Extremists Broadening Base in Virginia GOP
The pig-circus that was the Augusta County Republican Committee in April and May of this year is well documented. The right-wing blogosphere followed the situation closely, despite the confusing narrative of shifting alliances between the old Guard and the newer voices in the Central Shenandoah Valley GOP ranks. The eventual victors viewed their fellow GOP rivals as too moderate and conciliatory towards their opponents in the center and on the left in the General Assembly, according to sources close to the Augusta County Republican Committee.
This highly publicized internecine Shenandoah Republican warfare has been cast as an epic, however comic, battle between moderates and extremists within the Virginia GOP. Many pundits have noted that the extremists appear to be connected to a DC-based group with an ironically apt Orwellian title Americans for Prosperity.
Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a seemingly innocuous conservative advocacy group, is well-healed enough to teeter between dubious legitimacy and obstructionist wing-nuttery. For example, AFP has used its significant cash reserves to single handedly stymie grassroots efforts to improve failing schools. Likewise, AFP has staged elaborate and expensive mock scientific displays to argue that global warming is a bunch of hot air.
Consider the work of AFP in North Carolina. AFP was the sole financial contributor to a fund with the sole purpose of defeating a local initiative to compel a county government to increase funding for improvement of its public school system. After Wake Citizens for Quality Education raised enough money, mostly from small, individual donors, to wage a grassroots referendum campaign for a $970 million bond for educational and school infrastructure improvement, AFP, a Washington, DC, based firm, swept in and gave the opposition group a huge chunk of change-the group's only source of funding.
AFP members and adherents represent the far right fringe of the conservative movement and have deep roots in neo-conservative philosophy a la Wolfowitz and Cheney. Often espousing a pro-life stance which makes no room for exception, at times advocating for a return to a theocratic form of governance, and vehemently opposing any immigration policy that smacks of compassion or amnesty, AFP members fear compromise on principal and decry what they believe is a dangerous drift of the Commonwealth's GOP toward moderation and defeatist centrism. During the primary campaign, AFP volunteers were excited by candidates like Huckabee and Romney and occasionally openly and passionately objected to a McCain nomination. In fact, McCain's besmeared bow-out from the endorsement by Pastor Hagee he originally begged for is an example of the straight-talking maverick's botched attempts to court the radical religious right and placate nervous Republicans desperate not to lose the radical edge of conservatism represented by groups like AFP in the general election.
AFP operates far outside the mainstream understanding of GOP moderates, Party pragmatists, and green evangelicals on issues related to climate control. Over the past few months, in flamboyant displays of pseudo-science and hubris, AFP has launched its Hot Air Tour.
Climate alarmists have bombarded citizens with apocalyptic scenarios and pressured them into environmental political correctness. It's time to tell the other side of the story. Americans for Prosperity is working hard to bring you the missing half of the global warming debate. What will the impacts of reactionary legislation be for you, your family and our economy . . . learn more about climate alarmism and the looming Big Government "solutions."
AFP has been spreading its discredited, though increasingly popular, obstructionist views in states like Texas, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Recently, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the growing influence of AFP has been felt in two ways. For example, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation is led by founding member David Koch, who is also Executive Vice President of Koch Industries, Inc., an oil-and-gas conglomerate based in Wichita, Kansas. The Director of the AFP Foundation is Richard Fink, who is also an officer of Koch Industries, Inc. Fink sits on the Board of Directors of Georgia-Pacific, which operates in Virginia. Over the last few years, Georgia-Pacific has contributed funds to Virginia's 24th House District Delegate Ben Cline and his campaign.
Another avenue of potential access of the AFP to the Commonwealth's county GOP committees is through financial relationships to well-established PACs, like the Dominion Leadership Trust and the VA Conservative Action PAC.
The VA Conservative Action PAC made significant contributions to the State Senate primary campaign of Scott Sayre, who narrowly lost to State Sen. Emmett Hanger (R), a loss which some posit as the genesis of the brewing resentment and chaos within the Augusta County Republican Committee that erupted earlier this year. Curiously, in 2006-2007, Americans for Prosperity helped move around approximately $45, 000 for the VA Conservative Action PAC.
If the rise in influence in Virginia of fringe groups like Americans for Prosperity is any indication of the direction of the Commonwealth's GOP, then centrist and moderate Republicans in the style of retiring US Senator John Warner and Delegate William Fralin will soon be in short supply. Virginia Democrats and Independents may relish the opportunity to present a stark contrast to their rivals on the radical right.
Stay tuned, more to come on who's who in Virginia's Grand Old Party, on the AFP payroll.
This is from AFP website
"We're hitting the ground running, with two grassroots training schools set for citizens in Charlottesville and Roanoke in the next week, and we'll have at least half a dozen grassroots schools completed by November 1. This new grassroots presence will lead to a stronger economy, which means new and better-paying jobs and more prosperity across Virginia.""We're going to build the best grassroots organization our Commonwealth has ever seen, and our grassroots members will call for the kind of job-creating, quality-of-life-enhancing reforms that families and businesses want," said State Director Rob Whitney. "AFP Virginia is going to be a strong voice for fiscal responsibility, and that means reasonable spending on programs that really work and looking for ways to ease the tax burden."
Given that Koch Industries would do well with privatized transportation systems, AFP seems more like "astroturf" than grassroots.