RICHMOND — The newly elected chairman of the Virginia Republican Party on Saturday promised to stick to GOP principles of fiscal responsibility and individual liberty.
John Whitbeck, a 38-year-old lawyer from Loudoun County, ran on a platform of healing a fissure within the party and expanding its reach through a renewed focus on fundraising.
To underscore the point, he also announced former Texas governor Rick Perry will give the keynote address Feb. 24 at a fundraising dinner.
“It is time to shed our divisive labels,” Whitbeck said in a speech to party faithful, according to remarks provided to The Washington Post ahead of time. “Establishment, grass-roots, libertarians, whatever we call ourselves, it is time to be Republican first. But more importantly, it is time for the Republican Party of Virginia to give you all a reason to call yourselves Republicans first.”
Whitbeck has said he will make it his mission to steer both groups toward a common goal to defend and increase the party’s slim majority in the state Senate in this year’s election, and win over voters in time for the 2016 presidential contest.
Whitbeck stirred up a firestorm when Ken Cuccinelli was running for governor by telling what many felt was an anti-Semitic joke. He eventually apologized. It makes one also wonder how Rick Perry is relevant to Virginians.
Hopefully, Whitback will be true to his word and work towards common Republican goals rather than trying to advance the causes of any number of the splinter groups we have throughout the state.
Many of us aren’t really sure what those common Republican goals are any more. Things have changed a lot since the days of Republican statesmen like John Warner, Linwood Holton, or Bill Bolling.
I think we can probably count on Whitbeck not telling any more jokes. of course, my grandmother would have commented that he is awfully young and question whether or not he was dry behind the ears. So it Whitbeck the GOP’s new shining star?
John will make a great RPV Chairman. I worked very closely with him during my time as Manassas City GOP chairman, sitting on the 10th Congressional District committee, with John as chairman. When he became 10th District Chairman, he was following two somewhat divisive previous chairman (One moderate, the other ultra conservative). He was able to unite the moderate and conservative factions by ensuring these groups “had a seat at the table”.
So you are saying he is very much dry behind the ears? He sure stepped in it with the jokes. Tell him no more jokes.
Steve, question for you about the proposed party registration. Let’s say it passes and you have to register as R,D or I. Will that count for foting in federal elections or just state?
Both. Doesn’t really impact general elections. Just nominations contests, like primaries and conventions. One school seems to think that if we have party ID and closed primaries, the convention purists will be placated. These folks also argue that we will have more participation from deployed servicemen and out-of-state college students, in primaries. I can see their point. I just think party nominations should be decided by those affiliated with that party. I support registration by party. I’ve been registered to vote in MA, NC, SC and VA. Only VA lacked party ID.
As a traditional Virginian, I see it as government intrusion into how one votes.
I also think there are a whole raft of people out there who are neither pure Democrat or pure Republican. I am not so sure such a narrow filed should get to decide for the rest of us. I don’t belong to a party because I think both parties suck.
“It makes one also wonder how Rick Perry is relevant to Virginians.”
He’s running for President. This makes him relevant. But this is a fundraising dinner. How is Elizabeth Warren or other big named democrat relevant to anyone else outside of MA? She’s been known to speak at fundraisers. Wendi Davis speaking at a fundraiser in NYC?
You give a speech to members of your party. They write checks to support the party. You build goodwill with Republicans outside of your traditional/geographical base, which will help you down the road. You raise your name ID within the state. All of these things help build a national base of support, when you are seeking the presidency.
There is nothing stopping parties from keeping a list of registered members. That is what dues-paying accomplishes in non-political organizations. Why must the taxpayer foot the bill when it is a political party that can collect unlimited contributions? Universal party registration is not required for a free and open election.
@Moon-howler
“As a traditional Virginian, I see it as government intrusion into how one votes.”
How so?
” I am not so sure such a narrow filed should get to decide for the rest of us.”
Decide for the rest of us what? Who the PARTY nominee will be? I don’t get to pick who is the chairman of the local rotary club, without first joining the rotary club. I don’t care if you are a Lion, Elk, Moose, or member of the Son’s and Daughters of the American Revolution, if you ain’t a member of my party, someone who will support the eventual nominee regardless, then you shouldn’t be picking our nominee. No tickee. No washee.
The rotary club is a club. The Republican and Democratic parties are who will eventually chose who will govern us. That makes it different.
I like the Virginia tradition. I don’t want it to change. Notice I am not saying the CB word even though I am thinking it.
I feel as strong about this subject as I do messing with our state liquor stores.
@Ed Myers
“There is nothing stopping parties from keeping a list of registered members.”
Yes there is. There are no “registered members” or the Republican Party of Virginia. There are no “registered members” of the Republican Party of Manassas. Since there are no “registered Republicans”, there is no list that can be compiled.
I was a unit/local party chairman. Chairman are elected by an assembled convention. There are members of the local republican committee, which is a deliberative body tasked with facilitating the nominations process, the size of which is capped at a percentage of the Republican votes cast in a particular election. If you do the math, the local committee is capped at 75 members.
Ed, you are popping off about things you know little of.
You vote in a Republican primary, they have you in their sights. Same with Democrats.
Party registration and closed primaries are, as Steve suggests, somewhere between conventions and open primaries. It’s sort of like a virtual convention and, as such, it has the promise of widening the input that decides on nominees. It’s not illogical and it is an improvement over conventions, where only a limited number of people have the time and other wherewithal to attend. The instinct to compel conventions is a fear instinct and it has served the Republican Party in Virginia very badly. It is almost an arithmetic certainty that the narrower the nominating forum is, the less likely that the candidates can win in a General Election. So if closed primaries would give Republican insiders a rationale for avoiding conventions, it would be a step in the right direction.
Having said that, the closed primary instinct is just one step above the “circle-the-wagons” mentality of the convention. The two major parties have been handed a virtual monopoly on the electoral/governmental process by the State Government. It is very hard in Virginia to run a non-R or non-D candidate. That expansive grant of monopoly power over governance carries with it some degree of responsibility to the voters to find candidates who can command their respect. This isn’t about satisfying an inner core of ideologues. The State is full of immensely qualified individuals who could do an earnest job of fulfilling positions of public trust. A vibrant, confident political party would want to put these potential candidates to a public test in a primary to ascertain who is the strongest candidate in a field of aspirants. All this talk of closing off the primary process to non-Party activists bespeaks a fear of the electorate that is a sign of political decay and illegitimacy.
That’s what bothers me….the virtual monopoly on the electoral/governmental process. That bothers me a lot.
@Scout
“It is very hard in Virginia to run a non-R or non-D candidate. That expansive grant of monopoly power over governance carries with it some degree of responsibility to the voters to find candidates who can command their respect. This isn’t about satisfying an inner core of ideologues. ”
Scout, you bring up a great point. Today, for a party to be recognized by the State, it must achieve a pretty high electoral threshold (ie total votes cast) in a statewide or federal election. The proposed legislation removes this electoral bar, and instead bases it on voters registering (15%). It is much easier for a third party to achieve this threshold, than it is to actually nominated, run and fund, a candidate to achieve the current threshold.
Either way, Steve, it’s durn near impossible to get a third party candidate (or independent) on a statewide ballot in any meaningful time period.
Switching emphasis a bit, some states are experimenting with running the first two highest vote getters in primaries against each other in the general election.
@Scout
“It is almost an arithmetic certainty that the narrower the nominating forum is, the less likely that the candidates can win in a General Election. ”
Cuccinelli, Bolling, and McDonald were all picked at a convention. They swept the election.
“A vibrant, confident political party would want to put these potential candidates to a public test in a primary to ascertain who is the strongest candidate in a field of aspirants.”
Chosen by Democrats that cross over in the open primary which then switch their votes in the general election.
Other than Democrats generally don’t do that. Why bother. I always vote for the person who I think I could live with.
Scout didn’t say convention, he said narrow nominating forum.
It should bother you a lot, Moon (# 12). While these things vary from state-to-state, most states have turned over the keys to governance to the two major parties. The deck is totally stacked against anyone coming from outside that bipolar system. When one considers of the enormous pool of business leaders, retired or former military personnel, and academics we have in Virginia, many of whom could bring tremendous knowledge and skill to public life, one also has to think of how many of these people would put up with the inner small-ball politics that one has to endure to get on a ticket of either of the two major parties.
Good. I am not being paranoid then. I just really don’t like the idea of having to specifically register to be able to vote in a primary. It might even mean vote at all. who knows. I INTENSELY DISLIKE both political parties.
@ Cargo – Bolling and McDonnell had already been selected in a primary process in 2005 and had won previous general elections. Cuccinelli engineered his convention candidacy in 2013 because he knew he was weaker with the larger voting group that he would have had to face in a primary. that whole convention ticket went down to defeat for the hard arithmetic reasons I described in my previous comment. The Republican Party in Virginia is afraid of voters. That has been a theme for some time. Your comment about Dems crossing over to vote in Republican primaries is a manifestation of that fear (I almost typed “irrational fear”, but realized that our party regrettably has very rational reasons to fear the voters, given some of the candidates and positions it has taken in recent years). I have heard this from time to time from fellow Rs whose judgement is perpetually suspect, at least to me, but I have never seen the slightest empirical evidence that this delusional cross-over theory has every had any real world impact or any rationale as to why Rs aren’t doing the same thing to Ds in statistically significant numbers.
In any event, if providing good governance is the goal of political activity, finding competent candidates who can win in general elections is the day-to-day work of political parties. If the nomination process is narrowed to a few like-minded people, it becomes more likely that the candidates chosen will not have that general appeal.
Not a fan of the Louisiana-style election system. Not. One. Bit.
@Steve. I think the mailing list/GOTV computer systems of each party is effective registration. We don’t need the government to duplicate that effort.
@Ed Myers
Ed, obviously you don’t know about the practice of “salting” the opposing parties mailing and databases.
Define “salting”, pls
Ed’s question highlights the point that the two monopoly parties (or diopoly parties, to be precise) have finagled their way into the innards of the State Government to the point that they use its implements to run their candidate selection process in primary elections. Steve’s rejoinder points out that party lists may not be valid indicators of true party loyalties. I’m on the lists of a lot of organizations with whom I have serious policy disagreements. I nonetheless find it interesting and useful to read their mailings. The downside is that I get a lot of telephone calls at dinnertime from people to whom I have nothing to say (which, at dinnertime, includes almost everyone).
At the end of the day (have to find a new expression – that one’s getting fairly tired), if the two political parties use the state’s electoral machinery for their candidate selection, the primaries should be open to all the voters in the state. Because it is in both parties’ interests to reach out to as many state voters as possible, they should forget this cockamamie idea of limiting participation to only those who pledge fealty to the party through some sort of pre-registration process. State elected officials shouldn’t be selling themselves out to help the two parties close off this element of the electoral process. It sounds downright Communist to me. It may work in China, but not here.
Only if a party was run by a bunch of bumbling idiots would salting cause problems in maintaining reasonable purity in the party voter list.
If you fund the party with $100+ dues from every member you would eliminate most ideological imposters. You might waive the dues for those who put signs in their yards or volunteer to do canvassing….neither of which an imposter would do.
If you think many potential members would not pay $100 to select the next slate of members then you have your answer on how partisan most people are. Maybe that is why they need the power of the state to force people to choose.
Salting is when activists from one party, register either their own information or bogus information with that of the other party. You can salt a mailing list. You can salt a website. You can salt a phone poll. You can salt a convention or other party nomination contest. You can salt a membership list. It’s a pretty common practice. I’ve seen it myself. We compile lists based on local convention/canvass participation, cross reference it with any state-run primary data (publically available), and hit the neighborhood. I’ve had occasion to be approaching a home, only to see Democrat yardsigns out front, and the cars in the drive festooned with multi-year democrat bumper stickers. What this means is this obvious activist salted our information.
Also, another thing that Ed may have not considered is the National and State parties tend to charge dues for membership. It’s part of the way they raise funds, and defray costs. Voter registration is free to the individual voter, be they affiliated with a party, or a bonafide independent. Ed’s argument that the “party’s membership lists should be sufficient” ignores the fact that if a party wants to limit those who participate in a nominations contest to only those voters who are inclined to support the eventual nominee, will have to pay to be on one of his lists.
Of course, we could just have state-run/state-funded open primaries, which the Democrats choose more often than does the GOP. Those are “free” right? Look at the last nominations contest for VA state-wide candidates. The GOP held a convention in Richmond, paid for the convention, and delivered an economic benefit to Richmond, in the form of Hotel and restaurant business, not to mention those vendors employed by the convention center. The Democrats chose a state-run primary. The state paid, which means the taxpayers paid.
Therefore, his argument that party-ID registration is somehow an onerous burden on the taxpayers is either misinformed, or disingenuous.
Is that like when someone’s dog and dead mother in law are on the party list? [knowing look]
I don’t feel badly about it because of how many times lists are bought from special interest groups. Back when I was more politically naïve, I used to sign people’s petitions when I was out and about. It didn’t take long for my mailman to start thinking I was a member of the communist party. I tried fixing it with dogs and mother in laws. That didn’t work either. Now I don’t sign anything when out, including initiatives to give me millions of dollars. There is no free lunch.
We will not ever agree on this issue. You are a party person and want to keep the ranks clean. I refuse to join a party (yes I have been stung by both) and want to keep people like me as part of the decision making. If we weren’t locked into a two party system, I might feel differently. I just don’t like such a narrow view being in the position to make all the choices. I also don’t like the govt. telling me what I have to do to vote in a primary.
More ignorance: mandatory participation fees were deemed illegal, under current election law. I can’t speak for the Dems, but I can say the GOP was required to change this to a “voluntary donation” to the convention. How many attendees (who are considered the party faithful) actually pay? I can assure you, the percentage is low. So low, in fact, that for the last two RPV conventions, local unit’s seating locations have been determined by the percentage of delegates having made the donation, as a means of incentive.
Ed, how many campaigns have you run? I don’t mean threw a few bucks in a jar and taken a couple of signs and bumper stickers. I mean how many have you actually run? How many mass meetings, conventions, canvasses or caucuses have you run? My guess is “none”. I have done all of the above, and I am saying you are talking out of your southern orifice. You are popping off.
Many states in the Union have registration by party. Only 20 states have open primaries for President, and fewer have them for all primaries.
I believe open primaries are actually unconstitutional, as they violate freedom of association. A party should be free to choose its own nominees, without interference from those who will not, or may not, support the eventual nominee. I’m not a fan of conventions per-se, but I am quite opposed to state-run open primaries. This is why I supported and advocated for the GOP to nominate by party canvass, otherwise known as a “firehouse primary”. It’s a party event, so there is a modicum of control, and yet the multi-site nature encourages broader participation.
And for those, like Scout who want to bash the two-party system, I say it seems to have served us pretty well this far. Maybe not perfectly, but certainly better than the mess you get out of a multi-party coalition system you see in Europe and elsewhere. If a viable third, fourth or fifth party comes along, so be it. If one of the established parties becomes irrelevant, again, so be it. Haven’t ever bumped into a Whig in my life.
And remember, the only thing a pure democracy guarantees is the right of the majority to be wrong.
Throw me in as a basher also.
Rick, back before he was “turned” used to advocate for them. Not me.
To close out the party ID argument, the point is now moot. The bill was voted down in the Senate.
and to open the next discussion: bills have been submitted in both state houses for a vote on a new US Constitutional Convention. Interestingly, Lingemfelter is the house patron/sponsor, and Marshall is very much in opposition.
Me, I am opposed. I am sure there will be an eventual thread on this.
I’m with you on that one, Steve. Our reasoning may differ (or may not), but my great concern is that I find it unlikely that, in the present climate, we could improve on the 1787 model, a construction that had the advantage of some brilliant, selfless minds in just the right, but probably coincidental combination of gifts. I would fear that we end up with a mess.
Scout,
I oppose it for basically the same reason, and I fear the same result as you do. I consider that the original convention was tasked with improving the Articles of Confederation, and ended up with something completely new, completely different, and luckily better. We may not be so lucky this time.
I think part of the reason why some people see a new convention as the only solution, is our nation has departed from the original intent of the framers. Whether out of necessity, or other motivation, it is clear that our current Federal government pushes the envelope further and further every year, and is only occasionally reigned in. I have always felt that we have what we need in the current Constitution. We just need to use it properly.