In the testy race for state party chairman, incumbent John Hager today said his opponent, Delegate Jeffrey M. Frederick, has a "warped sense of reality."
Hager, who routinely criticized by Frederick for being on watch while Republicans lost seats in the state House and control of the state Senate, tried to set the record straight by releasing a letter from Lee Anne Washington, the Republican who lost in the February special election for the 99th House Seat against Democrat Albert Pollard.
"Rather than put words in her mouth as the opposition does, I would like to share a letter Lee Anne sent me regarding our efforts," he said in an e-mail blast to supporters.
In the April 3 letter, Washington states she: "greatly appreciate all the support you and [the Republican Party of Virginia] gave me during the extremely short campaign period" and thanked him for sharing "precious nuggets of campaign wisdom.
"I especially appreciate the personal telephone calls you made to prominent Republicans in the area who had not yet made up their minds about the election. Even though we did not win this time, the campaign was a success— taking a relatively unknown candidate to 42 percent of the vote in just five weeks. I look forward to working with RPV in the '09 race for the House of Delegates seat in my district."
Here is more from Hager's e-mail:
"Let me be clear: No matter what my opponent wants to say, he just does not get his facts straight. He is more concerned with tearing down our party — and me personally — than he is with building our party.
"This is a critical year for Republicans in Virginia. John McCain needs to be able to count on Virginia, our Senate nominee must beat Mark Warner, and we must defend our eight Congressional seats. This will only happen with all of us working together to grow our party, deliver our message, energize and get our people to the polls. Rewriting history and tearing down Republicans is not the way for us to succeed."
The race for party chairman will be decided at the Republican convention in May.
Comments (1)
You would do your readers a better service by not just parroting Chairman Hager's accusations. Repeating the charge that Frederick is "tearing down" the GOP and "rewriting" the history of devastating GOP losses under the current leadership does not make it so. Nor does the conciliatory email of one losing candidate to another demonstrate anything greater than a "We should at least get credit for trying" mindset.
With respect to the 99th district delegate race, I find it galling that Mr. Hager can claim the loss of yet another seat in the House of Delegates to be anything but a black mark against him and his organization. I wonder how many bodies RPV sent to the district to knock on doors, hand out literature, transport voters to the polls, put up signs, etc.? How much money did RPV send to Miss Washington? (According to VPAP, not much...scarcely more than $11K as of the latest filings, whereas her opponent received upwards of $43K from the State Democrats; by contrast, Frederick sent $1000 on just his own behalf). How much effort did Chairman Hager expend on the phone to "prominent Republicans" in the district to recruit a stronger candidate that might have been able to raise money, build an organization, and win? (And why would "prominent Republicans" need reminding to support the party's candidate anyway?!?)
In 2004, Bush/Cheney won the 1st Congressional District (of which the 99th HoD district is part) by over 20 points!!! How can such a strong Republican district be lost? Better yet, how can such an embarrassing defeat be worn like a badge of honor by the current party leadership? Chairman Hager is literally BRAGGING about how good he is at helping candidates lose Republican districts!
The current leadership plainly does not know how to win elections, and does not have the fire in the belly to mobilize those who do. It's time for a rebirth of the Virginia GOP.
Posted by Steve Albertson | April 10, 2008 3:51 PM