On the John Fredericks Show this morning tore into Ken Cuccinelli, on several major grounds: 1) Cuccinelli’s been a lot more focused on politics than on problem solving, and “that’s the wrong approach for Virginia’s families”; 2) Cuccinelli “went after and persecuted a UVA professor he disagreed with on climate change…[Cuccinelli] used the full powers of the office of Attorney General to go after this scientist, because he disagreed with his science, which is absolutely outrageous and an abuse of power and downright unAmerican…Thomas Jefferson would be spinning in his grave”; 3) the persecution of Professor Mann “turned out just to be a pattern of abuses,” 4) because of Cuccinelli’s “brand of extreme politics, it will be harder and more expensive for Virginia women to receive health care.”

In stark contrast, Sen. Herring said that when he’s Attorney General, he’ll be focused on “making voting easier, not harder;” “mak[ing] sure the law is working for Virginia families and that we are protecting the rights of people to make their own personal choices about health care and contraception;” “doing what we can to help keep Virginia safe;” “giving law enforcement the tools they need, like updating the laws on designer drugs;” and “that we’re doing everything we can to protect women from domestic violence and abuse.”

Sen. Herring also noted that most of Cuccinelli’s lawsuits have not been successful (e.g., his failed lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, a failed lawsuit against the EPA), while being very expensive to taxpayers.

Sen. Herring corrected John Fredericks on what is at best utter ignorance, at worst an egregious, outright lie. According to Fredericks, “overall government spending in the state of Virginia has gone up dramatically…if you go back to a 6-year period.” In fact, as Sen. Herring points out, the general fund budget today was about equal in 2011 to when Herring took office, in 2006. Also, according to PolitiFact, Tim Kaine was correct that “the general fund budget was smaller at the end of his gubernatorial term than at the start.” But don’t believe a Democrat, how about Gov. McDonnell, who brags that “[o]ver the past two years we have eliminated $6 billion in budget shortfalls, and set spending back to nearly 2007 levels.” So what on earth is John Fredericks talking about? Sadly, it’s the myth that Republicans constantly push, that “spending is out of control,” and it’s just flat-out false.

In other news, Sen. Herring discusses his vote for Gov. McDonnell’s transportation package. The main reasons? Transportation gridlock has been hurting Virginia’s ability to grow our economy; to maintain (let alone enhance) our quality of life; to maintain our attractiveness to businesses thinking about coming to our state and our ability to recruit potential employees to places like northern Virginia, etc. In addition, this transportation funding will help fund rail to Dulles and keep tolls from skyrocketing on the Dulles Toll Road. Of course, Herring points out, the bill’s “not perfect,” but “on balance it does a lot more good than harm.”

Herring was asked whether he believed in government transparency, and he responded that he’s “a huge believer in open government.” That includes doing a better job of putting budget information online. Surely, Herring says, we can do that in the “internet capital of the world.”

On the issue of drones, Sen. Herring said we “have to be careful about how law enforcement uses drones, and I’m concerned…that we completely lose our sense of freedom and privacy due to someone looking around through drones…that is a legitimate concern.” Having said that, “there are also probably important times when the unmanned vehicles could probably, in a particular law enforcement action…can save lives…might be an appropriate use of unmanned vehicles, but we’ve got to be real careful about how and when law enforcement goes about employing those types of tactics.”

Finally, Sen. Herring discussed his campaign for AG, including his long list of endorsements and his view that it would be ideal for both Democrats and Republicans to have a primary to select their nominees in June.  

( – promoted by lowkell)

On February 12, Virginia’s State Corporation Commission held a public hearing to decide whether to approve Dominion Virginia Power’s plan to buy 3 megawatts of solar power from Virginia residents and businesses to sell to the company’s voluntary Green Power Program. Sound like a good idea? It’s not.

Yes, Virginians want solar power. Investing in solar means stably priced electricity, cleaner air and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Solar power is now cost-effective in Virginia even in the absence of state incentives, thanks to federal tax credits and a steep decline in the price of solar panels. But a high upfront cost still limits who can afford to install it.

Utilities and the SCC have a role to play in bringing new solar power onto the grid. Dominion’s program to install 30 megawatts of solar on leased rooftops, which the SCC approved this fall, provides an example of how utilities can strengthen the grid, diversify their power sources, supply valuable peak-demand electricity, and contribute to their own learning curve on integrating renewable energy, all while meeting a portion of their customers’ demand for clean power.  

The 3-megawatt program, on the other hand, gets nothing right. Under the program, customers who have solar panels would sell all their solar power to Dominion for 15 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), and buy regular fossil-fuel electricity (known as “brown power”) from Dominion at the normal retail rate of about 11 cents. Cost to Dominion: 4 cents/kWh.

Dominion would then resell the solar power to the participants in its Green Power Program, not for the 4 cents it costs the company, but for 11 cents. Dominion would keep 7 cents/kWh.

Dominion tells us that the 7 cents would go to its rate base, not its own bottom line. But it’s clear who loses. The do-gooders who pay extra on their utility bills for the Green Power Program would pay 11 cents for something Dominion bought for 4 cents. They are being played for chumps.  

Last year the Green Power Program bought Virginia solar power directly for 4 cents/kWh through the purchase of renewable energy certificates. So why should the program pay 11 cents for something it can get for 4?

Since Dominion administers the program, it will be up to the SCC to prevent this misuse of its funds.

This is only part of the problem. The reason Dominion wants to shift the cost of the solar purchase onto the Green Power Program is its insistence that the value of solar energy isn’t the retail rate of electricity, but is the utility’s “avoided cost”-roughly, the price at which it can buy brown power on the wholesale market, which is around 4 cents/kWh.

Of course, if the current wholesale price were the only thing that mattered, you’d have to question why Dominion ever builds its own electric generation, including its new coal-fired plant that delivers power at 9.3 cents/kWh.

The SCC allows Dominion to build its own generation in Virginia for a host of other reasons, all of which apply equally to Virginia solar. Rooftop solar also provides significant additional benefits to the utility and the electric grid that utility-supplied brown power does not. A number of recent studies have quantified these benefits to prove that net-metered solar (where customers sell solar power to the grid at the retail rate) lowers costs for everyone.

Yet Dominion wants to shift costs onto a voluntary program, while keeping the benefits. This is bad for the Green Power Program, and it sets a terrible precedent for valuing solar that could retard its growth in Virginia. And that would be bad for all of us.

Note to readers: the Richmond Times-Dispatch declined to publish this piece last month unless Dominion gave them a response to be published at the same time. Dominion apparently did not do so, thus the piece was never published in print.

( – promoted by lowkell)

by Paul Goldman

The following lays out a sure-winning strategy for Bill Bolling. I guarantee it will work — but admittedly, there is an asterisk which will be revealed at the end of this column. But again, it will work and the asterisk will explain why.

But first, let me reveal the dirty little secret of the 2013 race right now, one that I find most amusing given all the Democrats and others who are encouraging Bolling to run, playing on his ego, building him up as the “moderate” choice in a three way race, saying he can win. Their motive is transparent: they actually believe all Bolling could achieve is anti-Cuccinelli status in terms of being the spoiler.

Why is their motive so transparent? Simple: The only way for Bolling to win would be for the McAuliffe campaign to totally collapse. Should Bolling actually ever mount a serious campaign with a chance of winning, it would require Terry to run third!

Do the math. Cuccinelli has the anti-abortion base of the GOP. By backing McDonnell’s record tax increase in an election year, Bolling has sacrificed any credibility with the Republican anti-tax base. The business base of the party is leery of Cuccinelli but they have more money than votes. Meaning: Cuccinelli has most of the GOP base locked up on ideological grounds.

He basically has 30-35% locked in a three-way race unless something unexpected happens. In large measure, this is now a personal base as well. They are very pro-Cuccinelli. Further meaning: There is no way Bolling can get into the race with a reasonable expectation of shaking any useful number of these voters loose from the K-Man. If Bolling is going to have any chance of winning, he has to shake the McAuliffe political tree and get voters to fall off.

Sure, Cuccinelli could screw up, “stuff happens.” But to the extent that voters will vote on the issues, Cuccinelli has a very powerful message – if he can overcome his considerable image problems – for the core, GOP voters. This is why Bolling has been going left since he began his public courtship of himself as the new “moderate” choice in the Virginia. Precisely why Democrats don’t see this as Bolling in effect claiming that Terry is a “liberal” beats me.

Think logically. If Bolling says the public needs a “moderate” choice, then by definition, he is saying Ken is the conservative and Terry the liberal. Otherwise: Why is a third, allegedly moderate choice, missing? Okay, maybe you try and explain the differences with other words. You try conservative ideologue, moderate pragmatic, Democratic partisan, or some three-way parlor game. But the bottom line if you aren’t careful: people make it simple, they say conservative, moderate, liberal. That’s the risk.

The point being: All those in the media or Democrats creating this Frankenstein “Moderate” are taking a bigger chance than they might realize. They assume the Bolling guidance system will eventually just lock on its anti-Cuccinelli source code.

Statistical logic admittedly says Billy Boy takes more from Cuccinelli than McAuliffe in the end. But right now, my gut instinct says to wait for more evidence, that maybe the conventional wisdom is wrong. But this is for another column. Today, we take Bill Boy at his word: He will run to win, assuming he runs.

What then, would be a winning strategy for Bill Bolling even though the polls right now say he has no chance of winning?

Like they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. So let me lay out the sure winning strategy for Bill Bolling from now, through the Republican Party Nominating Convention, past the Democratic Party primaries, to July 4th when the LG can announced his independence from the partisan politics, to the July 15th finance report. So it is, 7 steps full of months and months of yada, yada, yada.

“Step by Step”, the original hit song from the 1960’s, Eddie Rabbit had a hit version a decade later, the New Kids on The Block had their own version: and now, rappin’Billy Bolling, the Rodney Dangerfield of GOP politics, the new gubernatorial candidate on the block, gets his own version.

First Step: Lt. Governor Bolling has already promised to announced his intentions on March 14. So Billy Boy has got to do just that. The winning strategy says he holds a press conference, and shows some real fake emotion by getting choked up in discussing all the people who wrote him, called him and begged him and promised to name the next child of their next mistress after him if he will run for Governor and save the Commonwealth. The LG should not  bash Ken or Terry, he should stay on the high road, unusual for him, but heck, he is the New Bolling, like the New Nixon. Besides, the press stories will state the anti-Cuccinelli and anti-McAuliffe case anyway. Rather, Bolling just says that this outpouring of support is so humbling, it has made he and his family really appreciate the goodness of Virginians. Because these good people need a Governor worthy of them, he and his family have agreed he has to let the petition process go forward. If he finds the people want a people’s candidate, then he will heed the call.

Accordingly, he will not ask for any money to fund the process of gathering signatures. He will use the money already in his campaign accounts. He is therefore, today, instructing his team to launch the biggest signature gathering drive in the state’s history.

He is going to set a goal of 40,000 valid signatures, far more than anyone has ever gotten in the history of the state. He says this will be hard, probably impossible, but it is up to the people. I am at their service.

Second Step: The date for filing the required 10,000 petitions is June 11, as the polls close on the Democratic primary. Thus, he will have roughly 3 months. Terry has to have his petitions filed by late March [thanks to Abby Easter for telling me about the new date]so there is no way Terry can do 40000 given the time frame. Cuccinelli is being nominated by Convention; there is no signature requirement although I suppose there could be a voluntarily collection of signatures. In this roughly 90 day period, Bolling therefore can tour the state, in total control of his petition signing destiny. He can be all things to all people, a non-ideological figure, asking people to give themselves a third choice, for the good of the Commonwealth.  

Third step: Bolling lowballs his next funding raising report due April 15th. He wants to look like a loser, like someone who doesn’t have the money to be credible.

Fourth Step: After a three-month effort, the Bolling campaign files signature petitions. But UNLIKE EVERY OTHER CANDIDATE, THEY DON’T ANNOUNCE THE NUMBER of SIGNATURES. They keep it secret, they keep everyone guessing: Did they get enough?

Fifth step: Roughly 10 days later, the State Board of Election will announce whether Bolling qualified for the ballot. At which point Bolling can reveal his record breaking number of petitions. That’s right: He can easily get 50,000 if he merely pays for enough signature gathers, this is not hard, it is a guarantee. But WOW: Billy Boy evens beats the 40K number; heck there really is a groundswell for “Twinkie,” his nickname for those days as a super conservative GOP Senator (sorry for bringing that stuff up, bad manners, we are talking about the new “moderate.”)  

Sixth Step: On the Fourth of July weekend, Bolling announces for governor, the new Thomas Jefferson. Some things are self-evident, such as Bolling the “moderate” being propelled into the race by a ground swell of swell people who are tired of the left and right, they want middle guys like Bolling, even better that he is a reformed political sinner.  

Seventh Step: On July 15, the date of the next required financial filing, Bolling reports enough money to “beat expectations” again, having smartly lowered them months earlier. This will not be hard if he has played down his expectations enough, given that the press wants him to appear competitive, to get in those debates, to be the Cuccinelli-killer.

But you say: “Paul, this only gets him down the road 4 months from now.” That’s true. But as Brad Pitt points out in the terrific movie Moneyball, “winning is a process, its a process, a process.” After July 15, Dollar Bill will admittedly have to raise the level of his game Big Time. He is paying folks a lot of money to do that, or will be if he runs. That’s their problem. Right now, Billy Boy needs a free press strategy to “keep hope alive” as Reverend Jessie Jackson would say.

Most importantly for Bolling, he has to keep alive the myth that he is running to win without attacking Terry. Because once he starts doing that in earnest, those praising his conversion will start to wonder whether their Frankenstein is off the leash.

Let’s be honest: there isn’t a Democrat or Democratic-leaning newspaper editorial board who takes the Bolling conversion seriously. They only tolerate it because it is seen as hurting Cuccinelli, which in turn helps McAuliffe. That’s 200-proof politics, so I am the last guy to complaint about it. But if need be, I will be the first person to say it is a lot riskier than folks apparently think.

Bolling could just as easily turn on McAuliffe as he turned on Cuccinelli if he thought it was in his political interest. If Bolling runs, he is burning all his bridges to the GOP and the conservative side of things. In 1828, Vice-President John C. Calhoun jumped sides – amazing – but in return got to be the VEEP on Jackson’s ticket!

So yeah, if Bolling were joining Terry’s ticket as some fusion type thing ala New York City politics back in the day, I could see his play. But volunteering to be the point man on a patrol, the head dude out there in the jungle and be the target for the Viet Cong: ain’t no way. Bolling ain’t no hero: he is a political henchman, Richie Rich, not St. Thomas More.

Bolling is “jumping the shark” for the wrong reasons: and he is just liable to bite the new hand feeding him as he was the old hand. But we do 200-proof here: so we give Billy Boy a sure winner of a seven step process to maximize the myth as of July 15.