Not Larry Hussein Sabato

Burke Centre is For Bloggers

My neighborhood of Burke Centre is home to some stunningly good bloggers.  Bwana and Anonymous is a Woman have become the two most thoughtful and articulate voices in the Virginia blogosphere.  Check out Bwana's site here for his analysis of John Warner's retirement and other excellent stories, and Anonymous is a Woman for her thoughts on John Warner and other excellent stories. 

I'm moving both of them into the Gold/Platinum list.

Finally while I am moving some blogs up, I am moving BVBL to platinum.  While I don't agree with him on a lot of issues, he has become the #1 conservative blog in Virginia and will now take Chad Dotson's old spot on the Platinum list.  If you want to meet me or BVBL come on out to our Happy Hour tomorrow (Saturday) night in Manassas!  More details here!

MARK WARNER PRESS CONFERENCE

* Mark Warner was focused on "paying tribute to John Warner".

* Mark "admired how John approached issues and put the interest of the Commonwealth ahead of party" and added that as Governor, John was a "great partner".

* Mark added that he would "make his announcement in the next week" and hinted that he had already made a decision but as he said "My bumper sticker in 1996 was MarkNotJohn, today is about JohnNotMark".

*  Mark will be on a major tour campaigning for legislative and local candidates downstate this weekend.

*  Mark went with a light blue shirt, royal blue tie with small light blue stripes and a blue suit with pinstripes on it.  Not a great outfit but fine for TV.  Because of lighting, Mark had his back to the river, which was strange since the background shot would be Maryland- but I'm probably the only one who noticed that.

*  Four reporters showed up including me.  Politico.com, Channel 9, Washington Post and NLS.  If you don't count the internet reporters, Mark had more staff come down for the statement (3) then reporters (2).  More on this later, but the whole "Presidential" part of his campaign (handlers) is going to have to end quick if he wants to keep the local media happy. 

*  In my opinion Mark is the frontrunner for this seat, but there are a lot of very conservative Presidential year only voters in Virginia, especially in Hampton Roads and the Richmond suburbs that may not even know who Mark is.  He is a narrow frontrunner, this will not be a slam dunk.

*  For those of you still speculating, read between the lines:

|||||||||||||||||||||||||Mark Warner for Senate|||||||||||||||||||||||

FIRST OPEN SENATE SEAT SINCE 1988

THANK YOU FOR YOUR 30 YEARS OF SERVICE SENATOR WARNER!

Worst Sources Ever

See here and here.

I wouldn't say anything if the Mark Warner story had not been so outrageous.  He was literally having his staff compile numbers on a statewide Senate bid in a Presidential year (trends, turnout etc.) because it is so different than running in an off year election- when that blog post was put up.  That's the most frustrating part of the blogosphere- please don't report stuff if your source isn't good.

What's About To Happen

Republished from earlier this month:

1)  John Warner will announce his retirement from the U.S. Senate
(Update:  Check)
2)  Tom Davis and Jim Gilmore will both file for the open Senate seat
3)  Mark Warner will file for the Democrats
4)  The state GOP will decide on a convention, Dems will go with a primary
5)  Facing the 10,000 signature hurdle and the Warner name, no other Dem will file and Mark will get the nomination unopposed
6)  Republicans will battle all the way into the convention.
7)  With the field set for the Senate,  Brian Moran, Creigh Deeds, Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling will all begin their 2009 campaigns for Governor.
8)  Numerous downballot candidates will see the open LG and AG seats and begin running for those in both parties.
9)  George Allen will not run for the Senate and will wait and see how strong McDonnell and Bolling are before deciding on 2009.
10)  Mark Warner will be the slight favorite over Tom Davis or Jim Gilmore in the open Senate seat, but in a Presidential year that race will get very close at the end.  Should either Republican upset Warner, he will jump into the 2009 Governors race to redeem himself.
11) Republicans will select a convention for their 2009 ticket and whether they allow Governor's race losers to run downballot later in the convention (i.e. no filing deadline) will determine a lot of how the downballot looks.
12)  Democrats will select a 2009 statewide primary locking Deeds and Moran into the Governor's race and leaving a very open field downballot.

Excellent Post by AIAW

At the end of this year if we did a post on the ten best blog entries of 2007 this would certainly make the list, and it might even top it.  It explains my position exactly in this whole ODBA-Joe Stanley flap and it is 100 times more articulate than I could ever make it.

TATE INDICTMENT LEAKED BY PROSECUTOR

BREAKING NEWS HERE.

THE PROSECUTOR IN QUESTION IS JIM PLOWMAN WHO HAD ENDORSED JILL HOLTZMAN VOGEL.

THIS IS A DEVASATING BLOW TO THE VOGEL CAMPAIGN AS HER RING OF TERROR BEGINS TO COLLAPSE.  WHO WILL SPEAK FIRST TO AVOID A TERM IN PRISON?

WHO TOLD ED GILLESPIE AND SHAUN KENNEY????

THE NATIONAL MEDIA WILL GO NUTS WITH THIS BECAUSE OF THE GILLESPIE CONNECTION.

DEVELOPING...

John Warner's Retirement Coming Tomorrow

The Daily Progress has more- if you live in Charlottesville go over at 2 p.m. and check out a historic event.

We will need to update the graphic on the right to the Senate race...
 

Cyberstalking

JC has a great write up here about some of the tactics currently being used in the Virginia blogosphere.

Soon (with the technical help of Joe Stanley) we will be launching the new "Not Larry Sabato".  I've been hesitant to stop anonymous commenting because I think good information can sometimes come from it.  Unfortunately some people (JC's story focuses on Republicans, but we have had problems with Dems here also) just get an IP blocker and continue to post messages to harass people here after I have banned them. 

But I think we have come to a good solution! 

On the new site, registration with a valid email will be required to obtain a screen name.  If you have a screen name you will be able to post about anything at anytime.

If you do not want to provide that information, you will still be able to comment anonymously.  Here's the catch: If you comment anonymously it will not show up until I can approve the comment.

I'm sorry these changes have to be made... but this site is not going to turn into a forum for anonymous commenter's to stalk and harass people.

If you don't like those policies- start a new blog!

Mike Frey Should Resign

From today's WaPo:

"But Schaible and two other officers said that when they tried to tell Koch that he had delivered the subpoena to the wrong place, Koch flew into a rage, stormed around the station "like a caged animal" and shoved Schaible in the chest, according to testimony this week in federal court.  Schaible had Koch handcuffed by Officer Sean Cheetham and arrested in the office of Supervisor Michael R. Frey (R-Sully). Frey intervened and had Koch released, but Koch said he had been humiliated for no reason."

Excuse me?  Did I just read that a Fairfax County Supervisor intervened and had someone "unarrested"???  Does he think his office is some kind of criminal sanctuary where he becomes the judge?

More needs to be known about this incident.  Sounds like resignation type news to me.