Friday, January 18, 2008

An Interview with Shakiem Evans of 'High School Musical'

The first time I saw any portion of Disney's High School Musical, I was standing in the electronics department of Wal-Mart, and there was a video playing on several TV screens. I did not recognize what I saw, but as I watched for about a quarter-hour, I could not help but think, "This is a well-crafted movie musical. Why haven't I seen it before?" Eventually, a couple of visual clues helped me to realize that what I was watching was the DVD of High School Musical, the phenomenon that began on the Disney Channel and burst forth into popular culture as a CD, ice-skating show, arena concert, a sequel, and -- since January 2007 -- legitimate stage musical.

The only time I have seen the full-length HSM was when the Disney Channel ran a "pop-up video" version on Thanksgiving weekend in 2006. Believe me, I learned more about the making of that movie than I ever thought it was possible to know. But that viewing confirmed my earlier thought that High School Musical is well-written, well-directed, and well-shaped. As an introduction to the musical-theatre form, teens and tweens could do much worse.

The stage version of High School Musical is coming to the National Theatre in Washington. Earlier this week, I had an opportunity to interview one of the actors in that production, Shakiem Evans, who plays "Chad Danforth." I wrote an article for The Metro Herald based on that interview, and here it is:

‘High School Musical’ Takes to the Stage:
A Chat with Actor Shakiem Evans
Rick Sincere
Metro Herald Entertainment Editor

(WASHINGTON) --- The High School Musical phenomenon – which began as a Disney Channel TV movie, climbed to the top of the CD and DVD charts, morphed into an arena concert, and spawned a TV-movie sequel – has become a legitimate stage musical. This latest incarnation arrives at the National Theatre in Washington on February 5.

The Metro Herald had an opportunity to speak with actor Shakiem Evans, who plays Chad Danforth (the role originated by Corbin Bleu in the Disney Channel movie), by telephone from Memphis, where High School Musical is on tour as it winds its way towards Washington.

Evans, a professional actor since he was 13 years old, grew up in Hillside, New Jersey, and attended Arts High School in Newark. His parents would take him to auditions in New York City as a child and eventually he landed the role of the early-adolescent Tito Jackson in the TV miniseries, “The Jacksons - An American Dream.” There is still wonder in Evans’ voice when he explains that “my first job was as Tito Jackson opposite Angela Bassett.” That 1992 production also featured Billy Dee Williams, Terrence Howard, Holly Robinson Peete, and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs.

He learned a lot on that first job. “For that to be my first professional acting experience, working with Angela Basset and Vanessa Williams,” Evans says, is “where I got a lot of my foundation” as an actor. He learned, he says, “mostly from observation. I’m a very introverted type of person; I like to sit back and watch.”

Seeing Angela Bassett – an Oscar-nominated, Yale School of Drama-trained actress – at work, he explains, “was really an inspirational experience.”

He remembers how, “between takes, Angela would sit and still be in character – even after the director yelled ‘cut!’ It was such a great learning experience for me because,” when filming on location, “you have all these distractions. There are extras in the background and onlookers from the neighborhood, but your job as an actor is to produce when it’s time to produce.”

“The Jacksons” miniseries took several months to make, and the cast traveled to Pittsburgh and California for filming. “My family traveled with me,” Evans recalls, “and we had tutors because we still did our schooling on the set.”

During high school, Evans continued to make commercials and participated in musical theatre. He muses how the character he plays in High School Musical has much in common with classmates who would make fun of him in high school for wanting to sing and perform. The role of Chad Danforth, he says, “is really a lot like the opposite of what I was in high school.”

After high school, Evans took what he calls “a break,” attending the prestigious drama program at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. After filming part of “The Jacksons” in that city, he explains, “I was familiar with the Carnegie-Mellon name, and a director I worked with in high school recommended certain schools and conservatories” – Carnegie-Mellon among them. “I knew I wanted to go to a school that was acting based. This was a very hard program.” At Carnegie-Mellon, “they had a ‘cutting’ system where after every semester, if they felt you were not progressing with the rest of the class, you were cut – it was a hard, rigorous program that prepared me for life in the business.”

Evans was part of the original cast of the new stage version of High School Musical when it premiered in Atlanta early last year. “I play the role of Chad,” which, it turns out, “was one of the hardest roles to cast.” At the time they were casting High School Musical, “I was working on Broadway in Mamma Mia!; my agent called and said they were looking for the role of Chad; they had auditioned hundreds or thousands of kids for all the roles in the show. When I auditioned, they offered me the role the same day.”

All of the songs are the same as in the television version, except there are two additional songs for the stage show. One of those is called “Cellular Fusion,” which occurs when Troy (played by Zac Efron on TV and by John Jeffrey Martin on stage) tells Chad he got a role in their school’s musical. Chad immediately gets on his cell phone to tell Zeke this news, which gets transmitted student-by-student in the distorted way that messages travel in the parlor game of “Telephone.” In this case, however, the actors on stage use real cell phones – something that brings a contemporary feel to High School Musical.

Although much of his work has been in film and on television – his other credits include parts on “Providence” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” – Evans enjoys the unique experience of performing before a live audience.

“There’s nothing like having a live audience and experiencing their emotions, exchanging emotions with them. We feed off the energy of the audience, and you can’t get that in television or film. I do all of them [different media] for different reasons,” says Evans, and “this is one of the reasons” I work on stage.

The national tour schedule is harsh. The show stays in most cities for only a week at a time, sometimes two. “The longest run we had was in Toronto – we mostly do one-weekers, occasionally do two weeks, but we did three weeks in Chicago and Philly, four weeks in Toronto – and it can be hard. We do eight shows a week, just like a Broadway schedule. Your one day a week off is a travel day, so it’s hard to stay healthy.”

In an effort to do that -- stay healthy -- Evans does yoga and tries to work out every day. His first stop in every city is a supermarket, so he can stock up on fruit. “If you’re living in a hotel, there’s no chance to cook. And if you stay in a hotel downtown, there is fast food galore, but not a lot of healthy options, so you have to do the best you can.”

That’s why physical exercise is so important to Evans. “We’ve been on the road for almost seven months,” he says, “and it’s really important to stay focused and stay centered. One week we were in three different time zones!” It is no wonder that, in Evans’ words, “The hotels blend together, the theatres blend together,” and that’s why “you do the best you can to find a gym, eat healthy, do sports outside, so you’re not in the hotel all day and only have the time on stage for physical activity.”

Despite growing up and working primarily on the East Coast, the arrival of High School Musical will be Evans’ first professional visit to Washington. Consequently, he says, “I’m looking forward to being in Washington. A lot of my [nearby] family will be coming to visit me because I’ve never performed in D.C. before. This is my first touring experience, so I’m able to visit a lot of places that I never would have seen without being in High School Musical.”

With regard to the show itself, Evans says, “if people enjoyed the movie, they’re really going to enjoy our show. We respect the movie. We’re professional actors,” and, by choice, they are not trying to replicate the television experience. “I’m not trying to imitate Corbin Bleu, who played Chad on TV. Our director doesn’t want us to mirror the performances in the movie. He has respected us as actors.”

The theme of High School Musical, Evans says, is “about being yourself: As long as you’re doing your best and not hurting others, and doing what you love to do, the rest will take care of itself.”

After Washington, High School Musical will play at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore before heading to Des Moines, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Salt Lake City. A tour of the United Kingdom (with a different cast, of course) begins on January 23 in Bromley.

High School Musical opens at the National Theatre on February 5 and plays through February 17. Ticket prices range from $41.50 to $86.50, with a limited number of premium seats available on weekends at $126.50. Tickets are available at the National Theatre Box Office and through Telecharge at (800) 447-7400 or at www.telecharge.com.
I will be seeing the stage version of High School Musical (or, what I have come to call "High School Musical: The Musical") on Super Tuesday, February 5. Art trumps politics.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Budget Transparency Catching On


Last week I wrote about proposals in the Virginia General Assembly to put all of the state's budget information on line in an easily searchable format. In his remarks at a news conference announcing the legislation aimed at achieving this goal, state Senator Ken Cuccinelli (R-Fairfax) mentioned in passing that he would like to see the same thing done at the local level, noting that Fairfax County's budget is in the $6 billion range, "a sixth of the state budget."

Cuccinelli and others at the Tertium Quids-sponsored news conference pointed toward the Missouri state government's budget web site as a model for Virginia.

Now other states are riding the budget transparency wave, too, including Missouri's neighbor, Oklahoma. On his blog, which often deals with state issues in his home state, Nevada political activist Chuck Muth writes about what's going on in Oklahoma:

The Sooner State has joined a growing number of government entities openly embracing budgetary transparency by putting its finances online. Its Open Books website is “loaded with information” which enables taxpayers to determine for themselves if their tax dollars are being spent wisely.

Granted, the website is a work in progress. Far more detailed information is needed and surely will be provided eventually. For example, “Miscellaneous Administrative Expenses” should be broken down into specific expenditures, to whom and for what purpose. But this transparency website is light years ahead of anything Nevada taxpayers currently have at their disposal.

Open Books is a searchable website which mirrors the budgetary database being created at the federal level thanks to bi-partisan legislation co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn and Democrat Sen. Barack Obama. It’s the latest in a growing movement to use this Internet thingy Al Gore invented to help taxpayers see for themselves if they’re getting all the government they’re paying for, and then some.

This is an idea whose time has come...
As I previously noted, the legislation to make budget transparency a reality in Virginia has already been submitted for consideration by the General Assembly in this session. Delegate Ben Cline (R-Amherst) has introduced HB1360, with the short title "Searchable budget database website," while Senator Cuccinelli has introduced SB585, with the same short title.

A Legal Anniversary

Over at Box Turtle Bulletin, Jim Burroway has an informative post about a historic decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, issued fifty years ago today, in the case of ONE Incorporated v. Oleson. It was the first Supreme Court case that ruled in favor of a gay organization (or, for that matter, gay individual) seeking relief from discriminatory government action.

Burroway writes:

[The October 1954 issue of ONE] was enough for the Los Angeles Post Office to seize that issue — the one with “You Can’t Print It!” on the cover — and charge the editors with violating the 1873 Comstock Act, which prohibited sending “obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious” material through the mail.

The editors were eager to sue the Post Office, but ONE’s financial condition was so perilous that they held off for nearly a year. Jubler took the case for free and looked for help from the ACLU, but they wouldn’t touch it — the ACLU was still defending anti-sodomy laws at the time. Finally it was up to young Jubler alone to argue ONE’s case in federal district court that the magazine was educational and not pornographic. It didn’t go well. The judge ruled for the Post Office in March 1956, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in February 1957, calling ONE “morally depraving and debasing” and saying that the magazine “has a primary purpose of exciting lust, lewd and lascivious thoughts and sensual desires in the minds of persons reading it.”

ONE then took its case to the U.S. Supreme Court. To everyone’s surprise, the Court agreed to take the case, its first ever dealing with homosexuality. Even more surprising, the Supreme Court issued its short, one-sentence decision on January 13, 1958 without hearing oral arguments. That decision not only overturned the two lower courts, but the Court expanded the First Amendment’s free speech and press freedoms by effectively limiting the power of the Comstock Act to interfere with the written word. As a result, lesbian and gay publications could be mailed without legal repercussions, though many continued to experience harassment from the Post Office and U.S. Customs.

I thought I could not find the full text of the Supreme Court's decision until I reread that last paragraph, which mentions "its short, one-sentence decision." Then I realized I had, in fact, found the complete ruling but was mislead by its brevity. Here is the complete decision as issued fifty years ago today, January 13, 1958:
U.S. Supreme Court
ONE, INCORPORATED, v. OLESEN, 355 U.S. 371 (1958)
355 U.S. 371

ONE, INCORPORATED, v. OLESEN, POSTMASTER OF LOS ANGELES.
ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT. No. 290.
Decided January 13, 1958.

241 F.2d 772, reversed.

Eric Julber for petitioner.

Solicitor General Rankin, Acting Assistant Attorney General Leonard and Samuel D. Slade for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

The petition for writ of certiorari is granted and the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is reversed. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476.

Page 355 U.S. 371, 372
That's just a bit more verbose than Clarence Thomas during oral arguments.

Wikipedia also has some background on ONE in this article.

Who Runs the Buggy-Whip Concession?

In his most recent syndicated column (which I saw in this morning's Daily Progress in Charlottesville, but had to be found on line in the Topeka Capital-Journal), former Texas agriculture commissioner Jim Hightower writes:

Sergio Olaya is a 21-year-old college student who has had to drop out of school because of our country's messed up health insurance system....

Ironically, Mr. Olaya's job is in the U.S. Senate. He runs an elevator on which our honorable solons ride everyday.
The point of Hightower's column is to make a plea for government-provided health insurance for all Americans, but that's not what caught my eye.

What grabbed me was the notion that the U.S. Senate is paying someone to be an elevator operator -- in 2008!

Are our Senators so weak that they cannot press the buttons to take them from the ground floor to the third floor? From the basement to the penthouse?

Can there be a more archaic, unnecessary job than running an automatic elevator?

What other 19th-century jobs are being paid for on Capitol Hill by the money taken from taxpayers?

Perhaps if Congress got rid of the deadbeats on their payroll, they could refund some of those taxes so people are better able to afford health insurance on their own, without the government control that Hightower so strongly desires.

Friday, January 11, 2008

The Question Was Answered Six Years Ago

Why is Jamie Kirchick's story in The New Republic about distasteful passages in newsletters published under Ron Paul's name nearly two decades ago getting so much attention?

Those passages were raised by Dr. Paul's opponent in the congressional election of 1996 and discussed widely at that time. The voters in the 14th District of Texas did not seem perturbed by the revelations.

And in an October 2001 profile in Texas Monthly (not a right-wing publication by any stretch of the imagination), Dr. Paul discussed the newsletters in a straightforward manner with reporter S.C. Gwynne:

Paul's return to congressional politics.... happened in 1996. With Nolan Ryan as his honorary campaign chairman, he entered a bruising Republican primary against incumbent Greg Laughlin, who had switched parties the year before. Paul was now running in a new district, the 14th (he had moved his residence from Lake Jackson to his beach house in Surfside). It was a demographic oddity that connected the Gulf Coast and Central Texas and included the Brazos, Colorado, and Guadalupe lower river basins and the small cities of Victoria, San Marcos, and Freeport. Paul immediately discovered that the electoral ground rules had changed: With the Democrats trying to regain control of the House, which they had lost two [ ] years earlier, and Speaker Newt Gingrich backing Laughlin, whom GOP regulars viewed as the stronger candidate, someone who had run for president on the Libertarian ticket—and who had advocated things like the repeal of federal drug laws and an end to the "so-called drug war"—was now a much bigger and more visible target. "My image was completely different in 1996 than in 1976," Paul says. "You can't just get passed off as an average Republican having done what I did. We got hit hard."

Most of the hitting was on the drug issue, first by Laughlin, whom Paul beat convincingly in a runoff, then by Charles "Lefty" Morris, Paul's opponent in the general election. Morris was certain that Paul's radical views would discredit him with voters. "We just have to get his ideas out, and people will know what he really stands for," Morris said at the time. He ran ads saying that Paul advocated the legalization of illegal drugs, which was not entirely accurate. Though some of Paul's public remarks had suggested that he supported full drug legalization, his official position was (and is) that federal drug laws ought to be repealed: Let the states handle all drug laws. Then Morris' subalterns dug up something even more damaging to Paul: copies of a 1992 newsletter he had published that contained racially tinted remarks.

They caused a minor sensation. In one issue of the Ron Paul Survival Report, which he had published since 1985, he called former U.S. representative Barbara Jordan a "fraud" and a "half-educated victimologist." In another issue, he cited reports that 85 percent of all black men in Washington, D.C., are arrested at some point: "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." And under the headline "Terrorist Update," he wrote: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

In spite of calls from Gary Bledsoe, the president of the Texas State Conference of the NAACP, and other civil rights leaders for an apology for such obvious racial typecasting, Paul stood his ground. He said only that his remarks about Barbara Jordan related to her stands on affirmative action and that his written comments about blacks were in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." He denied any racist intent. What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U. S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this.

When I ask him why, he pauses for a moment, then says, "I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren't really written by me. It wasn't my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around. I think the one on Barbara Jordan was the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady." Paul says that item ended up there because "we wanted to do something on affirmative action, and it ended up in the newsletter and became personalized. I never personalize anything."

His reasons for keeping this a secret are harder to understand: "They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them . . . I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn't come from me directly, but they [campaign aides] said that's too confusing. 'It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.'" It is a measure of his stubbornness, determination, and ultimately his contrarian nature that, until this surprising volte-face in our interview, he had never shared this secret. It seems, in retrospect, that it would have been far, far easier to have told the truth at the time.

That controversy ought to have destroyed him. Lefty Morris certainly thought it would, and things looked even bleaker for Paul when the AFL-CIO kicked in with a heavy rotation of anti-Paul ads. That may explain why, even after midnight on Election Day, when the newspapers were all giving the election to Paul, Morris still refused to concede. He simply couldn't believe it.
I would like to highlight something that Gwynne wrote in that article, quoted above:
What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U. S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this.
This has been the most common reaction in the past few days from people who have known Ron Paul, who have followed his career, and who are familiar with the issues that motivate him and the way he expresses himself.

Let me speak from my own experience as someone who has met Dr. Paul on several occasions, all of which were characterized by civility, politesse, and good humor. I have never seen any evidence from Ron Paul the man that he has a hateful thought or possesses an animus against any group or individual. He, like most libertarians, is focused on ideas, ideas principally aimed at promoting human dignity, individual liberty, and personal responsibility.

Nearly fifteen years ago, I was running for the Virginia House of Delegates (in the 49th District, then completely within Arlington County, one of the most heavily Democratic and liberal districts in the state).

The campaign took place during the period that, according to Kirchick, "Ron Paul" was making derogatory, anti-gay remarks in "his" newsletters. As it happens, I was running as an openly-gay candidate for the Virginia General Assembly. (It was my second run for that office after a previous attempt in a special election in January 1991. The same district currently has an openly-gay Democrat representing it in Richmond.)

During that 1993 campaign, Ron Paul issued a letter on my behalf, soliciting funds from libertarians and votes from constituents. (We sent the letter to both groups.) Dr. Paul (then a former Congressman) was aware I was running as an openly-gay candidate and he raised no questions, concerns, or objections. I hardly think a homophobic bigot would have sent out a fundraising letter over his own signature, endorsing (as the Washington Times stylebook would have it) an "avowed homosexual" for public office.

Did Ron Paul exercise poor judgment in allowing others to publish badly-written newsletter articles under his name? Yes -- and that is something that he acknowledged more than a decade ago, and quite explicitly in that 2001 Texas Monthly article. He has taken responsibility for his error, owned up to it, and did not even beg for forgiveness. In fact, he has reacted to this smear attempt in a cool, evenhanded, and direct manner.

If people want to dredge up the past of politicians, how about paying attention to the way Mike Huckabee has consorted with Christian Reconstructionists, who want to institute a sort of sharia law in the United States that would include the death penalty for adulterers and homosexuals?

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Thursday, January 10, 2008

Virginia Presidential Primary FAQ


Although "Super Tuesday" will occur on February 5, with 22 states holding presidential preference primaries or party caucuses, Virginia's presidential primary -- for both Democratic and Republican candidates seeking their respective party's nomination -- will take place a week later, on Tuesday, February 12.

Ironically, the General Assembly moved the date of the Virginia primary forward so that voters on the Commonwealth would have a larger, earlier effect on the outcome of the nomination contest. What the Delegates and Senators failed to anticipate was that so many other states would race to the start, diminishing Virginia's influence on the nominating process.

The State Board of Elections has issued a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), with answers, about the "dual primary" scheduled for the second Tuesday in February. Here is what the SBE says:

Why do I have to state a party preference to vote in this election?
Under Virginia law, a dual primary consists of two separate elections conducted on the same day for the same office or offices. There are separate pollbooks, separate ballots and/or ballots boxes, and results for each primary are tallied separately. Virginia law only allows you to vote in one of these two separate elections.

Is this party registration?
No. Voter registration by political party does not exist. Your name will be marked in the pollbook for the party in whose primary you choose to vote, and that information will be available to that political party after the election.

There are names appearing on the ballot of candidates who have announced their withdrawal from the contest. What happens if I vote for candidate one of those candidates?
Your vote will still be counted and reported as a vote for that candidate.

I voted by absentee ballot for a candidate who has since withdrawn. Can I request and receive a new ballot?
No. Your vote will be counted and reported for the candidate you voted for.

Last year I voted in one party’s primary, now I want to vote in the other party’s primary. Can I do that?
Yes. The offer to vote in a party’s primary does not constitute a legal obligation to do so again in a future election, nor does it prohibit you from voting in a different party’s primary in the future.

How is the order in which names appear on the ballot chosen?
After the deadline has passed and the political parties have certified the names of the candidates who have qualified to appear on the ballot, the State Board of Elections, in a public meeting, holds a drawing in which the names of all the candidates or a primary are placed in a container and a Board member draws the names at random. The process is then repeated for the other party.

Can I cast a write-in vote if I don’t wish to vote for any of the candidates whose names appear on the ballot?
No, write-in votes are not permitted in primaries.

Why can 17 year olds vote in this election?
Seventeen year olds may register to vote if they will be eighteen years old by the day of the November General Election. Virginia law further states that they may also vote in any intervening primary or special election occurring in the jurisdiction in which they are registered to vote. This means that while they can vote in the Presidential Primary, the Congressional Primary which may be held in June and any special election, they may NOT vote in a town or city election for which they would otherwise be qualified since these are General Elections.
Virginia residents who are qualified to vote but have not yet registered have until Monday, January 14, to register and be eligible to vote in the February 12 primary. To find your local voter registration office, look here.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

My New Hampshire Primary Question

Did anybody tell John Edwards that he should not have given the same concession speech tonight as he gave in Iowa just a few days ago?

Just wondering.

You'd think he'd be a bit more creative and at least pretend to have had a few new thoughts between Thursday and Tuesday.

Budget Transparency in Virginia


Three members of the Virginia General Assembly spoke today at a news conference in the State Capitol about their coming efforts to pass legislation aimed at improving the transparency of the state budget process.

State Senators Ken Cuccinelli (R-Fairfax County) and Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax) and Delegate Ben Cline (R-Amherst) are the co-patrons of the legislation, along with Delegate Johnny Joannou (D-Portsmouth). They were joined at the news conference by Kristina Rasmussen, director of government affairs at the National Taxpayers Union, which is helping promote budget transparency at the federal level and throughout the country for state and local governments.

In a press release prepared by Tertium Quids, the non-profit advocacy group that sponsored the news conference, Senator Cuccinelli said:

"Taxpayers should be able to easily access the details on how the state is spending their tax dollars and what results are achieved for those expenditures."
Delegate Cline added, according to the Tertium Quids release:
"This is nonpartisan legislation that's good for all Virginians. Every Virginian who pays taxes and fees to the government has a right to see how his or her money is being spent by public officials."
Tertium Quids noted in its news release that
"The state of Missouri has one of the better budget transparency web sites launched to date. It is found at http://mapyourtaxes.mo.gov. The extremely user-friendly and informative site allows users to search by agency, category of expenses, contract, and vendor."
Earlier on Tuesday morning, Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling endorsed the proposed legislation (which has not yet been assigned a bill number, but which should be dropped in the hopper tomorrow -- the first day of the legislative session -- by Petersen and Cuccinelli in the Senate and by Cline and Joannou in the House). Bolling said through Tertium Quids:
"I am pleased to lend my support to this legislation, which would require the Commonwealth to design and implement a budget website that displays a clear, detailed, and understandable issue-level budget. While some budget information is currently posted on-line, citizens can only obtain very general information about budget expenditures, as opposed to detailed and specific information. By making more detailed information available to citizens, we can better enable them to understand how their tax dollars are being spent and influence the actions of their elected officials."
Senator Cuccinelli also read a statement from Attorney General Bob McDonnell endorsing the proposal. (McDonnell was holding his own press conference in another part of Richmond at the same time, but sent his statement to Cuccinelli via Blackberry.)

I was able to record the entire press conference on videotape and uploaded it just minutes ago to YouTube. The event lasted just under 25 minutes, so I have split the video into two parts.

Part I:

In part one, John Taylor of Tertium Quids introduces the four speakers. It includes the complete opening remarks by Kristina Rasmussen of NTU and the major part of Senator Cuccinelli's opening remarks.

Part II:

In part two, Senator Cuccinelli finishes his remarks, including his reading of the statement by the Attorney General, and Senator Petersen and Delegate Cline give their remarks. John Taylor has a few comments, and there are questions from the audience and answers from the speakers.

The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star has already editorially endorsed this legislation. In the lead editorial this morning, the newspaper said:
A couple of existent programs nibble around the edges of what the senator and his co-patrons hope to accomplish. Virginia Performs, an administration creation, rates the progress of state agencies in pursuing quality-of-life goals. The state Auditor of Public Accounts' Commonwealth Data Point, a Web site, paints a broad-brush portrait of how state government operates, including in the budgetary realm. But both programs are deficient in the all-important "fine print" category.

Mr. Kaine should support this transparency initiative, not because it would make his life easier operationally--the measure, for example, would expose to the cyberized world the practice of some state agencies to shift funds among program accounts--but because in principle it's the right and progressive thing to do. The money with which the legislative cardinalate and administration nabobs play government is the people's money. They should be able to see what becomes of it, quickly and easily, every step of the way.
Expect more newspapers -- which have a clear interest in freedom of information -- to endorse this initiative in the weeks to come.

UPDATE: The bills have now been submitted in both the House and Senate. Delegate Ben Cline has introduced HB1360, with the short title "Searchable budget database website." Senator Ken Cuccinelli has introduced SB585, with the same short title and this summary:
Searchable budget database website. Requires the Director of the Department of Planning and Budget to maintain a searchable budget database website that would allow persons to search and aggregate information for individual or specific appropriations or budget items. The Director would be required to have the database operational by July 1, 2009. When fully operational, all data in the database would be maintained for a minimum of 10 years. The bill would require to the Director to work with the Auditor of Public Accounts and the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission to avoid any duplication of efforts.
(Legislative information comes courtesy of Richmond Sunlight.)

Memories of the '96 New Hampshire Primary

Twelve years ago, I drove to New Hampshire with some friends to campaign for presidential candidate Steve Forbes in the 1996 Republican primary. The New Hampshire primary in 1996 was much later than this year's -- it took place on February 20 instead of January 8.

Forbes attracted a lot of libertarian support that year. In fact, despite having his name only on the Republican ballot, he placed fourth in the Libertarian Party primary as a write-in candidate, just as he did as an official candidate in the Republican Party primary (behind Pat Buchanan, Bob Dole, and Lamar Alexander).

Many of the volunteers we met in Manchester, Concord, Exeter, and other towns told us, without prompting, that they were libertarian by philosophy but that Steve Forbes was the candidate who resonated the most with them. (That they were not campaigning for Harry Browne or Irwin Schiff in the New Hampshire Libertarian primary that year says a lot about Forbes' appeal.)

Besides campaigning for Forbes, I wrote about the primary campaign for The Metro Herald. If I can find those articles in my files between now and February 20, I may post them here.

For now, here are some of the photos I took in the several days preceding the election and on election day itself -- including the Forbes Victory Party in Manchester on the night the results came in. It truly felt like a victory party, too, despite the fourth-place finish. The crowd was animated, enthusiastic, and ready to go forward to real victories (which eventually took place in Delaware and Arizona, the two state primaries won by Forbes that year). It helped that the emcee of the celebration was Joan Rivers, not only a celebrity in her own right but also a longtime friend of Steve Forbes and his family.


This is one of my favorite photographs from the 1996 New Hampshire primary. It shows Steve Forbes among supporters and TV cameras just after he got off the campaign bus. Several months later, I asked him to sign the picture for me, and it now hangs on my living-room wall.



Whatever happened to MTV's "Choose or Lose" campaign? It was a big deal in 1996, and MTV threw a huge reception in Manchester for young voters and campaign volunteers.



I snapped this picture in the state capital of Concord. I've always been amused by the intersection of "Church" and "State" streets.



Speaking of Concord, it seemed that an orchard of campaign signs had sprouted on the grounds of the State Capitol itself.



Here I am among the blossoms.



Few remember that former California Congressman Bob Dornan (known as "B-1 Bob" for his pro-defense positions) was a candidate for president in 1996. Dornan was the xenophobic candidate that year, sort of like Tom Tancredo but far more colorful. Here he is with my friend, David Brown of Charlottesville, who was campaigning for Steve Forbes in 1996 and this year is in New Hampshire campaigning for Ron Paul. I wonder how many other Forbes supporters from the Class of '96 are activists for Dr. Paul this year?




Although we were working for Forbes, somehow we found ourselves at a Lamar Alexander rally at Phillips Exeter Academy. Here are my friends Tom Jamerson (right) and David Brown on the academy grounds before the rally.



Inside an auditorium at Phillips Exeter, Lamar! -- that's what his campaign signs said -- was introduced by fellow Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson. What has he been doing lately?




Back outside, Tom Jamerson, David Brown, and I showed our support for the other side. Someone -- perhaps a Lamar! supporter -- was kind enough to take a snapshot.




Back at Forbes headquarters in Manchester, staffers and volunteers were watching the candidate in a TV interview.



The candidate himself looks confident leaning out of the campaign bus.




Journalist Deroy Murdock (left), whom we picked up along the way in New York, covered Forbes and other candidates in the days leading up to the election. Here he is with a Forbes staff member.



The election night party burst with color. Here I am ready to celebrate.



We also wanted people to know that Steve Forbes' supporters came from far and wide.



Like Ron Paul today, Steve Forbes had a strong contingent of youthful supporters.



Here is Joan Rivers arriving to host the festivities. That had to be at least three faces ago.



Maybe four faces ago.



Despite what must have been a disappointing finish, candidate Steve Forbes and one of his daughters appear exuberantly happy.




This is just a reminder of why New Hampshire is important in American history, over and above its place as the "first in the nation" primary state. It's no accident that President Jed Bartlet first served as New Hampshire's governor.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

The Palpable Problem with Populism

George F. Will has a masterful article on the op-ed page of today's Washington Post. He takes to task the two leading populists of the Republican and Democratic parties -- respectively, Mike Huckabee and John Edwards -- for their ill-conceived political/economic philosophies.

Whenever I hear John Edwards' bugle call for class warfare, his self-loathing attacks on the rich (that is, the productive) people of this country, one thing repeatedly comes to mind: I have never been given a job by a poor person.

Whenever I hear Mike Huckabee make a similar appeal, I just think of that other politician born in Hope and realize he is a similarly empty vessel whose appeals to emotion and class hatred would embarrass anyone who could be self-reflective about them. He's not so much interested in doing the right thing as he is convinced that anything he does is right.

But George Will goes far beyond these visceral reactions of mine and grinds Huckabee and Edwards to dust with -- gasp! -- research and facts.

For instance:

[Huckabee] and John Edwards, flaunting their histrionic humility in order to promote their curdled populism, hawked strikingly similar messages in Iowa, encouraging self-pity and economic hypochondria. Edwards and Huckabee lament a shrinking middle class. Well.

Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979 -- because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled, from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. "So," Rose says, "the entire 'decline' of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder." Even as housing values declined in 2007, the net worth of households increased.

Any Republican planning to vote in the New Hampshire primary or in subsequent primaries should read Will's first paragraph about the winner of the Iowa caucuses and ask, Is Huckabee really one of us?
Like Job after losing his camels and acquiring boils, the conservative movement is in distress. Mike Huckabee shreds the compact that has held the movement's two tendencies in sometimes uneasy equipoise. Social conservatives, many of whom share Huckabee's desire to "take back this nation for Christ," have collaborated with limited-government, market-oriented, capitalism-defending conservatives who want to take back the nation for James Madison. Under the doctrine that conservatives call "fusion," each faction has respected the other's agenda. Huckabee aggressively repudiates the Madisonians.
Huckabee's slick exterior has tricked a lot of people into thinking he shares their values. Radio talk-show host Monica Crowley hit the nail on the head this afternoon, when she compared Huckabee (and other candidates) to the hokum Wizard in her favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz. Huckabee can be be all things to all people because he does it with smoke and mirrors. His down-home, aw-shucks manner gives people the option to think, "He's just like us. Therefore he thinks like us, believes what we believe, and wants what we want. And we want him."

Laura Ingraham put it well on her own radio show Friday when she responded to that line of "reasoning": I don't want someone just like me to be President; I want someone better than me.

Will's op-ed piece, headlined "Iowa's Histrionic Hucksters," reminds us of the paradox of populism:

Although Huckabee and Edwards profess to loathe and vow to change Washington's culture, each would aggravate its toxicity. Each overflows with and wallows in the pugnacity of the self-righteous who discern contemptible motives behind all disagreements with them and who therefore think that opponents are enemies and differences are unsplittable.

The way to achieve Edwards's and Huckabee's populist goal of reducing the role of "special interests," meaning money, in government is to reduce the role of government in distributing money. But populists want to sharply increase that role by expanding the regulatory state's reach and enlarging its agenda of determining the distribution of wealth. Populists, who are slow learners, cannot comprehend this iron law: Concentrate power in Washington, and you increase the power of interests whose representatives are concentrated there.

I truly hope Will's Sunday opinion article is widely read and well digested. (And, while you're at it, check out George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan's Outlook section piece, "5 Myths About Our Ballot-Box Behavior," derived from his book, The Myth of the Rational Voter. Without saying so directly, Caplan explains why so many people would cast their votes for con men like Huckabee and Edwards.)

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Lee Sherman Dreyfus, 1926-2008

One day when I was in high school, we MUHS students were herded into the auditorium to hear a speech by some public figure most of us had never heard of. We never, however, turned up our noses at a chance to skip homeroom, and this turned out to be an entertaining morning. The speaker was an imposing man wearing a red vest, and he turned out to be Lee Sherman Dreyfus, who a couple of years later would become governor of Wisconsin. An academic -- he was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point -- he was a compelling speaker who held the attention of some one thousand teenage boys even when there would be no test of the material he presented. He was amusing, animated, and sharp-witted.

An obituary in today's Washington Post alerted me to the news that former Wisconsin Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus passed away earlier this week, nearly 25 years after he left office, having served only one term and choosing to return to private life rather than seek his likely re-election. (He was a very popular Republican governor in a state tinted blue.)

For all the aspects of his long career in public life that it could have chosen, the Post obit honed in on one: Dreyfus was the first governor to sign a statewide gay-rights ordinance and see it implemented. He did so in 1982, saying:

"It is a fundamental tenet of the Republican Party that government ought not intrude in the private lives of individuals where no state purpose is served, and there is nothing more private or intimate than who you live with and who you love."
While I disagree with the concept of anti-discrimination laws, I can't help but agree with the sentiment of Dreyfus' remarks on that occasion. He represented a Republican Party that held strong to its libertarian roots: the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, not the Republican Party of Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney (unless you mean the pre-2008 election cycle Mitt Romney). Dreyfus maintained his position about government intrusiveness through the rest of his life: He actively opposed the 2006 anti-gay-marriage amendment that was put on the ballot in Wisconsin. His side, unfortunately, did not prevail.

As you might expect, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's report on Dreyfus' death and life provides a fuller picture of the man's career. The Journal Sentinel describes his appearances on the campaign trail:
By temperament and training - Dreyfus earned his degrees in speech - he was the great communicator.

"Madison is 30 square miles surrounded by reality," Dreyfus declared during the campaign.

Although politicians and map-makers would debate the exact figure, no one seemed to argue with the premise.

"Lee Sherman Dreyfus is flamboyant, congenial and direct," read one profile in 1985. "As governor, he was like nothing the state had ever seen. He was the governor-as-after-dinner-speaker, crisscrossing the state to speak of the evils of big, out-of-touch government while leavening his message with a torrent of one-liners."

In 1978, Dreyfus defeated Democratic Acting Gov. Martin Schreiber, largely on a campaign against the state's large surplus.

"I saw that almost as an immorality," he said. "I thought it was wrong for the state to accumulate that money for programs they didn't have in place and take it from the people."
He had a gift for the bon mot. David Blaska remembers in the Isthmus, a Madison newspaper:
Students on the campus at UW-Stevens Point, he would say, would give him the victory sign -- but forget to hold up the second, index finger. Pa-dumppp!
The story goes that Dreyfus adopted his signature red vest during the student protests of the Vietnam war, so he could be recognized in the fray. That story may be apocryphal, but it is clear he wore the vest so he could be easily recognized on campus. During the war, the Journal Sentinel recalls, Dreyfus made an important point that is generally forgotten about civil-military relations:
He was not always popular with students during the Vietnam War. Many students viewed the existence of an ROTC unit on campus as an endorsement of the U.S. military action. But Dreyfus argued that ROTC should be viewed as the presence of the university in the military instead of the presence of the military in the university.
My personal favorite is this zinger about how he got involved in politics.

In 1975, Dreyfus traveled to China as a representative of American colleges and universities. It proved to be a life-changing experience.

"That trip convinced me that the one-party system, whether it's a Marxist or a capitalist system or a military system. . . is not in the best interests of the people," he said.

Back home in Wisconsin, Dreyfus didn't like what he saw.

"In '76, I was getting more concerned about the fact that we were sliding into one-party power in this state, and I saw at that point what I viewed as. . . the absolute arrogance growing in the Democratic Party and a bunker mentality growing in the shrinking Republican Party."

So Dreyfus joined the Republican Party in 1978.

"My mother always taught me it was polite to join a party before you take it over," he quipped.

(Those independents and first-time voters who have joined the Ron Paul Revolution should remember that, and sign up to join their local GOP committees as activists who are in it for the long haul.)

Wisconsin has a long tradition of colorful and inspiring politicians, from Carl Schurz to Fighting Bob LaFollette to Frank Zeidler to Ed Thompson. They were Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, Libertarians, and -- believe it or not -- Socialists, but they were all effective in putting their aims into action. Lee Sherman Dreyfus belongs in their company.

Friday, January 04, 2008

Ed Crane's Cage Match?

Sometimes you come across a sentence in a newspaper article that is simply jarring.

Here's a sentence that would be unexpected in any newspaper article, but especially so in a movie review:

When Plainview and Sunday engage in a brief and amusingly sloppy bout of fisticuffs, it's like watching the head of the Cato Institute go mano-a-mano with Jimmy Swaggart.
That comes from Ann Hornaday's review in the Style section of Friday's Washington Post of There Will Be Blood, the new film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) and starring Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis (My Beautiful Laundrette, Gangs of New York) and up-and-comer Paul Dano (L.I.E., Little Miss Sunshine).

I had planned to see There Will Be Blood in any case, but the vivid image of Ed Crane and Jimmy Swaggart pummeling each other makes going to see the film even more compelling.

Pundits Give Hopeful Post-Iowa Marks to Ron Paul


Sean O'Brien, executive director of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia (and soon to be head of the new Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier) was a guest on the 11:00 news on WCAV-TV in Charlottesville, commenting on the results of the Republican and Democratic caucuses in Iowa on Thursday. He had some positive things to say about Republican contender Ron Paul.

As everyone knows by now, the winner on the Democratic side was Illinois Senator Barack Obama. On the Republican side, it was former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Interviewed by anchors Dan Schutte and Stephanie Hockridge (and transcribed by me), O'Brien noted:

There are candidates out there that people in New Hampshire or Virginia or California would love to have the chance to vote for, but will probably be forced to drop out because they won't be getting any money and people won't be paying attention to them. [The Iowa caucus system] really doesn't promote the democratic process....

On the Republican side, really the [television] graphic has shown four people [Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, McCain] but really five or six people are coming out on the Republican side in a good position. Giuliani never expected to do well in Iowa, so the fact that he's not in there is no big deal.

But Ron Paul, with his very fanatical fan base of supporters, coming out with 10 percent, that's going to make them feel really good, they're only just behind McCain and Thompson, who, at one time, McCain was the front runner and Thompson was seen as the savior. So they've got to be feeling pretty good. It's going to be very fascinating to watch into New Hampshire next week....

It's going to be very hard for Huckabee in New Hampshire, probably, because the "Huckaboom" phenomenon has really risen for him in Iowa. It's an evangelical state, he's an evangelical person, and so that may not play as well in New Hampshire, so it's going to be hard for him. But I'm sure he's on a plane right now.
On the other side of the country, Gambling911.com analyst Christopher Costigan saw reasons for Ron Paul supporters to "look on the bright side." Costigan made seven key points:
1. Ron Paul got 10% of the vote and was within striking distance of both John McCain and Fred Thompson, the later of whom is likely to drop out of the race after New Hampshire.

2. Ron Paul came in third place in Johnson County, which perhaps has the closest demographics to that of New Hampshire. It is home to the progressive college town of Iowa City, full of young voters who Paul's campaign is reliant on.

3. He beat Rudy Giuliani by a landslide and Giuliani is considered the frontrunner nationally. And like Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul did not focus as aggressively on the state of Iowa.

4. Wolf Blitzer of CNN called Ron Paul's showing "impressive".

5. With McCain and Thompson tied for 3rd, Ron Paul technically came in 4th place.

6. There were some counties in Iowa where Ron Paul excelled.

7. Iowa is not an Internet state and the inquiries coming in for Ron Paul (and Internet traffic in general) is not very heavy from Iowa. The great news is that the most significant search inquiries for Ron Paul were coming in from Texas, California, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Tennessee, Massachusetts and California.
The Iowa caucuses are a terrific throwback to a purer, more personable form of democracy. The caucuses are more than just early cogs in the presidential nomination machine. Watching C-SPAN tonight, one would have seen a Democratic precinct caucus in Des Moines debating various resolutions aimed at influencing the state Democratic party's platform, on issues like road maintenance, education, and health care.

Still, because they have arcane rules and attract so few participants, they are not an accurate bellwether for future primary contests. New Hampshire, as Sean O'Brien noted, is different from Iowa. And Virginia is different from New Hampshire. Whether they use caucuses, conventions, or primaries, there are fifty different contests (more, if you count D.C. and the territories) in each party leading to the presidential nomination. Iowa is just the first in line.

Changing Charlottesville Real Estate Market

Local blogger Jim Duncan, who has been kind enough to link to this blog on several occasions from his own RealCentralVA.com, was featured in a news report on WVIR-TV Thursday night, reported by David Douglas.

The text version of the report on the station's web site (which also makes the fuller video report available) notes:

Numbers from the Multiple Listing Service show end of year home inventory has climbed from December 2005, when there was just over five months of available inventory on the market. That climbed to nine months in 2006.

Today, there are 18 months of inventory on the market. But realtors caution sellers and buyers not to buy into the mentality that there's a nationwide housing slump. Instead, they say each market, is its own.

"Even within our market it's very localized, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, some neighborhoods are selling more rapidly than others," said realtor Jim Duncan.
Jim reacts to the television news report here. He calls it a "not-so-terrible story."

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Schilling Returns to the Airwaves

Coy Barefoot mentioned it on his afternoon chat show today, and Bryan McKenzie wrote about it in a column in yesterday's Daily Progress, so the news isn't particularly fresh: Charlottesville radio personality Rob Schilling is returning to the air.

Schilling, a former Republican City Council member, served as temporary co-host of WINA's morning show for several months. He will now have his own daily gig, in between a more full-bodied Neal Boortz show (expanded to its former length of three hours, including the "Information Overload Hour" from noon to 1:00 p.m.) and Bill O'Reilly's 120-minute radio promo for his cable TV show.

Here's how Bryan McKenzie reported the WINA-AM schedule shift:

“The Schilling Show” will air from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Saturdays.

Mr. Schilling joined WINA’s morning show with Jane Foy as a temporary replacement for longtime host Dick Mountjoy, who left to battle cancer. Mr. Schilling left the show in September after management at the station decided to place program manager Rick Daniels in the position.

The new Schilling sandwich is courtesy of local listeners who wanted Mr. Schilling back. They called, cajoled and even blogged the station, begging for his return.

“I always knew that I was an interim host and I expected to be off the show in March [2007] but it lasted until September,” Mr. Schilling said. “There were a lot of people in the community who supported me being on the air and that’s very humbling.”
Schilling described his approach to his new radio program to McKenzie like this:
“It’ll have that watchdog approach toward government and issues and we’ll come at things less from a party view than from a commonsense view,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of experience on the inside and the outside and look at issues differently than they may be covered in the news. I have a lot to say based on my experience.”

Mr. Schilling, who took calls from constituents for four years, is again looking forward to a ringing phone.

“I think it will be a lot of fun. I would love to have a caller-driven show, but we’re only looking at an hour during the week and an hour goes quickly. On Saturday mornings we’ll have more time.”
Adding an hour of Boortz and an hour of Schilling each weekday means that WINA is giving UVa Law School grad Laura Ingraham the boot. (Frankly, I would rather that they had retained her instead of O'Reilly, who can be as grating and monotonous as Ingraham is cheeky and unpredictable.)

It is good to see that WINA is bucking the industry trend by reducing its syndicated talk-show hours in favor of more local hosts and topics.

Now if only the station would bring back Joey Reynolds.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

New Candidate in 2008 Virginia Senate Race

William Redpath of Leesburg has announced his intention to seek the Libertarian Party's nomination for the U.S. Senate in Virginia this year. If he wins the party's nod, he will face likely Democratic candidate Mark Warner and likely Republican candidate Jim Gilmore in the November general election.

This is a partial rematch for Redpath, who ran against Warner and Republican nominee Mark Earley in the 2001 gubernatorial election. Redpath received 14,497 votes (or 0.77%) of the statewide total. His running mate, Gary Reams, who was seeking the Lieutenant Governor's job, received 28,783 votes, or 1.57%.

Currently national chairman of the Libertarian Party, Bill Redpath also was a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in 1993, facing longtime incumbent Vince Callahan. (That year there were seven LP candidates for the House of Delegates, including five in contiguous Northern Virginia districts.)

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

First Post of the Year


Besides being the first day of 2008, today is also significant because it would have been Senator Barry Goldwater's 99th birthday.

In a memoir published in 1988, shortly after he retired from the U.S. Senate, Goldwater wrote of his early years in the Arizona Territory (pp. 34-35):

Three people -- my mother, an uncle, and a teacher -- finally convinced me that contributing something to the community was a lot pleasanter life than getting my britches burned in all kinds of trouble. My brother, sister, and some friends stood by my side when the going got tough.

My mother was a very individualistic woman, patriotic and dedicated to her community. Uncle Morris offered decades of public service to Arizona politics and the Masonic Order. Sandy Patch, one of my instructors at Staunton Military Academy, was one of the finest military officers this country ever produced.

My mother had a greater influence on my life than any other individual. It seems worth recalling some of those early years to see how and why the character of one person can leave such an impression on another. One of the things I remember best about Mun -- the three of us always called my mother that -- was our annual summer trip from Phoenix to the cool beaches of Southern California.

Mun and her three desert rats drove to California every summer because Phoenix was too hot. The trip across the Arizona and California deserts took about a week.... We had about two dozen flat tires each way. My brother, Bob, and I patched the innner tubes in mostly 120-degree heat.

Mun wore knickers, leggings, and a beat-up old hat that she'd tilt at odd angles to make us laugh. She was about five feet four inches tall and a hundred pounds of double-barreled action. Mun was a tomboy who loved the outdoors -- camping, hunting, fishing, and climbing. She was spunky and spontaneous, and she spoiled us rotten.

Dad was home minding the store. Outdoor exercise was not his game.

Mun had the uncanny ability of having fun and teaching at the same time. She kept her rifle cocked along the meandering route for coyotes, rattlesnakes, or any other critter that might bother her brood. We learned a lot about guns, camping, and protecting one another. Learning from her was never boring. None of us ever forgot those adventurous treks across the desert because she had so much time to pepper us with her wit and wisdom....

She stitched the forty-seventh and forty-eighth stars on our flag when New Mexico and Arizona entered the union. I was only three years old at the time. She talked about that day for years.

My mother spoke a lot about our country when we were kids -- our heritage of freedom, the history of Arizona, how individual initiative had made the desert bloom. Mun was a conservative Republican and proud of it.
You may have noticed a brief reference to "Staunton Military Academy" in the second paragraph quoted. That is Barry Goldwater's connection to Central Virginia: He spent his high school years in the Shenandoah Valley, just across the mountain from Charlottesville. (Of course, in the early 1920s, traveling between Charlottesville and Staunton was a lot harder than just hopping on Interstate 64 and heading west for about 40 miles.)

Goldwater recalls his years in Staunton on pages 51 through 55 of his eponymous memoir:
My father was always fashionably dressed. Some people called him a dandy because he wore pince-nez glasses and was elegant even when playing poker and billiards at the Arizona Club. However, fashion and elegance were his business. Goldwaters [department store] had a reputation for quality -- the latest and best fashion, especially for women.

Dad was also a very private person. He confided in few people apart from our mother. However, he didn't always hide his feelings, especially about my comportment in high school. One evening at family dinner, he was looking down at me over his pince-nez like I was the two of spades. Dad may have liked cards, but not wild ones.

He didn't care that I'd been elected president of the freshman class or that I was good enough for both the football and basketball teams. His voice lowered as his eyebrows raised. My father said sternly that I was going to Staunton Military Academy in Virginia, and there wasn't going to be any back talk. I felt as though I'd just been sentenced to the state pen. It seemed the whole family was ready to form a firing squad -- except my mother. She was worried about my being so far from home. Dad appeared to say, the farther away, the better -- until I learned some discipline. Then I could come home and return to school in Arizona.
In a long passage about his year as a "Rat" (a first-year student) at the Academy, Goldwater has this minor digression, which should raise a chuckle among certain Ron Paul supporters:
I only had one fight. That was with my first roommate. I owed him money for something and paid him in silver dollars. He'd never seen a silver dollar and said it wasn't U.S. money. I'd never seen paper money, although we talked about it at home. So we put up our dukes and fought a financial war.
True to Goldwater senior's wishes, young Barry did learn discipline:
In my senior year at Staunton, I won the outstanding cadet award and was offered an appointment to West Point. However, my father was not well, and Mother thought it best that I return home.

It was a big mistake. I should have gone to the Point. To this day, I believe I was better equipped, psychologically, to be a military officer than a politician.

Politics is a life that is often out of focus, that rises and falls with the tide of events and everchanging public opinion. For the most part, the military has clear, singular goals. If I had my life to live over again, I'd go to West Point.

The concepts of duty, honor, and country are genuine to me. Patriotism is real. There's no greater service to this country than the defense of its freedom.
Barry Goldwater was a military officer, of course, as well as a politician. And his country is better off because he chose that latter course. (And whether, in the 21st century, the "military has clear, singular goals," is a question quite worthy of exploration -- and doubt.)

On his 99th birthday, let us salute Senator Barry Goldwater. What a celebration we shall have in the centenary year of 2009!