS editors attempt to defend that is just as weak:

Opponents of the VRE have argued that county residents can’t afford an additional 2 percent per gallon for fuel. But guess what? Spotsy gas without the VRE add-on isn’t any cheaper. In fact, as of this writing, the “pump patrol” prices listed on our sister radio station’s Web site, wfls.com, show gas stations in Breezewood and along Route 3 west charging $3.14 per gallon, while gas in VRE partner localities (Fredericksburg and Stafford County) is $3.09. Adding the 2 percent could actually force gas stations to become more competitive.

It should be noted that at the time this was being written (Thursday, as it ran in Friday’s edition), gasoline on Tidewater Trail was going for $3.07 - not that anyone should be surprised that the FLS has continued to ignore northeastern Spotsylvania, but I digress.

The bigger issue is this - someone will have to pay that tax; if it’s not the consumers, it’s the station owners.  Perhaps the FLS editors aren’t aware of this, but the station owners are not the big bad oil companies, but local franchisees.  The editors may be OK with forcing them to eat the tax increase (that’s what “becom(-ing) more competitive” really means), but that doesn’t mean it’s better for the county and its business community.

In short, the benefits are less than advertised, while the cost is greater.  VRE may be a good deal for some individual Spotsylvanians like me, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good deal for Spotsylvania.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal