FINALLY! Car Title Lenders to have their gas tanks drained.

It only took the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and Budget Proposals from the Governor, State Senate, and House of Delegates that cut so many state jobs for there to be any kind of consumer protection bill to reign in PREDATORY CAR TITLE LENDERS! SB 606 reported out of the Virginia House of Delegates Commerce and Labor Committee with 21 yeas and 1 nay (21 Y - 1 N) and will head to the floor for a vote. I am almost without words.

I haven't had much to say of late, because much of the debate on most any topic is just flailing. Nothing is happening. There's been no leadership. Liberals and progressives have been absolutely awfull at PR and getting their message out. The only thing that is keeping them in the game at this point are absolutely moronic behavior and mistakes by the GOP. The latest example is the fundraising presentation leaked to the traditional press that show how the RNC plans to use FEAR to raise money from their grassroots base. Absolutely disgusting.

OK, back to the Car Title Lenders. Huge message sent by the House of Delegate Commerce and Labor Committee today. The only Delegate to vote against it was Delegate Bill Janis. Janis is the only one to vote against this Bill in either the House or Senate. This bodes well for this bill to pass the House of Delegates and go to Governor McDonald's desk. This should be a no-brainer, so we shall see...

GOP Statewide Ticket doesn't get much more conservative than McDonnell-Bolling-Cuccinelli

While it was a foregone conclusion that Bob McDonnell was going to be the nominee for Governor and Bill Bolling was probably going to repeat as the Lt. Governor nominee, the Virginia GOP rounded out the ticket with social conservative "Grand Stander" Ken Cuccinelli (The Cooch!). This is one of the most conservative statewide tickets that I can recall or know about.

When you are a political party devoid of ideas, solutions, and takes their marching orders and campaign strategy from the likes of Liberty University and Regent, you revert back to your true nature.

I think that Steve Shannon will do quite nicely against the Cooch. Now we just have to wait and see how the rest of the Democratic ticket shakes out on June 9th.

Virginia GOP holding their Convention this weekend but which version of the GOP will emerge?

The last statewide win the Virginia GOP has savored, besides George W. Bush winning Virginia in 2004, was Senator John Warner in 2002. The GOP hasn’t even sniffed the Governor’s Mansion since 2001, with the exception for meetings with Governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine over coffee and doughnuts. To say the Virginia GOP is hungry to regain Governorship would be an understatement.

The Virginia GOP has continued to see their huge majority in the House of Delegates shrink to where the Democrats now need six seats to regain control. They have lost their majority of the State Senate, lost both U.S. Senate seats to the Democrats and to top everything off, Virginia went for a Democratic Presidential candidate for the first time since 1964 and Democrats now have six of the eleven U.S. House seats.

If these were normal times (whatever those might be), the political wisdom and the law of averages would point to a GOP victory in November. Due to the financial crisis and the recession, on top of bitter in-fighting and a growing perception that the GOP is the political party of exclusion and old white guys, they will be lucky to hold onto any of their current House of Delegate seats. The question becomes, can the Virginia GOP stop the hemorrhaging of their base and stay a viable political party in Virginia?

The Republican Party as a whole is a far cry from being the Party of Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, or even Eisenhower. The GOP has shifted so far to the right that it is safe to say that they have now become what they labeled and assailed Democrats as, completely out of touch and out of the mainstream of American Values. The voices of reason in the GOP have virtually been drowned out by the voices of intolerance like Rush Limbaugh, former Congressmen Tom Tancredo and Newt Gengrich, and evangelical faith leaders like Jerry Falwell, Jr.

Who knows what version of the Republican Party of Virginia will emerge from this weekend’s Convention. Will it be the Virginia GOP of Jeff Frederick, Chris Saxman, Jim Gilmore, Steve Newman, Morgan Griffith, or Virgil Goode? Or will it be the Virginia GOP of Harry Blevins, Preston Bryant, Vince Callahan, Harvey Morgan, or former U.S. Senator John Warner? As a progressive, a populist, a Democrat, I hope that it is the former but as a citizen of this Commonwealth, I can live with the latter.