Romney Wins VA — With 5% Voter Turnout

Can you believe that only 5% of registered voters turned out to vote in a presidential primary?


Granted, only one party had a candidate to elect, and there wasn’t much of a contest there, but still five percent?! Even if the state were divided 50-50 Dems and Reps and all the Dems stayed home, that still means that only 10 percent of Republicans came out. Regardless, it was drastically lower than in years past.

Locally, the turnout was also around five percent and Mitt Romney rolled as expected, garnering 10,807 votes in a county with more than 176,000 voters. In my precinct, there was a whopping 179 votes cast. It must have been a long, boring day for the poor poll workers. They must have felt like the Maytag repair man. Or Dave Albo.

As much as I like low voter turnout, I’m still a bit surprised, if not somehow troubled, about this. Ahh. I’ll get over it. After all, I did pick the winner.

Weighty School Issue of the Day

This one comes from our brethren in southern Virginia. Klinger is quite relieved.



http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2012/mar/06/suffolk-board-drops-proposed-cross-dressing-ban-ar-1743883/

Was the Sun in His Eyes?

The General Assembly this week approved a bill that would allow homeowners to install solar panels on their homes despite the express terms of the contracts they entered into with other homeowners when they bought their houses (aka the HOA bylaws). In addition to abrogating these contracts among homeowners, the bill is completely antithetical to the idea of majority rule. Simply put, HOAs shouldn’t be forced to allow these panels, or any such aesthetic monstrosity, if the majority considers the aesthetic or economic impact unacceptable. Glad to see that Dels. Tom Rust and Joe May opposed it, albeit unsuccessfully.


On the Senate side, Sen. Dick Black voted against it, too, though his recorded vote was a little funny: “Senator Black stated that he voted yea on the question of the passage of S.B. 627, whereas he intended to vote nay.”

Must have been that glare off Chap Petersen’s 30′ x 30′ solar panel that caused him to hit the wrong button.

On the Senate Budget Broohaha

On the one hand, the Senate Republicans kind of brought this on themselves. From the beginning of the session, they recognized, as well as did the Democrats, that the lieutenant governor had no authority to vote on tied budget bills even if he could otherwise break ties on procedural votes. Thus, the Republicans effectively mortgaged the budget bill in order to control the Senate until such time. Well, the day of reckoning has come.


That said, the Dems are behaving like a petulant five-year old holding his breath. Their obstinance has nothing to do with the merits of the legislation; it’s all, quite admittedly, just a power grab. In the end, they’ll have to breathe (not sure they realize that).

Partisanship at its worst – and both sides are to blame. Simply disgusting.

To Rejoin or Not to Rejoin. Is It Really a Question?

After virtually every Loudoun County Republican Committee meeting, I’d come home and regale the War Department with stories of the ridiculous childishness and self-importance that had dominated the meeting. Every time, I’d get, in a genuinely perplexed kind of tone, “Then why do you keep going to those things?”


The answer I’ve given lately is that the LCRC meeting are always good for a snarky blog post or two. Beyond that, however, I’ve had a difficult time finding where the two hours I’d spend there actually made my life, or the lives of others, any better. And when I consider the time away from the Nukes (and the price I pay for that), it becomes even more difficult to justify.

As such, when I received the email yesterday announcing the LCRC’s annual meeting where I’d have to renew my membership, I had to pause and really give it some thought. As has been written elsewhere, the pettiness and sheer insanity of the organization has become just mind-bottling (yes, bottling).

All that makes me think that, perhaps, it’s time to pass on the meetings and just go straight to the big kids’ table at Tuskies for a few beers instead.

Virginia Supreme Court Slams the Door on Cuccinelli’s UVA Climate Change Investigation

As reported in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Virginia Supreme Court today rebuffed Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s civil investigative demands for documents related to grants a UVA professor receive to study global warming. On the technical side, the court ruled that the university is not “a person” under the specific law by which he sought to obtain the information.


Hmm. Maybe Del. Bob Marshall’s “personhood” bill should be amended to include universities as well as zygotes.

Fear Big Government? Fear the Little Governments More.

Every day there’s a story where a Republican somewhere bemoans the encroachment of the federal government to the detriment of the rights of the states and the individual. And while the encroachment of government on the rights of the governed is indeed a legitimate concern, one must understand that the far, far greater threat to our liberty is at the state and local level.  Below are three reasons why.