*”Phil Cox, who heads McDonnell’s political action committee, called leaders in the GOP-controlled House of Delegates ‘spineless,’ and he warned that the governor might not support Republicans in next year’s elections if they vote against the proposal.”
*Del. Thomas Gear (R-Hampton) responds, “What am I supposed to do? Lay down and die for the administration, and do whatever they say?” Gear adds, “I can’t help it that they don’t have a good plan. They will remember who their friends are? That’s a two-way street.”
*House Republican Chair Tim Hugo shoots off “a sarcastic Sept. 30 e-mail to Cox; Martin Kent, McDonnell’s chief of staff; Eric Finkbeiner, McDonnell’s director of policy; and Mike Reynold, McDonnell’s deputy director of policy.”
*Del. Dave Albo (R-Fairfax) says that Cox might need a “muzzle” put on him.
*Del. “Sideshow” Bob Marshall (R-Manassas) says that the way McDonnell and Company are behaving is “not a prudent way to engage your friends.” Sideshow Bob adds, “It’s a democracy, not a dictatorship.”
*Del. Charles Carrico (R-Grayson) wonders, “why you would push an agenda that wasn’t good for Virginia as a whole?”
And on and on it goes.
UPDATE: Damage control! Damage control!
My question really isn’t whether McDonnell’s half-baked, brain-dead bad booze plan has a chance in hell of becoming law. It doesn’t. My question is, what does this policy and political fiasco say about Bob McDonnell and his team’s political acumen, competence, etc? It’s not as if the ABC fiasco has been the first @#$@up of the McDonnell administration, either. There was also the Robert Sledd debacle, the Fred “Corrupt Nixon Jew Counter” Malek situation, the Confederate History Month craziness, the collapse of McDonnell’s “drill baby drill” fantasies, the corporate crony appointments of Diana Cantor (to the Virginia Retirement System trustees board) and others, and of course the out-of-control-and-off-the-moderate-message Attorney General Kookinelli.
At this point, after less than a year in office, you’ve got to start wondering whether Bob McDonnell will be able to accomplish anything as governor. Without revenues, obviously, he can’t do much, and he’s ideologically opposed to raising taxes, which leaves the one-time ABC privatization or offshore oil drilling revenues, both of which are deader than doorknobs. The question is whether his entire governorship will soon be described that same way.
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