Senatorial candidate Mark Warner announced several impressive endorsements in a news conference today. From the press release:
The bipartisan endorsements, announced at a news conference at the State Capitol in Richmond, were provided by:
• Col. Gerald Massengill , a former Superintendent of Virginia State Police who retired in 2003 after 37 years of service. Massengill, a self-described Republican, emerged from retirement in 2005 to serve as interim director of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and also served as chairman of the Virginia Tech Review Panel in 2007;
• Sheriff Paul Lanteigne of Virginia Beach, a Republican who is in his 15th year with the Sheriff’s Department following a 19-year career with the City of Virginia Beach Police Department;
• Sheriff Robert McCabe of Norfolk, who has served as sheriff for 15 years following a 12-year career with the City of Norfolk Police Department;
• Chief Mark Marshall of Smithfield, who has 22 years of law enforcement experience, including 16 years of service to the Town of Smithfield. Marshall currently serves as Vice President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police;
• Sheriff Gabe Morgan of Newport News, a Republican-turned-Independent with almost 35 years of public safety experience, including service as the Special Agent in Charge of Investigations for the Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles;
• And Chief Garth Wheeler, the chief of police at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond. Wheeler, a Republican, has 31 years of law enforcement experience, and he also served a record four terms as president of the Virginia Fraternal Order of Police (1990-98).
Warner continues to gather support from both sides of the aisle. Just wondering when we’ll see some endorsements for Gilmore 😉
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Maybe Gilmore’s endorsers are too busy trying to figure out how to claim the bounty for Waldo’s question about his economic record.
(And the crickets in the comments to your last post? Telling, I think.)
Maybe Jim Gilmore’s new three-word campaign slogan starting with “no” for this this year is “No Senate Endorsements?”
Sheriff Morgan………Come to the light…..Come to the light…… Just one more tiny step…….. to the light!
Meanwhile last month I paid the car tax on my son’s 1997 Honda Civic. It must be one of those high-value cars that weren’t exempted. Remind me again what Jim Gilmore accomplished, exactly?
Spotter,
I believe much of the car tax relief passed while Gilmore was in office was later rolled back after he left office. Under Gilmore car personal property tax was to be phased in over time finally resulting in 100% relief in 2002 for all vehicles.
However when our state faced later deficits due to the economic downturn, those representing us in Richmond had second thoughts about all the tax relief.
I’m not saying the rollback was not necessary, however if you want to blame somebody for the high taxes on your son’s 1997 Honda Civic, someone other then Glimore is to blame. I’ll let you figure out who should share the blame on your own.
LD – there was no rollback. The implementation of Gilmore’s plan was slowed, because the state couldn’t afford it. The state’s share got up to 70% before the 2005 GA session decided to cap the reimbursements to the localities at $950 million.
Also, there were differences between the plan that Gilmore ran on and the one the legislature approved.
OK Vivian, I will trust you are more informed then I.
However if spotter is bothered by paying tax on his son’s 1997 Honda Civic, I guess it is because his son (or himself if he bought it for him) by choosing to buy a vehicle that has retained high market value in the current used automobile market. If he thinks what he pays now is bad, think back to before Gilmore when he would have been paying over triple! If this still bothers him, he should write his representative in Richmond to finish the job now that revenues once again are looking better.
But “looking better” might be short term. Will we once again, in light of the current economic downturn, be faced with a deficit? His representative is forced, by the Virginia Constitution, to balance the budget. If taxes are cut in one place, they would have to be raised somewhere else.
However I object to spotter demanding the current level of services while objecting the the current level of taxes he pays. You can’t keep demanding tax cuts and demanding the current level of services provided in the same breath.