Thursday, September 24, 2009

Wilder Declines Deed's Endorsement


Former Governor Wilder Says No to Deeds
"The requests, made of me, have been to endorse Mr. Deeds, the Democratic Candidate, for Governor. I refrain from doing so and will leave that choice to the voters." - Wilder

McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said: "Bob McDonnell and Governor Wilder have worked together well on issues ranging from combating gangs to promoting programs to help the homeless in Richmond. They share the same commitment to fiscal responsibility and keeping taxes low. They both understand that during these tough economic times public servants have to focus on the real-world situation of working families and small businesses who are struggling to make ends meet. The last thing they need is another tax increase that makes their burdens heavier and dries up job opportunities. Bob holds the Governor in high regard for his historic achievements and public service, and he looks forward to continuing to work closely with him in the years ahead."

A Fight in the 42nd

The race in the 42nd District heats up and goes to TV Ads. With the election less then six weeks away Albo calls on his experience in Richmond and his service to his district , to contrast his young and inexperienced opponent, who is already putting out negative ads. Albo remains positive and relies on his record over Greg Werkheiser's lack of political experience, and overall negativity.

Fraternal Order of Police Back Bob

“It is my honor and privilege to announce today on behalf of our membership the endorsement of Bob McDonnell for Governor. Bob McDonnell understands that one of the primary functions of government is to keep citizens safe. His record is one of leadership on major public safety initiatives and a steadfast commitment to Virginia’s public safety professionals. Bob McDonnell is a leader Virginians can count on to keep our communities safe.”
-Tommy Edwards, President of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Today’s endorsement adds to the lengthy list of major Virginia organizations backing McDonnell in the 2009 campaign. Over the past month McDonnell has been endorsed by: Virginia Realtors ®, the largest trade association in Virginia with over 33,000 members; Virginia AgPAC, the political action committee of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation with over 147,000 members statewide; the Virginia Credit Union League, a trade association representing the Commonwealth’s 194 not-for-profit credit unions and the 3 million member-owners residing in Virginia; and, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the leading small business association in the Commonwealth whose membership consists of nearly 6,000 small businesses across the state. Just yesterday McDonnell was endorsed by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce NOVABizPAC, the voice of business in Northern Virginia. Last week McDonnell was endorsed by the National Rifle Association, widely recognized as America’s foremost defender of Second Amendment rights, with over 120,000 members in Virginia.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Business Leaders Uncertain About Deeds

Deeds , is struggling to connect with some business leaders, an influential voting bloc that has been key to Democratic victories in recent elections.


With major backing from unions, conflicting promises on taxes and no details on how to fix the state's mounting transportation crisis, Deeds is not swaying some business-minded voters who are jittery about the economy and who say they don't like what they see as Deeds's uncertain positions on a host of critical state and federal issues.

At the debate, both candidates appealed directly to one of the state's largest business groups at a debate in Tysons Corner sponsored by the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce. Many said afterward that Deeds failed to connect with the business-minded voters who helped elect the last two Democratic governors, Mark Warner and Timothy M. Kaine.

"He never addressed the issue of 'What is your plan,' " said C. Daniel Clemente, a real estate investor from McLean who supported Warner in 2001 but said he left Thursday's debate feeling "very sorry" for Deeds. " 'I'm for education' -- what's your plan? 'I'm for transportation. I'm going to bring everybody together.' To do what?"

Republicans have long held the advantage with Virginia's business community by promising low taxes, less burdensome regulations and opposition to organized labor. Warner and Kaine helped lure many of those votes to the Democratic column by making the case that Virginia's business-friendly environment has as much to do with the quality of public schools, state universities, ports and highways as with those other, traditionally Republican priorities. Warner and Kaine also portrayed their opponents as ideologically driven conservatives less focused on the practical issues confronting the state's business community.

This year, Deeds has tried much the same strategy, portraying McDonnell as an out-of-touch social conservative who, as a state lawmaker for 14 years, focused on social issues such as abortion restrictions more than job creation or protecting schools.


"He's been focused on a social agenda," Deeds said at the Thursday debate. "That's what's driven him the last 18 years."

The difficulty for Deeds is that McDonnell has focused almost exclusively on economic issues in his candidacy. He has promised to pursue oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia. He has offered a tax credit for businesses that create jobs. He has laid out a plan to pay for traffic improvements by selling Virginia's state-run liquor stores and adding tolls to highways. And he has taken a strong stand against federal proposals to restrict carbon emissions, require small businesses to provide health coverage and eliminate the secret ballot in union elections.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

NRA Endorses McDonnell and not Deeds this Year

Four years ago during the Attorney General race, the NRA back Bath's county's Deeds and not McDonnell, yet yesterday the NRA made the announcement of their endorsement.


-In Just Last Month McDonnell Endorsed by: The Virginia Farm Bureau Federation; Virginia Realtors; Virginia Credit Unions; National Federation of Independent Business; National Rifle Association-

RICHMOND- Bob McDonnell, Republican gubernatorial nominee and former Attorney General of Virginia, was endorsed today by the National Rifle Association. The NRA is recognized as America’s foremost defender of Second Amendment rights, and the group has over 120,000 members in Virginia. The association interviewed Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds prior to making the endorsement, in addition to reviewing questionnaires filled out by the two candidates, and thoroughly reviewing their voting records and policy positions.

Speaking about the endorsement, McDonnell remarked, “Over the course of my career in public service, I have worked to protect and uphold the Second Amendment rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution. The Second Amendment rights of law abiding Virginians must be respected and protected. That is what I did while serving as Virginia’s Attorney General. We worked to stop unauthorized attempted straw purchases by outside agents operating in the Commonwealth. We moved quickly to make the Commonwealth one of the first states to file an amicus brief in support of the individual right to bear arms in the historic Supreme Court Case of District of Columbia v. Heller. As governor I will continue to defend the individual right to keep and bear arms, and stand on the side of Virginia’s law abiding gun owners. The National Rifle Association is committed to protecting our constitutional rights and I am honored to receive this endorsement.”

Chris Cox, NRA Institute for Legislative Action executive director, noted, ““Bob McDonnell is an effective leader for Virginia hunters and gun owners. His opinions and actions as an attorney general have protected and enhanced the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Virginians. His zero-tolerance attitude toward criminals makes him the best choice for governor. We ask every Virginia hunter, gun owner and Second Amendment advocate to vote McDonnell for Governor this November.”

This endorsement comes just weeks after McDonnell received the support of four organizations representing Virginia’s major job creators. McDonnell was endorsed by: Virginia Realtors ®, the largest trade association in Virginia with over 33,000 members; Virginia AgPAC, the political action committee of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation with over 147,000 members statewide; the Virginia Credit Union League, a trade association representing the Commonwealth’s 194 not-for-profit credit unions and the 3 million member-owners residing in Virginia; and, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the leading small business association in the Commonwealth whose membership consists of nearly 6,000 small businesses across the state.

The National Rifle Association is the premier firearms education association in the world. With nearly four million members nationwide and over 120,000 members in Virginia, the association is widely recognized as a major political force and America’s foremost defender of Second Amendment rights

Thursday, September 10, 2009

ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse for More Forced Unionization




In the heated debates on health-care reform, not enough attention is being paid to the huge financial windfalls ObamaCare will dole out to unions—or to the provisions in the various bills in Congress that will help bring about the forced unionization of the health-care industry.
Tucked away in thousands of pages of complex new rules, regulations and mandates are special privileges and giveaways that could have devastating consequences for the health-care sector and the American economy at large.

The Senate version opens the door to implement forced unionization schemes pursued by former Govs. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois in 2005 and Gray Davis of California in 1999. Both men repaid tremendous political debts to Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as state employees—and forcing them to pay union dues.

Following this playbook, the Senate bill creates a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (class)" reimbursement plan.

For Full Story-
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203440104574400571702189240-lMyQjAxMDA5MDEwMDExNDAyWj.html

Friday, September 4, 2009

Does Deeds Back Bill That Could Kill His Neighbors' Jobs?

While Creigh Deeds and fellow Democrats have been trying to focus the governor's race on McDonnell's grad school thesis, McDonnell and fellow Republicans have been working to return everyone's attention to jobs.

The Republican Party of Virginia recently blasted him for supporting a ground-breaking bill in Congress that hopes to slow global warming by imposing limits on carbon-based emissions. McDonnell, while giving the GOP's response to President Barack Obama's weekly radio address, said the bill's proposed cap-and-trade regime would jeopardize 1,500 jobs in Deeds' district alone, a charge echoed by the state GOP.

Is it true that Deeds is supporting the bill? And is it true the bill could effectively shut down MeadWestvaco Corp's plant in Covington, Va.?

Deeds' campaign has offered a detailed five-page policy paper on energy that discusses the importance of conservation, nuclear power and renewable energy to reduce carbon emission. He even gives conditional support to oil-drilling off Virginia's coast.

But his platform is silent on the wisdom of cap-and-trade. On the campaign trail, Deeds also has been reluctant to state his position, saying it's a federal matter. So Deeds' position on the federal legislation is not clear.

But the Virginia GOP argues, in its Aug. 26 press release, that Deeds "supports" the bill. As proof, Republicans cite cite a Sierra Club questionaire that Deeds filled out during the primary. Asked what methods he would support to combat global warming, Deeds replied that he favored "the many measures" suggested by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's Commission on Climate Change, of which Deeds was a member. Among the highlighted recommendations in the commission's December 2008 final report was urging Congress "to establish a mandatory economy-wide cap-and-trade program."

(Specifically, the governor's commission favored a cap-and-trade regime that would cut greenhouse emissions 25 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, based on 1990 levels. The bill passed by the House of Representatives, American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), has reduction goals of 17 percent and 83 percent, respectively, based on 2005 levels.)

The second question is trickier, as it goes to the heart of the debate about whether the American Clean Energy and Security Act will create jobs or zap them.

President Obama, in hailing the legislation on June 29, said that HR2454, also known as the Waxman-Markey bill, "will create new businesses, new industries, and millions of new jobs, all without imposing untenable new burdens on the American people or America's businesses." The president cited California's experience, saying the Golden State created 1.5 million jobs over the next 30 years after passing stringent energy efficiency laws in the 1970s.

Others, including industry groups such as the American Energy Alliance, argue that the cap-and-trade bill is a job killer. A study by the Heritage Foundation predicts that the bill could eliminate as many as 1.9 million jobs in 2012 and perhaps as many as 2.5 million by 2035. Manufacturers will lose 1.4 million jobs by 2035, the study says.

MeadWestvaco, whose plant in Covington has been around since 1900, is the largest employer in Alleghany County. It sees the bill as a serious threat.

"The risk to the plant and the jobs is very real," MeadWestvaco spokeswoman Alison von Puschendorf said.

Mark R. George, a MeadWestvaco vice president who oversees the Covington plant, said in a video created for the McDonnell campaign that the proposed cap-and-trade legislation could cost the plant "upwards of $60 to $80 million a year once you hit 2014. That's after we invest $300 milion to reduce our carbon footprint by 37 percent."

George said the plant exports about more than half of its products and might lose out to foreign competitors--and thereby threaten its survival in southwest Virginia.

"Where we currently stand with the economy in the Highlands is, we're on a decline," George says in the video, which is available on YouTube.

"If you look 30 years ago, we had three employers in this community that employed 1,000 employees or more," George says. "Two of those are gone. MeadWestvaco is here. We're still strong. We're competing all over the world, and our fear is that the government will pass legislation where we couldn't do that anymore. And without MeadWestvaco in the Highlands, there is no Highlands. Cap and trade would take all that away."

George also made similiar points in an op-ed that ran in some Virginia newspapers.

"If the ACES Act passes Congress, MeadWestvaco's Covington mill operations which provide 1,500 jobs in the Alleghany Highlands, will definitely be one of the losers," according to a draft of the op-ed provided by the company.

George referred calls to company headquarters.

MeadWestvaco Corp., a publicly traded company headquartered in Glen Allen, near Richmond, employs 22,000 people worldwide and operates in 30 countries, its annual report says. The company has contributed $10,000 to McDonnell's gubernatorial campaign, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The company gave $500 to Deeds' state senate campaign in 2007, VPAP.org says.

Story From- http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2009/09/fact-checker_does_deeds_back_b.html#more

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Nice Try Deeds


Residents Across the state are tired of hearing the Deeds campaign talk about a thesis paper rather then job creation in Virginia.

I AM A BUSINESSWOMAN AND OWNER OF AN EXECUTIVE SEARCH FIRM WHOSE CLIENTS INCLUDE MANY SUCCESSFUL WOMEN CEOS. RECENTLY, I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY ALONG WITH SEVERAL OTHER WOMEN BUSINESS OWNERS TO SIT DOWN WITH BOB MCDONNELL TO SHARE OUR VIEWS ON WHERE WE THINK HIS PLAN SHOULD STAND. I’M NOT INTERESTED IN ACADEMIC PAPERS WRITTEN BEFORE THE BERLIN WALL FELL. WHAT I’M INTERESTED IN IS WHO HAS THE BEST VISION OF HOW WE CAN BRING NEW JOBS TO VIRGINIA AND GET THIS ECONOMY MOVING AGAIN. BOB MCDONNELL IS BY FAR THE BEST CANDIDATE TO GET VIRGINIA’S ECONOMY TURNED AROUND FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL OF THE WORKING WOMEN AND MEN OF VIRGINIA.”


-Heather Young is a Partner and co-founder of Fairfax County based Benchmark Executive Search

“AS A FORMER DEMOCRAT, AND CURRENT ELECTED OFFICIAL, I HAVE SEEN BOB MCDONNELL LEAD ON NUMEROUS INITIATIVES TO SAFEGUARD VIRGINIA’S WOMEN AND CHILDREN. HIS WORK TO COMBAT CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, SEXUAL PREDATORS, AND ONLINE CRIMINALS MAKES ME PROUD AS A COMMONWEALTH’S ATTORNEY, AND AS A WORKING MOTHER. THE WOMEN OF VIRGINIA KNOW THEY HAVE A FRIEND IN BOB MCDONNELL. HIS RECORD PROVES IT.”


-Lisa Caruso, Commonwealth’s Attorney, Dinwiddie County

Nice Try Deeds. But lets focus on helping Virginia rather then mud slinging.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

GOP House Candidate Now Runs Unopposed in the 60th District

David Guill, the Democratic candidate for the 60th District House of Delegates race, announced Saturday he is withdrawing from the race leaving GOP candidate James Edmunds unopposed in his bid for the seat currently held by Republican Delegate Clarke Hogan.
In bowing out of the race, Guill said obligations and responsibilities to his family, job, community activities, and the citizens he represents as a member of the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors are very important to him and “must come first.”

Guill, who serves as Halifax County Public Schools transportation director, thanked the many individuals who have encouraged and supported him after he announced from the Halifax County Courthouse steps in April he was seeking the seat.

At that time, Guill named economic development, jobs and ensuring appropriate state funding for services among his objectives.

Story from - http://www.gazettevirginian.com/news/141-general/1144-guill-out-of-house-race.html