January 22, 2007 [LINK / comment]
Will wonders never cease!? After many months of stalemate, it looks like the Republicans on either side of the Virginia General Assembly have decided to split the difference with each other over the contentious issue of transportation funding. Republicans in the House of Delegates favor a minimalist approach, loathing to subsidize congested urban areas of the state, which would only encourage more people to move there, causing more congestion, ad infinitum... Republicans in the Senate were more sensitive to deficiencies in the state's highway system, and hence were more inclined to pay for new roads and bridges. In a rational world, they would have been able to work out a compromise years ago, but instead they acted like their counterparts on the other side of the state Capitol building belonged to the other party. At long last, they have woken up to the disastrous course they have been on for the past few years and faced up to the possibility of losing power in next fall's state elections. Well, better late than never. As the Washington Post reports, "But another goal remained front and center: to save the Virginia Republican Party." All of a sudden, Gov. Kaine and the Democrats have been put on the defensive, forced to come up with a clear alternative that doesn't bust the budget. Kudos to our economy-minded legislators in Richmond.
As everyone on Earth has been expecting for at least the past six years, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton declared she is running for president. See www.hillaryclinton.com. Even if she weren't a closet socialist, and even if she didn't have that attitude of smug superiority, she would still have a huge problem in connecting on a gut level with the average voter. What's more, her excruciatingly annoying nasal drone resonates like fingernails on a chalkboard. Can't she afford a voice coach? Unless the Republicans at the national level get their act together, however, she just might win in 2008, so conservatives had better prepare themselves for the worst case scenario.