The VLW Blog

Highway 220, the road leading to and from The Homestead, was covered with campaign signs for Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore in preface to Saturday’s VBA debate. Advantage: Warner.  

The more recent ex-gov clearly won the sign war up and down the highway. A couple of completely anecdotal observations:

Warner was out earlier. There didn’t seem to be any Gilmores on the road on Thursday afternoon as attendees at the VBA summer do rolled in.

Warner had more. Given the press reports about the size of the candidates’ respective war chests, that’s no surprise. Warner’s were bigger too (see the pic).

Warner went further north up 220 and further south down 220, almost to Covington.

Warner had a little “Warnermobile” tooting around town. Okay, it was a pickup truck with big signs. Gilmore had to hate that.

He had to hate this too: Someone had fashioned and posted a lot of “McCain for President, Warner for U.S. Senate” placards along the highway. Those disappeared from the side of the road quickly after the debate, for some reason.

By Paul Fletcher

Two ex-governors, Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore, met in the kickoff of the campaign for retiring U.S. Sen. John Warner’s seat July 19. The Virginia Bar Association held its traditional candidates’ debate at The Homestead.

The debate was delayed 15 minutes apparently due to audio problems: the feed to Gilmore’s campaign room wasn’t working. But that wasn’t how it looked at first. VBA Mike Pace got things under way, business as usual. He introduced Gilmore, but he didn’t come in. That’s when the difficulty was discovered. Warner was standing in the wings and several times stepped into the room with a bemused stage shrug (see the pic), as if asking, “Where’s Jim?” Once he starting working the crowd, shaking hands and asking, “Are we going to have a debate today?”

Gilmore finally came in and promptly thanked the “Virginia State Bar,” adding there had been an audio problem. Oops. He righted himself immediately, though, with a reference to the “Virginia Bar Association” and the show went on.

Each guy had his sound bites working. Gilmore, who at times raised his voice, almost yelling into the mike, had a mantra railing at “typical Washington politicians.” Warner mentioned at least three times the fact that Virginia was voted the best-managed state on his watch.

By Paul Fletcher

Even though the U.S. Senate judiciary committee is moving ahead with confirmation hearings, including that of Virginia Supreme Court Justice G. Steven Agee yesterday, Republicans reportedly continue to grumble about the pace of judicial confirmations. The Baltimore Sun’s James Oliphant sums things up here.

In reinforcing the rule of law, the Nuremberg Trials established and highlighted the fact of the Holocaust, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn. said Saturday evening at the Virginia Holocaust Museum.

Dodd is the son of Thomas J. Dodd, the late senator who is generally regarded as the most effective prosecutor at the trials. Christopher Dodd published last year “Letters from Nuremberg,” which includes much of the daily correspondence that his father sent to his mother during the trials.

The senator was in Richmond to attend a policy retreat of Senate Democrats at the Jefferson Hotel. He signed copies of the book with the recently completed replica of the Nuremberg courtroom to his right. Senatorial colleagues Harry Reid of Nevada, Carl Levin or Michigan and Patrick Leahy of Vermont stopped by briefly for the festivities.

Dodd said his father believed that World War II “was about fundamental rights.” If the defendants had not been accorded those rights, vengeance would have been all they produced, he said.

As the primary force behind the trials, the United States accumulated moral authority from them, Dodd said.

He said he believes that decisions of the Bush Administration – from condoning torture to its policies involving the terrorists at Guántanamo and weakening privacy rights through warrantless surveillance of telephone conversations and e-mail – have undermined that authority.

“You don’t become stronger by giving up your rights,” he said. “You become weaker as a people.”

The Nuremberg Courtroom will be formally dedicated on May 1 in a ceremony that will include a speech by Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Programs earlier in the day at a Rule of Law Conference at the museum will include appearances by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, Virginia Chief Justice Leroy R. Hassell Sr. and Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder.

The Richmond Bar Association will hold its Law Day luncheon at the museum with remarks from Virginia Supreme Court Justice Donald W. Lemons.