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The State Board of Elections on Monday approved a state Republican Party request to require all who apply for a GOP primary ballot first vow in writing that they'll vote for the party's presidential nominee next fall.
There's no practical way to enforce the oath. Virginia doesn't require voters to register by party, and for years the state's Republicans have fretted that Democrats might meddle in their open primaries.
Virginia Democrats aren't seeking such an oath for their presidential primary, which is held the same day -- February 12th.
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Not to mention: any contract or formal agreement involving casting a vote is by definition illegal.
Along with Ohio and Colorado, Virginia has a decent chance of become a Democratic win in the 2008 elections, along with gaining a Senate seat with Mark Warner. Guess the Republicans are doing what they can to try and prevent this, but they have a bit of a challenge there.
So basically, I'm only allowed to choose who I think is best of that party without making a promissory to vote for that party even if the person I chose loses... Sounds like a surefire way to keep everyone else out of GOP affairs.
Along with Ohio and Colorado, Virginia has a decent chance of become a Democratic win in the 2008 elections, along with gaining a Senate seat with Mark Warner. Guess the Republicans are doing what they can to try and prevent this, but they have a bit of a challenge there.
So you think that Virginia will never again elect to national office a GOP neo-Confederate like George Allen? Beyond Macaca: The Photograph That Haunts George Allen
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In 1996, when Governor Allen entered the Washington Hilton Hotel to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference [CPAC], an annual gathering of conservative movement organizations, he strode to a booth at the entrance of the exhibition hall festooned with two large Confederate flags--a booth operated by the [Council of Concerned Citizens] CCC, at the time a co-sponsor of CPAC. After speaking with CCC founder and former White Citizens Council organizer Gordon Lee Baum and two of his cohorts, Allen suggested that they pose for a photograph with then-National Rifle Association spokesman and actor Charlton Heston. The photo appeared in the Summer 1996 issue of the CCC's newsletter, the Citizens Informer.
According to Baum, Allen had not naively stumbled into a chance meeting with unfamiliar people. He knew exactly who and what the CCC was about and, from Baum's point of view, was engaged in a straightforward political transaction. "It helped us as much as it helped him," Baum told me. "We got our bona fides." And so did Allen.
Descended from the White Citizens' Councils that battled integration in the Jim Crow South, the CCC is designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In its "Statement of Principles," the CCC declares, "We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called "affirmative action" and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races."
The CCC has hosted several conservative Republican legislators at its conferences, including former Representative Bob Barr of Georgia and Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi. But mostly it has been a source of embarrassment to Republicans hoping to move their party beyond its race-baiting image. Former Reagan speechwriter and conservative pundit Peggy Noonan pithily declared that anyone involved with the CCC "does not deserve to be in a leadership position in America."
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Republicans in Virginia, as elsewhere, are in some state of disarray. They lost the governor's race in 2005, they lost one US Senate seat in 2006 (Jim Webb over George Allen) and confront a very good chance of losing the other in 2008 (as John Warner retires), and after years of control, they just lost the state Senate in 2007. As the result of these beatings, a lot of intra-party bickering is going on between the once-ascendant neocon extremists and the moderate wing that is trying to reassert its control.
VA meanwhile has an open-primary system. Any registered voter can vote in either party's primary, and the neocon wing has long believed that evil democrats-in-sheep's-clothing have been 'crossing over' to help defeat some of their more extreme candidates. In previous years, they have posted signs in front of primary polling places on election day stating that only Republicans should vote here, which is of course, completely contrary to state law. The Pledge is their latest tactic, even though it's entirely meaningless and unenforceable. It all reminds me of the No Girls Allowed signs that a bunch of eight-year old boys might put on the door to a makeshift clubhouse, but that's about the level that many Republicans are operating on at the present time.
Republicans have become so mistrustful of the primary system that they won't use it to select their candidate to succeed John Warner. That will be done in convention, all but assuring that conservative former Governor James Gilmore will be the nominee and quite possibly bringing an end to the political career of moderate US Rep. Tom Davis, whose wife was just ousted from a senior state Senate seat as well. Gilmore is expected to face former Democratic Governor Mark Warner, who in the past has run very well among moderate Republicans.
All in all, it just doesn't sound too good for the right-wingers in VA right now...
Last edited by saganista; 12-02-2007 at 10:26 PM..
Along with Ohio and Colorado, Virginia has a decent chance of become a Democratic win in the 2008 elections, along with gaining a Senate seat with Mark Warner. Guess the Republicans are doing what they can to try and prevent this, but they have a bit of a challenge there.
Oh please, I would do anything for CO to go Dem in 08, and stay that way for eternity.
Republicans in Virginia, as elsewhere, are in some state of disarray. They lost the governor's race in 2005, they lost one US Senate seat in 2006 (Jim Webb over George Allen) and confront a very good chance of losing the other in 2008 (as John Warner retires), and after years of control, they just lost the state Senate in 2007. As the result of these beatings, a lot of intra-party bickering is going on between the once-ascendant neocon extremists and the moderate wing that is trying to reassert its control.
You just made my night!
Quote:
Originally Posted by saganista
VA meanwhile has an open-primary system. Any registered voter can vote in either party's primary, and the neocon wing has long believed that evil democrats-in-sheep's-clothing have been 'crossing over' to help defeat some of their more extreme candidates. In previous years, they have posted signs in front of primary polling places on election day stating that only Republicans should vote here, which is of course, completely contrary to state law. The Pledge is their latest tactic, even though it's entirely meaningless and unenforceable. It all reminds me of the No Girls Allowed signs that a bunch of eight-year old boys might put on the door to a makeshift clubhouse, but that's about the level that many Republicans are operating on at the present time.
Republicans have become so mistrustful of the primary system that they won't use it to select their candidate to succeed John Warner. That will be done in convention, all but assuring that conservative former Governor James Gilmore will be the nominee and quite possibly bringing an end to the political career of moderate US Rep. Tom Davis, whose wife was just ousted from a senior state Senate seat as well. Gilmore is expected to face former Democratic Governor Mark Warner, who in the past has run very well among moderate Republicans.
All in all, it just doesn't sound too good for the right-wingers in VA right now...
Well cant they just install voting machines that change every D vote to an R vote?
Well cant they just install voting machines that change every D vote to an R vote?
No reason to believe they wouldn't try it if they thought they could. I'm thinking it might be fun to mount a Get Out the Hispanic Vote for the Republican Primary campaign. That ought to make for an interesting day at a few local polling places...
ParkTwain - why "Heil"? Please explain the connection between your use of that term and the internal political workings of an American political party.
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