TRS Morning Post | Reeves, McGuire Victorious in GOP Nomination Contests
Reeves by 76% and McGuire by 65% indicates Virginia Republicans are done fighting each other and ready to fight Democrats.
Any candidate will tell you that the next best thing to winning a campaign is losing a campaign.
For men such as Bryce Reeves and John McGuire? If you know either, then you know their work ethic — and you also know they are the sort of candidates who revel in victory.
Both men are expected to return to Richmond. McGuire is facing token opposition in SD-10, with the Democratic candidate only having raised a paltry $1,000. Reeves alternatively will be fending off two independent candidates in SD-28, neither of whom have filed fundraising reports according to the Virginia State Board of Elections.
The results aren’t necessarily a bellwether, but they are indicative of the public mood as Republican candidates — used to challengers outflanking their opposition — are no longer finding the tactic to be useful.
Given the public mood, the secret to success presently seems to hinge on two factors: (1) Does the candidate have experience in defeating Democratic candidates? (2) Can this particular candidate win in the general election?
That’s it.
In short, you have to have experience winning.
The trick is that Republican candidates can win in Virginia if they are struck from the mold of Youngkin, Sears, and Miyares — still the most diverse, equitable, and inclusive ticket in Virginia history (see what I did there?) — while eschewing some of the more divisive Trump-style politics which simply do not play among independents and moderates.
This doesn’t mean that Republicans have to jettison the things Trump voters care about. Not in the least. Nor does it mean that we have to jettison the things conservatives deeply care about.
Yet it does mean that Republicans are wise enough to find and support candidates who do not scare the electorate. We can even be conservative. We just don’t have to be this…
Of course, we can keep running candidates like this.
Biden is upside down in a bad way, especially among those who voted Trump in ‘16 and Biden in ‘20.
If this morning’s WaPo/ABC News poll is any indicator, Trump being up +7 over Biden shows that an unhinged embrace on abortion-on-demand, CRT, and transgenderism on the left is succeeding — in scaring the hell out of the honorable middle, that is.
How does the left combat this? By branding every Republican as scary and evil —because they don’t have much else to run on themselves.
Conversely, Republicans are going to brand the race as a contest between normal and absolutely crazy. Which makes sense given the environment and according to the polls, is working quite well. $1.79/gal gas vs. $3.49/gal gas? Not hard.
Which sets up the contest for 2023 and beyond — crazy vs. evil.
The Dems are hoping for that juxtaposition because it is the only way they are going to win. Republicans do best to ask if folks are better off than they were four years ago and simply let the facts speak on their own. All the more reason to keep to the William F. Buckley Jr. axiom and not feed the opposition’s narrative with candidates who fit the caricature: “Elect the most conservative candidate who can win.”
In the Fredericksburg area and Central Virginia, the Buckley Rule has once again emerged as the best razor to apply to candidates — and convincingly when there are candidates who don’t force you to choose between victory and being right.
Congratulations to both Bryce Reeves and John McGuire, and congratulations to all the candidates who put their names forward for public consideration. Hard thing to do nowadays given the environment, but you always win and improve your political capital when you run with honor.
Daily Progress: Former UVA Student Drafts Lawsuit After False Accusations
WaPo: Democrats in Panic After Shock Poll: Trump 49, Biden 42
Proportionalism and the Natural Law Tradition by Christopher Kaczor
Are some acts intrinsically evil under all conditions and circumstances and therefore never to be tolerated? Or do conditions, intention, and distance from consequence ameliorate one’s culpability? Proportionalism — long thought dead after the late Pope John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor — has returned with a vengeance over the last 10 years. Kaczor’s one volume treatment addresses the controversy within the Catholic bioethical context. Highly recommended for anyone interested in life ethics.
Madison’s Militia by Carl Bogus
The Second Amendment — Bogus concedes — was built around the right for individuals to bear arms. Against whom, Bogus asks? Madison’s Militia goes into the debates of the Virginia Constitutional Convention and argues that the object of the 2A was not civil defense against foreign powers, but rather to put down slave insurrections. Bogus will cite the terrible performance of the militia during the War of 1812 as evidence of a tool incorrectly used, though curiously enough, Bogus does not specifically tackle either Federalist 46 (where Madison is specific about the purpose of the 2A and the right to bear arms) or the relative success of militia during the American Civil War.
Aldasair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography by Emilie Perreau-Saussine
If you are looking for a response to Rawls’ conception of “justice as fairness” then MacIntyre has to be the antidote for a faithless age. MacIntyre’s intellectual history still has new chapters — specifically an upcoming book responding to The Benedict Option (which he inadvertently inspired, but rejects entirely) — but anyone looking for a thoughtful introduction to his background and work would be hard pressed to find a better introduction than Perreau-Saussine’s masterful work.
Strategy and Diplomacy: 1870-1945 by Paul Johnson
When can you tell an empire is on the decline? When they begin to appease their opposition rather than impose their will. Such is the nature of Paul Johnson’s treatment of the British Empire, when appeasement was not such a dirty word and the policy ultimately collapsed as the United States supplanted the British Empire as a world power. Food for thought as we continue to focus on both the Ukraine and Taiwan.
Colossal Ambitions: Confederate Planning for a Post-Civil War World by Adrian Brettle
In 1861, the new Confederate government had no qualms discussing what the future would look like. The Southern Confederacy’s greatest export? Unlike European powers who relied upon free labor, and unlike Mexico with its tradition of peonage, Confederate thinkers were clear — its slave system would be its advantage as the Confederacy had designs to annex Cuba and expanded into Mexico and Central America. Sobering and calculating read free from polemics and incredibly wide in scope.
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.