Conservative Daily News » Bill Bolling

Won’t You Come Home Bill Bolling?

Michael R Shannon — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 16:03:38 +0000

Virginia’s Lt. Governor Bill Bolling is going to have to lose a considerable amount of weight and drastically increase his time on the tanning bed to physically resemble Charlie Crist, but Bolling’s ideological transformation is coming along nicely.

For those who don’t follow Florida politics, Charlie Crist is the former Republican governor who intended to be the state’s new US senator in 2010. When Crist announced he was well known and could raise money — music to establishment Republican ears. Crist was immediately endorsed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee in an effort intimidate potential primary competition.

Life was good! Crist had essentially been handed the nomination. Time to order some staffer to start measuring for new drapes in his senate office. Except Marco Rubio decided to enter the race. Rubio had everything going against him but the voters.

Crist wasn’t worried at first. But as the campaign continued, FL voters decided Crist was too cozy with Obama and lacked conservative commitment. Rubio won the primary and in a fit of pique, Crist changed his registration to Independent and ran as a spoiler.

Rubio beat him and the Democrat both.

Really angry and wanting to “lash out” (thank goodness there weren’t any “assault rifles” handy!), Crist endorsed Obama in 2012. And he just made the news by changing his party affiliation to Democrat. Proving Republican voters were correct all along.

Bolling’s situation is quite similar. In 2009 he was in his first term and Bob McDonnell was the Attorney General. Both wanted to run for governor, but Bolling didn’t want a fight — something that appears to be characteristic. As Pope Alexander IV divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese — McDonnell divided the top Virginia offices between himself and Bolling. McDonnell ran for governor and promised to support Bolling in 2013.

Unfortunately, the nomination is not McDonnell’s to confer. The wealthy may be able to hand political office from relative to relative in Massachusetts, hence the “Kennedy” senate seat, but Virginian’s don’t cotton to inheriting office.

Like the English in Pope Alexander’s time, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli ignored an agreement he was not party to and worked to secure the nomination. He packed the GOP central committee with his supporters. After Cuccinelli announced, the committee changed the nomination process from a primary election to a convention.

At which point Bolling avoided another fight and dropped out in the belief he could not win a convention in which strong grass–roots support is a crucial factor.

Cuccinelli is not without sin in this saga. Ken initially promised voters he would run for re–election, which I thought was an excellent idea. He broke that promise when he announced for governor, but as former Texas Gov. Bill Clements once said in connection with a lie he told, “Well, there never was a Bible in the room.”

Few Republicans are as popular with liberals and their media choir as establishment Republicans defeated by a conservative. All it took for Bolling to become a statesman was for Cuccinelli to run him out of the primary. Now he is another unfortunate establishment moderate who — according to the media — is the best general election candidate. Unfortunately he can’t win a primary dominated by the right wing.

What’s wrong with mouth–breathing TEA party types? Didn’t they see how successful Republicans were with John McCain, George Allen and Mitt Romney?

Predictably, Bolling is now “growing in office” as he starts emerging from his “Cristsalis.” Bolling has come out and opposed uranium mining in Virginia because he agrees with “environmentalists” that it will create a hole in the ground. After the Newtown elementary school shooting, Bolling broke with McDonnell and opposed even researching the possibility of arming school staff. And Bolling warns he will be an “independent voice” during the 2013 gubernatorial campaign.

All that’s left for Bolling is to “evolve” his views on homosexual marriage and schedule a big hug photo op with Obama. Then he’s free to enter the race as an independent and undermine Cuccinelli’s candidacy.

Only Bolling won’t really be running as an Independent. He’ll be running as a Petulant. Nothing prevented Bolling from putting his supporters on the central committee. He wasted eight years instead of building a strong grass–roots organization. Bolling’s problem isn’t Cuccinelli or conservatives; it’s inertia.

Virginia's Light Governor Gains Heft

Chad Kent — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:03:11 +0000

The bad old volcano days are but a distant memory for Lt. Governor Bill Bolling. That’s when he was trapped in Florence Italy for almost a week during April 2010. European air travel was canceled after an Icelandic volcano, with a name no Virginian could pronounce, spewed ash and gas into the skies over Europe, canceling the Lt. Gov’s flight plans.
Now you may contend a politician stranded by hot air is a situation rich in irony, but it’s not funny when you are the strandee. The particularly humiliating part was almost no one noticed.
No Amber Alerts for Bill Bolling. No thwap, thwap, thwap from helicopters searching overhead. Just an empty coffee cup, abandoned on a lonely desk in Richmond. The Commonwealth even managed to conduct both a special session of the legislature and the annual Shad Planking in Bolling’s absence, with no one — other than a few thousand shad — inconvenienced in the least.
But it’s a situation that won’t be repeated. On Election Day Democrats suffered losses in both the Senate and House, but the loss of two Senate seats created a 20–20 tie, which makes Bolling ‘Mr. Tie Breaker’ and rockets him from vestige to Viceroy.
Senate Republicans are considering requiring Bolling to wear one of those home detention ankle bracelets so they can locate him at a moment’s notice.
Virginia’s absentee ideological nanny, The Washington Post, feared that in spite of Senate Democrat’s gerrymandering efforts, an ignorant electorate might put Republicans in control of all three branches of government.
The WaPost tried its darndest to warn us regarding the dangers of conservative government. In endorsement editorials Democrats were glowingly portrayed as: “smart,” “sober,” “sane,” “savvy,” “sensible” and “grown–ups.” Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, were: “incendiary,” “loopy,” “reckless,” “extreme,” “partisan” and “over–the–top.”
But if anyone is out of step with Virginia, it’s the WaPost.
In Prince William County the Post endorsed Del. Luke Torian (D–Dumfries) described as an incumbent who “must woo a swath of new voters in this redrawn district.” What is not said is the district was designed to elect a black delegate, new voters or not.
Staunch conservative Del. Bob Marshall, (R–PWC) also had a newly drawn district that removed much of his base and put him in a politically precarious situation. Our betters at the WaPost describe Marshall as a “loopy…take–no–prisoners culture warrior.” Naturally, since Marshall is one of the Republicans too extreme for Northern Virginia, WaPost endorses his “smart, sane, sober, moderate” opponent.
Torian wins re–election with 61 percent of the vote and Marshall also won with an almost identical 60 percent of the vote, so who is out–of–step with whom?
We have the same phenomenon in the Senate. Incumbent Sen. Chuck Colgan (D–PWC) gets the endorsement as a “civil, widely respected and deeply committed lawmaker.” In Loudoun County’s open senate race, conservative Republican Dick Black is characterized as, “one of the legislature’s most over–the–top ideologues.” His Democrat opponent is endorsed as “a cogent, serious–minded businessman who has common–sense proposals.”
Strangely enough, on election night Colgan wins by 55 percent, while non–incumbent Black wins his hotly contested seat by 57 percent. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Virginia voters support conservatives.
Bill ‘Tie–breaker’ Bolling is soon to discover with his great responsibility comes the potential for great blame if anything conservative should occur on his watch.
The WaPost editorial page has already started its ‘not so fast, buster’ routine, complaining, “Few Republicans candidates emphasized (social) issues on the campaign trail.” Consequently, according to the WaPost, the GOP is not allowed to introduce any social legislation in the next session.
This shows a basic lack of understanding with regard to branding, which could account for the Post’s loss of subscribers and money over the past few years.
Voters are smart enough to understand a conservative Republican is pro–life, pro–traditional marriage, pro–law enforcement, pro–Second amendment, pro–business, anti–tax increase and anti–illegal alien.
During a campaign the positions that matter most to the voters at that time are the positions discussed. Just because a Republican doesn’t mention abortion during the campaign, it does not mean he’s hoping for an appointment to the board of Planned Parenthood.
Voters knew what they were getting when they voted Republican.
Meanwhile, if Bolling wants to stay in the good graces of the WaPost, he would be wise to urge the Senate to double the funding for ‘public broadcasting’ and book another flight with Volcano Travel