Virginia@: Chairman's Update: August 20, 2014

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Robert,

Has there even been a number sweeter than 21?

Last night Southwest Virginia voted overwhelmingly to send Republican Ben Chafin to the Senate of Virginia (a 2-1 margin, no less!), locking in Republican control of the General Assembly for the rest of this Senate term.

Congratulations to Senator-elect Chafin, Majority Leader Tommy Norment, and the entire team that worked so hard for so long! Democrats threw everything they had Ben -- false ads, deceptive direct mail, and outright lies -- but in the end voters saw through it all and realized that the future of Southwest Virginia is best served by sending a Republican majority to Richmond!

It's been a long time coming. Back in 2009, Senator Bryce Reeves got us to 20, and now Ben Chafin and his team carried us to 21!

Tuesday was also a watershed moment in the history of our Commonwealth.

Due in in no small part to the liberal policies of President Obama and Mark Warner, there is no longer a single coal country General Assembly Democrat in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mark Warner and other Democrats long ago abandoned the coal fields. Now, voters have returned the favor.

But Tuesday is also the first tangible evidence of a coming Republican wave in November. In both Southwest and Northern Virginia, Republicans have outperformed expectations.

Even in deep blue Arlington County, our Republican team has put up numbers that many would have thought impossible -- outperforming last year's ticket by 10 points, running equal to our 2009 landslide!

Dave Foster ran a solid campaign and is to be congratulated for carrying our banner well in a tough district. I also want to thank Marcus Calabrese for running a great campaign in Norfolk.

Virginians are tired of the malaise that President Obama, Mark Warner, Terry McAuliffe, Dick Saslaw, and Don McEachin have delivered. And come November, they're going to make that abundantly clear -- again.

And it's important to remember that all the work these campaigns did, win or lose, will help carry the ball down the field in November. All the Republicans they mobilized for August aren't going anywhere before November!

Of course, you'd never know that we're on the march if you read the mainstream media like the Washington Post. Just today they published a story about how our latest State Central meeting — where we resolved several outstanding appeals and came out unified and ready to beat Mark Warner — is going to cost us elections!

I usually don't talk about such things in these columns, but this latest story is just everything that's wrong with the media. Late, inaccurate, and missing the big picture.

Reading a story like this makes me wonder why we even trust them to report on the weather. It's a prime example of Gell-Man amnesia. Michael Chriton, the famous author, explained it like this:

"You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the 'wet streets cause rain' stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.'

Folks, if Washington Post can't get a State Central committee meeting right, what else are they getting wrong? Probably most of it. I think I'd be less angry if it was just bias. Bias is bad -- but it's explainable and understandable.

But ignorance? There's just no excuse for that. Virginians demand better -- which is probably why so many newspapers are on their way to extinction. I know I've tried to explain thing to reporters on many occasisions. And in many instances, when ignorance is cured, the bias kicks in.

As more and more attention shifts to the U.S. Senate race, look for more mainstream media types to start asking questions about how "broken" and "demoralized' our party is (after all, we just took back the state Senate, how happy could we be?) If they come to you, I hope you'll do what I do and offer a cheerful "We're focused on winning in November" and let that be the end of it!

Regardless of what the Washington Post thinks, now we turn our attention to a very vulnerable Mark Warner. Tuesday's results show that his record just doesn't play anywhere outside of the extremely liberal D.C. Beltway area.

He's abandoned the vast majority of Virginia, and it's up to us to show voters just how bad his record is.

To do that, we need resources. I know I've asked before, but every time I ask, you all surprise me with your commitment.

Senator Ted Cruz sent out an email recently, asking for 1,000 Virginia patriots to chip in $35 each to help us win. We've seen a tremendous response! If you haven't chipped in yet, please click here and do so!

We've got the Virginia Senate. Now let's go get the U.S. Senate!