Speaking as a committed supporter of both Rick Perry and Ken Cuccinelli, I think this would be a crying shame. That’s why I want to share with you my impressions of Bill Bolling. Admittedly, those impressions are not based on much more than what I have garnered from meeting and speaking with the lieutenant governor a few times on the campaign trail, plus whatever I’ve picked up from reading the news and staying abreast of Virginia politics. Regardless, what knowledge I do have, I would like to share with all of you. The two-part video below is a recording I shot of the lieutenant governor’s talk to the University of Virginia College Republicans on April 15, 2008 (apologies in advance for shakiness and for the lack of transcript). Skip to about the 3:00 mark to get into actual content of his talk.

Part 1

Part 2

I’ll be honest: I don’t know what went on in RPV headquarters during the ballot certification process. I don’t know if favoritism by any members of the state central committee had any role to play Romney qualifying for the ballot on basis of the number of his signatures, while Gingrich and Perry were subjected to greater scrutiny. I don’t know who truly owns a greater share of the blame for this whole mess: the RPV, the candidates’ campaigns, or the rules themselves.

But I do know this: Bill Bolling is a good man and a good conservative, and conservative activists nationwide shouldn’t walk away with any other impression. He’s no RINO or “moderate Republican”, and I do not believe he would be involved in any shady dealings involving the primary ballot certifications.

Bill Bolling is one of the most hard-working, genuine individuals you could ever meet working in politics. He understands that there exists, as he put it, a “fundamental difference” between those who want to take our country on a path towards greater liberty, greater prosperity, and greater security, and those who want to remake our society along a socialistic model. He understands that the answer to the challenges facing us is not bigger government, but lower taxes, lower spending, and more freedom. True, he could be fairly labeled as the “establishment” candidate, but that has far less to do with ideology and everything to do with the fact that, as lieutenant governor for the past six years, he has tirelessly campaigned for Republicans up and down the Commonwealth. His office hasn’t given him much opportunity to take direct action on the issues, but he has poured his energy into the hard work of shoring up and growing the party.

Your Mileage, of course, May Vary, and for all the above, I still plan on casting a ballot to nominate Ken Cuccinelli to be Virginia’s next governor in 2013. That being said, should Bill Bolling garner the party’s nomination, I will enthusiastically support his campaign. Hopefully, his connection with the ballot controversy and his support for Mitt Romney will not prevent other from doing likewise.

I’ll be upfront and say that I was leaning his direction already. As much as I’m drawn to Herman Cain’s candor and optimism, the past three years have made me rather wary of electing a president with a dearth of political experience. Newt Gingrich has a veritable graveyard in his closet, and I’m troubled by some of his past policy positions on AGW and “green” technology. Mitt Romney is…Mitt Romney. Rick Perry seemed to offer the combination of conservative philosophy and a full resume of experience as a political executive for which I was looking.

Still, I wasn’t ready to sign up with a candidate simply by virtue of their being the “least bad” choice. If I am going to offer someone my time, talent, and treasure, I want him or her to offer me something to believe in. I want that candidate to get me excited about something other than throwing Barack Obama out of the White House.

Tonight I read Gov. Perry’s economic plan, “Cut, Balance, and Grow”, and I got excited.

I won’t bother offering an in-depth analysis the plan itself; Daniel Horowitz already did a much better and more thorough job of that on the Front Page of this very website. Instead, I’ll talk about my encounter with the plan, and why I got excited, because I think a lot of regular people in America, those who aren’t political junkies and whose primary concern is the welfare of their families and making sure that their children inherit a better country than they did, are going to have a similar reaction once they take a look at the plan.

My first question about “Cut, Balance, and Grow” was “How will this affect me?” I am a low-income American; last year I made less than $20,000, so regardless of the philosophical purity of any given plan, I worry about how a new tax regime will impact my pocketbook. Right from the get-go, the option of staying under the current tax system did a lot to assuage my fears of coming out the worse under a flat tax. For the multitude of flaws the current system has, at least I know what to expect from it based on past years’ experience. Knowing that if worst came to worst, I could stay under the old system, put my mind at ease and allowed me to look at Perry’s plan more objectively.

Reading through “Cut, Balance, and Grow” on Perry’s website, I saw a lot to be impressed by. It seemed bold without being radical, detailed without being complicated, and conservative without being politically infeasible. Here was a plan that wasn’t just a great piece of campaign literature, but that I could envision actually making its way through Congress and being signed into law.

However, I still wanted to know how it would affect me. I grabbed my copy of last year’s 1040 and clicked on the “Sample Tax Return” page (PDF warning). That is what clinched the deal. As I said above, I was skeptical that, in the short term at least, I would come out ahead under Perry’s new tax code, and I was ready to exercise my option to stay under the current system. Having done the math, I can say that I would jump at the opportunity to sign up for the new system.

The sample tax return took me less than five minutes to complete. I didn’t have my state tax information on hand, so I skipped that deduction and just plugged in my total income, subtracted out the standard exemption, and calculated 20% of the remainder.

I was a little shocked! The amount I would have owed last year under “Cut, Balance, and Grow” was only half of my federal income tax withholdings for that year. My income tax to the federal government for the entire year worked out to less than two weeks worth of pay. I’m a low-tax, small government kind of a guy, but I don’t find that to be an onerous burden to bear for the singular blessing of being an American citizen. Sure, I would be giving up the EITC (which was a big help to me this year in paying for job training and covering some out-of-pocket college tuition expenses), but that is a sacrifice that I would happily make to see some sanity restored to our tax code and our federal budget.

After looking at “Cut, Balance, and Grow”, I did something unusual. For only the second time in my life, I made a political donation. Normally I restrict my “giving” to volunteer efforts in the weeks and months before an election, but Rick Perry’s plan got me fired up for the first time this election cycle. I decided to put my money where my mouth is, so I sent him $20.20 to show my support for his “20-20″ plan.

“Cut, Balance, and Grow” is a platform that I think has the potential to energize voters in 2012 in the way that the Tea Party did in 2010. I can see millions of voters looking at this plan just as I did, wanting to figure out if this is something worth turning out to the polls to support. I think a lot of them are going to get excited. I think a lot of them are going to turn that excitement into action. Look how the excitement generated by “9-9-9″ took Herman Cain from being supposed vanity-run candidate to being a serious contender for the Republican nomination. “Cut, Balance, and Grow” has the juice to take Rick Perry from being just another Republican candidate to being a Republican president with a mandate to enact a conservative agenda.

To win the White House next year, we’re going to need more than sunny words about America’s future and a general loathing for Barack Obama. Our candidate for president needs not only to reassure Americans of our nation’s future greatness, but to lay out a realistic plan to ensure that greatness. We want to believe, but we need a reason to believe.

I believe in “Cut, Balance, and Grow”, and I think a lot of my fellow Americans will too. As of tonight, Rick Perry has got my vote.

Has he got yours?

One such battle is approaching its finale in the Commonwealth of Virginia. A key pick-up for Barack Obama in 2008, Virginia served as a harbinger of the coming Tea Party maelstrom when in 2009 it elected Gov. Bob McDonnell. Now in 2011, Virginia serves as test of the staying power of the newfound zeal of grassroots conservatism. In a little over two weeks, all forty members of the Virginia State Senate, which the Democrats hold by a slim margin of 22 seats out of 40, will be up for election. A net gain of at least three seats in the Senate promises to hand control of both houses of the General Assembly to a Republican caucus that is markedly more conservative than any in recent history. The promise of removing the last major roadblock to Gov. McDonnell enacting some of the strongest pieces of his conservative agenda has the Democrats sweating bullets.

“The stakes have never been higher,” said Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax County, who would lose her chairmanship of the Privileges and Elections Committee should the Republicans win their first majority since 2007…”Virginia would be viewed nationally as a laughingstock…Some of the things they want to do would be detrimental to business growth and expansion in Virginia. Our public schools would suffer, as would our human services.”

Generally speaking, when Democrats threaten that an incoming conservative agenda will make its proponents a national laughingstock, what they really mean is that said agenda threatens to make the Democrats a national laughingstock, and an irrelevant one at that. If the liberals are this worried about a potential Republican majority, I would say that makes this cause one worth falling in line behind.

With close to two weeks left before Election Day on November 8, this is crunch time for the GOP. A last-minute fundraising and volunteer surge for our candidates could mean the difference between welcoming in a new conservative majority to work with Gov. McDonnell and the Virginia House in demonstrating to the nation the fruitful results of a conservative, liberty-based agenda, or the continued stymieing of that agenda by a narrow majority of incumbent Democrats grown too accustomed to power.

It’s time to step up to the plate, RedState. Take a five-minute break from arguing over the difference between a national sales tax and a VAT and help finish the statehouse sweep we began in 2010. If you live in or close by one of these contested districts, start making phone calls or knocking on doors. If you live out-of-state or cannot take the time off for physical volunteering, throw some money the candidates’ way to help pay for a TV spot or some pizza for the hungry volunteers out pounding the pavement. Whatever you can give: a few bucks, a half-hour some evening making phone calls; it all matters. You can all make a difference.

You can find a list of all 40 Senate candidates here at the Republican Party of Virginia’s website, with links to each of their campaign websites. I’ve highlighted below the Republican candidates in five key Senate races, along with links to their campaign websites. If you’re still not sure whom to support, you can always donate to the RPV, or to Gov. McDonnell’s Opportunity Virginia PAC.

Thank you in advance for your time and support.

Sen. Bill Stanley – 20th District
From his website:

As the son of a naval aviator my family traveled throughout the United States wherever duty called. In 1983 my family purchased a house in Franklin County. My father chose to move here not only for the beauty of the land but most of all the values and character of its people. I graduated from Hampden Sydney College and the D.C. School of Law, and began my law practice in Northern Virginia with former Attorney General Candidate Gil Davis…

My political foundation was cemented by the conservative values of my father a Ronald Reagan Republican who preached the benefits of working hard, personal responsibility, spending less than you earn, and standing by your principals no matter what the cost. I became the Franklin County Republican Party Chairman in 2008 and doubled the size of the unit and helped to elect Republicans to county offices such as supervisor and sheriff.

David Nutter – 21st District
From his website:

Our State’s number one priority must be getting our economy back on track. This means creating a business friendly environment through low taxes, support for Virginia’s right-to-work laws, and pro-growth climate. I will push to cut the corporate income tax to spur job growth and put people back to work. In my career as an economic development specialist, I have seen why some communities are prospering and others are not. High taxes on small businesses are not the answer. It’s time to bring jobs to Southwest Virginia.

Bryce Reeves – 17th District
From his website:

In this time of economic uncertainty, families and businesses across Virginia cannot afford any tax increases. A tax increase now would only further delay job creation and future prosperity. I stand with the Governor of Virginia in defending Virginia families from overreaching government intrusion in our family budgets. The federal government unfortunately is not bound to have a balanced budget like our families, businesses, and state are. I will always limit the public money I’m responsible for spending to the projects and roles that government was intended to be involved in, and those that the private sector cannot successfully accomplish through competitive means.

Mickey Chohany – 1st District
From his website:

As your representative in the State Senate, I will bring my business acumen and common sense conservative approach to Richmond and stand up for your values and defend the Constitution and all Virginians when representing the 1st District.

As the owner of numerous small businesses for over 25 years I have learned how to be fiscally responsible and accountable for others’ livelihood. It is an immense obligation that has real consequences. It’s a humbling and very gratifying experience to be a small business owner and it comes with great responsibility. Many elected officials are disconnected from the trials and tribulations that face business owners.

Thomas Harmon – 2nd District
From his website:

Tom served more than 28 years with the Corporation for National and Community Service (formerly the ACTION Agency – the domestic Peace Corps) in Alabama, Washington D.C. and Virginia. As the CNCS Virginia State Director for 10 years, Tom’s leadership guided annual budgets of over $9.2 million, supporting programs with more than 13,000 volunteers across the state before his retirement 2009.

In addition to his state-wide experience, he has national organizational experience. Prior to returning to Virginia, he served his agency as the Deputy Director to VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America). Under both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, he was selected to serve on the panels to select Presidential Volunteer Awards, now referred to as “Presidential Points of Light”.

Tom understands, after growing up & living in the heart of the 2nd District, that people share his conservative values of strong families and fiscal responsibility. He served and was honorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force.

Full Disclosure: I am neither employed by, nor have I received any financial compensation from, any candidate, candidate’s committee, or party organization. I’m just a guy in Virginia with a keyboard.

However, I do have to take issue with something that TheSophist said, as I haven’t seen anyone challenge it.

I haven’t heard a serious critique of the 999 Plan from the Right on the merits of the idea. For example, no one on the Right thus far has criticized 999 Plan for being regressive taxation on its face. I haven’t heard anyone critique it because it fails to combat the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Those are Leftist ideas after all.

Certainly the latter argument against income disparity is a Leftist one, but the former? Not on your life. I would just like to state for the record that I find the idea of regressive taxation to be a fundamentally immoral and unconservative one. I don’t think that is an inherently Leftist idea. Indeed, I believe that a tax which falls most heavily on the poor is profoundly unconservative, as it attacks the basic concept of fairness and equality under law on which our society and our Constitution is founded. Just as a system of taxation that disproportionately punishes success and ingenuity is unjust, just as today’s skyrocketing inflation, which falls hardest on those least able to sway with the economic winds, is a national shame and a human tragedy, a national sales tax of any sort is unjust and unconservative because of its unequal impact on our fellow citizens.

Furthermore, such a radical (yes, radical) overhaul of the tax code would be in direct contradiction to the conservative principles of prudence and of moderating Man’s impulse to wildly innovate. We are being asked to throw out our entire tax code, the result of over 80 years of gradual additions and change, and replace it with a wholly untested scheme. No one can say what effect the 9-9-9 plan would have on our economy, because a program of this type and scope has never been attempted on a nation as vast and diverse as our own. The only social engineering plans to rival it have been the New Deal, the Great Society, and Obamacare, and those are no examples for conservatives to follow. The results of 9-9-9 could be wonderful, or mediocre, or terrible. We simply have no way of knowing, because its effects on our economy and our government remain at this point purely conjectural, the subject of theory and academic debate. I’m surprised that Herman Cain, a man who rightfully garnered a lot of praise for pointing to the real world-tested, data-supported Chilean Model for Social Security reform, would put his name to a plan that is neither.

I recognize that the current system has a great many flaws, and is in profound need of overhaul. I recognize at well that the poor do suffer under our tax system, perhaps more than they would under 9-9-9. I’m not arguing that nothing be done. Reform is needed now. However, the argument of “Well, at least we’re still screwing the poor less than under the current system,” is unworthy of the Conservative Movement. We should not be in the business of replacing one kind of injustice with another.

TheSophist, you are right that we shouldn’t shy away from bold plans. You are right that we can no longer abide by “Washington insider wisdom”, though prudence reminds us that neither should we let the perfect be the enemy of the good, nor discard the knowledge and skills of those long-versed in the rules of the System. Certainly we cheer every time the GOP employs some obscure parliamentary tactic to derail or delay a Democrat initiative. But I digress.

At the end of the day, we should not buy into the notion that the only way to reform our tax code is to employ a plan as radical in its nature, though certainly not in its goals, as the Obamacare legislation we are desperately fighting to repeal. We should not believe that our only hope for true reform rests on elevating One Man to the Office of the President of the United States. We should not settle for “hurting the poor less, at least for now”, when we have the opportunity bring a tax and budget scheme to the American people that preserves our party’s and our nation’s commitment to economic liberty and true equality of opportunity and fairness under the law.

Our battle standard should be a Balanced Budget Amendment, passed in conjunction with either a flat-rate income tax, or at least a greatly reduced and simplified, albeit progressively-indexed, income and corporate tax code. Like the Chilean Model for SS Reform, these systems have been tested around the globe and proven to drive economic growth while molding the tax code into a shape that is fairer and more equal. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, nor should we. We’re conservatives. Contra John Stuart Mills, we do things the smart way. The right way. The American way.

If you’ve read this whole thing, thanks for sticking with me. Either way, have at it, boys and girls.

With this context, I would like to bring up a concern that has been growing in me for some time, and that is what I perceive to be the increasing incivility by some of our posters and contributors. One of the things that has always drawn me to RedState has been the courtesy and presumption of intellectual honesty shown to all. Name-calling, profanities, and ad homenum attacks have never had a place here. The flip side has long been that, if a member violated these rules enough times, or proved themselves to be operating in bad faith (“trolling”), they were swiftly booted. I am beginning to fear that this is no longer the case.

Lately it seems to me like these formerly strict standards (with the exception of the profanity rule) have been relaxed to a discouraging extent. Name-calling seems to have become an acceptable weapon of discourse, even by some of the front-page contributors, who should know better. Some members have taken to regularly bringing up the length of time their critics have been members. At best, this is a simple case of hubris that comes from being an established member of the community. At worst, this is a thinly-veiled accusation of being a troll. As some of our more veteran members will remembers, in the past, only those about to be banned as trolls had their “length of service” called into question. Either ad homenum attacks have become more acceptable, or the criticisms are valid and RedState has been overrun by trolls. Whatever the case, we clearly have a problem. The moderators need to take charge of the site once more, and we all need to take ownership of the debate, and hold ourselves and others accountable.

Serious, constructive debate and commentary requires that we abide by the basic rules of civility and good faith. For years that has been one of the cornerstones of RedState’s greatness. If we let that go, we will end up discouraging and driving away the kind of members and we want, while encouraging and attracting the wrong kind of commentators. It will kill the site as we know it.

Discuss.