The Virgil Goodification of the Republican Party?

How else can you describe what has happened to the Republican Party this year? The Republican Party had a simple route to a landslide election this year: Cut government. But, like the Republican Party so often does, they could not not screw it up.

Instead of focusing on actually cutting government, and coming for plans on how to do that, they have decided to focus on a community center containing a mosque being built on private property in New York City in an attempt to violate a particular religious group’s First Amendment rights. In doing so, they have turned into Virgil Goode:

And people wonder why I will not be voting for a Republican this year.

“Tea partiers” in the 5th against Eric Cantor before they were for him?

Last week, the various far-righters in the 5th Congressional District were incensed that Eric Cantor would dare to contribute $7,000 (through his campaign committee and his personal funds) to the Congressional campaign of State Senator Robert Hurt. These little tirades included throwing around words like “RINO” and whatnot with allegations that Cantor was not a ‘true conservative’ and so on and so forth (for an example, check out the 5th District blog).

Then came news today that certain “tea party” leaders were attempting to recruit former Representative Virgil Goode to run against Perriello, notwithstanding Goode’s lost to Perriello in 2008.

Now, I’m far from a fan of Eric Cantor (and there are posts to prove that), but maybe these “tea party” folks should go take a look at Virgil Goode’s own campaign contributions. According to Virgil Goode’s campaign finance reports (through September 30, 2009), Virgil Goode’s campaign committee has contributed a total of $1,500 to Cantor for Congress ($500 to Cantor for Congress on March 31, 2009, and an additional $1,000 on July 21, 2009).

So, what’s worse, receiving money from Cantor or giving Cantor money?

Cross-posted at On The Right and Virginia Virtucon.

Virgil “North American Union” Goode running in the 5th?

Looks like those crazy teabaggers are trying to draft Virgil Goode according to The WaPo.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Goode decided to run since he’s been using his campaign money to pay for campaign stuff through September (the end of the last reporting period), including phone and internet service, web hosting, and photography. And at the end of the last reporting period (September 30th, 2009), Goode still had $126,832 on hand.

The origin of the “North American Union” joke is a resolution that Virgil Goode sponsored back in 2007 which was to “[e]xpress[] the sense of Congress that the United States should not […] enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada” (H.CON.RES.40). For those unfamiliar with the “North American Union”, it’s the favorite topic of those one-world government conspiracy theorists which think believe that NAFTA is the end of the United States and blah, blah, blah. If you’re unfamiliar with the “literature” on that particular theory, check out Wikipedia.

And it’s always fun when a ‘free-market constitutionalist’ (or whatever those teabaggers want from Goode) is opposed to free-trade. Because capitalism is bad, mkay?

Cross-posted at On The Right and Virginia Virtucon.