Conservativa

NeW, or the Network of Enlightened Women, have started a blog, and it’s looking good. NeW is an organization for conservative university women. It began as a book club at UVa and now has over a dozen chapters. Friday June 27 they are having their national conference, with keynote speaker Danielle Crittenden.

Check out the NeW blog - if they keep up the quality of writing they have started with, the blog will soon be a must-read for conservatives in general and conservative women in particular.

Republican races from presidential to state are realizing that energy is the issue this year. President Bush speaking in the Rose Garden yesterday. John McCain speaking yesterday. Common sense from Jim Gilmore. Del. Chris Saxman will be introducing legislation in Virginia’s Special Session “that will dedicate all future revenues and royalties that are paid to the Commonwealth as a result of offshore natural gas and oil drilling to the Transportation Trust Fund.”

Congressman Eric Cantor (photo) blogs about it here.

Some excellent thoughts and questions from the incomparable Victor Davis Hanson here.

This issue can be a winner for Republicans, since it goes from the everyday (putting gas in your car) through national defense.

Photo details: Nikon D40, 150mm, ISO 400, 1/100 at f/7.0.

More Rep. Eric Cantor for Vice-President talk, this time from the New York Post. Count me in!

In this photo, Rep. Rob Wittman (at left) has a word with Cantor. Photo details: Canon EOS5D, 200mm, ISO 3200, 1/60 at f/2.8.

A reporter from Massachusetts, former Mass. Gov. and presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, and a Romney/Bolling supporter at a Bill Bolling fundraiser last night in Glen Allen, Virginia. Romney and Bolling stood gamely out in the 90+ degree heat and humidity and talked with the almost 400 supporters, many of whom had friends taking pictures with the former (and maybe future?) presidential candidate.

Photo notes - please skip if you aren’t a photo geek… this photo borrows two ideas from Strobist. One is “strobe on a stick,” i.e. flash affixed to a monopod and triggered remotely; the other is using a CTO gel on the flash, with the camera’s white balance turned as far tungsten as it will go (2800K). The result is a glowing blue sky and over-warm skin tones. It wasn’t far from sunset outside, but this CTO use exaggerates that look. Canon EOS5D, ISO 200, 1/60 at f/14 (to shut out much of the ambient), 24mm. Canon 580EX flash, on manual, at about 1/2 power. Didn’t record the zoom setting, sorry. Guessing 105.

Bill Bolling, Mitt Romney, and Bob McDonnell share a laugh at a fundraiser on a the hottest day of the year so far in central Virginia.

Photo below: Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney has some kind words for Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling. Romney also mentioned the presidential race. Of John McCain, Romney said, “He wasn’t my first choice… I was my first choice…” which brought a laugh from the crowd. Now he fully supports McCain, while of course not agreeing on everything with him.

The Republican Party of Virginia chose former Gov. Jim Gilmore as its Senate nominee, and elected Del. Jeff Frederick as its new party chairman during its convention May 30-31, 2008. Here is a photo slideshow of the convention highlights.

If you are thinking of doing those this fall in order to “punish” the GOP, please read this and consider yourself taken to school, by Rachel Lucas. (Note: plenty-o-bad-language warning, but the piece is worth it. Excerpt:

“Some say that’s fine because if the country’s going to be “ruined”, better that it’s ruined by a Democrat, and somehow magically we’ll come up with a fantastic, “real” conservative in 4 years even though there is no one like that on the horizon and everyone knows it. Like I said, I think that’s a super-crappy plan.”

Former Gov. Jim Gilmore has sent a letter from some of his fellow veterans, endorsing him and highlighting some of his military and intelligence experience:

“He graduated with honors from the Army Intelligence School and Defense Language Institute and he was placed in the 650th Military Intelligence Group stationed in Germany… As a soldier in Western Europe, Jim Gilmore was assigned to a counter-intelligence unit where he worked to help protect and safeguard our bases. He was later awarded the Joint Service Commendation Medal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).”

We need that experience in the Senate!

This photo was taken at the 7th Congressional District convention. Photo details: Canon EOS 5D, 200mm, ISO 3200, 1/125 at f/2.8.

Not making a federal case here, just pointing out - Jim Gilmore has in a mailer: “He supports using federal transportation bonds and public/private partnerships to raise the funds needed for transportation projects across the state.” Pat McSweeney, speaking for Bob Marshall, says that this borrowing mentality is a Very Bad Thing. In his speech to the 7th CD convention, said “Now I’m going to say some things about our actions matching our words… …his [Gilmore’s] solution for one of our major problems, the transportation problem, is to borrow more money. Folks, that is precisely the mentality that got us to 10.4 trillion dollars, and it must end.”

Bob Marshall apparently also spoke against borrowing money for transportation at the 2nd District convention. But Marshall’s record as delegate doesn’t seem to indicate that he thinks it’s such a bad thing:

2006, HB 1257 (Co-patron); 2005, HB 2099; 2002, HB 109 - Marshall was Patron: this one looks to me like flat-out borrowing.

There are more such bills. (And what on earth is this one, from 1994, HB 1293 - borrowing money for some Disney project? He was a co-sponsor, with Chichester and Stosch in the Senate, on this one).

I’m not an accountant. I don’t have a thoroughgoing understanding of Virginia’s budget. But those bills look like borrowing money to me. But now all of a sudden borrowing money is the worst thing ever?

Gov. Jim Gilmore had a conference call with 400 or more delegates yesterday. Read about the Gilmore conference call at Bearing Drift.

Also, a note about Warner possibly taking some voters for granted, from the Washington Post. Democrats usually do take “the black vote” for granted… as though it were one thing, that is owed them, because, you know, they’re Democrats and that’s the way things are. Gilmore, on the other hand, makes it clear that he wants to work for and win every vote of every individual voter. He has done that in the past and will be continuing that. In fact, he said in his conference call last night, “I have never tried to run against any group of people. I have always tried to bring people in.” (This was actually in a question involving immigration, but his attitude is admirable).

Photo details: Canon Nikon D40, ISO 800, SB-600 flash, 55mm, 1/100 at f/4.0.

Photo

Sort of. Check out this example of photos from the same Obama event, one showing what you see on TV, and one taken by Mary Katherine Hamm, giving a little perspective…

Attorney General Bob McDonnell addresses a crowd at a Young Professionals for McDonnell event in Richmond, May 13. It was on the back porch and patio of Siné, and the patio area was crowded with young (nearly all under 50 years old) supporters of the AG. Speaker of the House Bill Howell was there. McDonnell seemed gratified by the turnout, thanked everyone several times, and made a point of reminding people how important it is to be working for John McCain now.

Congressman Eric Cantor and AG (and candidate for Governor) Bob McDonnell shake hands at the 7th Congressional District Convention. One thing worth noting: Cantor’s name tag, which you can easily see in the original photo, shows that he is a delegate. He could have just breezed in, made a speech, and breezed out again, but he went to the trouble to apply, file, get elected as delegate, show up, and stay for the whole convention.

Photo details: Canon EOS5D, ISO 3200, 200mm, 1/100 at f/3.2.

Check out this exchange between Cindy McCain and reporter Ann Curry of MSNBC. Keep in mind that the McCains have one son in the military and another about to graduate from a service academy, so he will likely be active duty as well.

Ann Curry [wearing a nauseatingly condescending and pitying look]:
“You say, you want to bring them home with honor. Some people might say we just want to bring them home alive. Why is Iraq worth risking the lives of your sons, American - ”

C. McCain: “Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom from oppression. Freedom.”

Curry [puzzled] - “For…” [long pause] “…Iraqis?”

McCain: “Yes!”

Interview jumps to talking about Mrs. McCain not releasing her tax returns. (She has filed separately for their whole married life). Apparently whoever was putting together the interview segment didn’t want to pursue this “all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty…” stuff. I guess they don’t get it.

The McCains get it.

The Mark Warner education record, over at Virtucon - well worth seeing and hearing. Heh.