Comments on: Live blogging the LG’s Blogger’s Day

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:03:57 +0000

Bolling – candidate recruitment for the Senate for 2011 has already started. As the majority party, sometimes you forget how you got there. And now they are taking a step back to start this up again.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:02:51 +0000

Wilkins also tried to recruit in the black community. Seems there is a hesitancy to stay out of nominating contests.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:01:24 +0000

Butler – Vance Wilkins would recruit candidates by going to the business community and getting them to give him names.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:59:46 +0000

Bolling – need good candidates with the right message to run good campaigns.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:59:25 +0000

Butler – Thelma Drake is in a good position due to a weak Democratic candidate. She will benefit from having John McCain at the top of the ticket.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:58:19 +0000

Butler – The state isn’t 60/40 Republican. R’s have to recruit better candidates. Look at Pollard’s race – didn’t get a strong R to run.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:56:17 +0000

Bolling – supports redistricting reform. In 1991, the Ds drew the lines and ended up electing a Republican majority. In 2001, the Rs drew the lines and ended up electing a Democratic majority. Races are more competitive – and that’s a good thing.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:54:46 +0000

Bolling – the polling on the races was tremendous. There were only a couple of races that they lost that they could have won – Jay O’Brien and Tricia Stall – while there were a number of races that they won that they could have lost, like Cuccinelli.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:52:28 +0000

Party needs to understand the issues like the situation with Tricia Stall, in which they took a safe seat and lost it.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:50:57 +0000

Losses on the Republican side came in the open seat races (House) because of candidate recruitment.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:50:14 +0000

Senate Democratic races were “more thoughtful, more grown up” than the House races.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:49:03 +0000

Rex Simmons – problem with his campaign was that he didn’t focus on bringing change and instead attacked Hugo. Race was very close until then. The attacks backfired, Ds overreached.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:47:47 +0000

Even in NoVA, where it was expected that Ds would win House races, Rs held on because they were better candidates.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:46:45 +0000

Republican incumbents – only Doc Welch lost, and it was more a case of who Welch was (bankruptcy, etc) than anything. He says that the incumbents won because they had better candidates.

By: vjp

vjp — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:45:11 +0000

Candidate recruitment – Butler says that where Republicans have failed is in this area and specifically mentioned the Democratic recruitment of Joe Bouchard and Bobby Mathieson.