I didn’t vote for former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie in his pursuit of the Virginia Senate. He’s a Corporatist and a Washington insider. He was a flawed advisor to President George W. Bush and bipartisan lobbyist pioneer (meaning that he was one of the first to discover that you could buy both parties at the same time on the same issues). One of his clients was the US Chamber of Commerce, which is an organization who’s primary purpose is to secure open borders in the United States. He represents just about everything I hate about the Republican Establishment Class in Washington DC. If you want an idea just how broad and corrupt a lobbying firm he ran, look at the corporations and organizations they represented.
That said, we face real issues in Virginia. Illegal immigration and liberal migration threatens to turn Virginia into a strongly Democrat State. Liberal folks from Maryland (my home state and you don’t want to know how awful they are, politically) have fled the horrors of their homelands and made their home in Northern Virginia. This reality could cost us not just the Governors’ Mansion, but the State Senate.
A bloody primary will not help the libertarian, constitutionalist, and conservative wings of the Republican Party.
Typically, I am of the opinion that fighting to the death against establishment candidates is necessary to build the strength of the conservative majority in Virginia. I still believe this to be true. However, I’ll never be one of those people who are willing to fall upon their own sword, to make a point. Unless I’m wrong, and I’m never wrong (hattip Princess Bride), there will be no great conservative challenger to Ed Gillespie for Governor in 2017. This is not a Lord of the Rings moment.
It’s not that the hour is later than I think. I’m not advocating inevitability. I am merely questioning whether or not this is a battle worth fighting. I suppose I should say, that yes, I have given up fighting for the Libertarian Party, and now advocate for Republican action, but that should not indicate that I am somehow in favor of everything I despise about the GOP. We are embracing a nation newly predisposed to despising Democrats. Democrats are losing left and right. My last home state of North Carolina elected their first Republican Congress in 100 years before I left. It’s done some good. Not a lot. But some.
If we all decided to embrace Ed Gillespie and if we demanded, early, as in right now, that he not run a campaign that would insult or harm conservative candidates in our local election, then I believe we could do some good. What if we asked three things from Ed Gillespie? Oppose Illegal Immigration. Oppose this silly Climate Change Agenda, and to oppose Medicaid Expansion in Virginia? What if he did those things? Could conservatives and libertarians and constitutionalists back him?
Yes, should be the answer.
So, instead of opposing this lobbyist from Washington D.C. a year before he lobbies us, let’s lobby him. It’s worth trying and doing. He’s probably going to be our nominee anyway, why not pressure him with 3 issues we care most about with regard to Virginia?
Originally published at PendletonPenn.com
