Even though it is late, here are the Friday Five.

1. What is your favorite time of year? It’s a toss up between fall and spring, but if I have to choose I’ll go with fall.

2. What is it about your favorite season that, well, makes it your favorite season? Football weather, the cool air and fall colors, plus the November elections. Sorry, too much of a pol to not factor that one in.

3. What is your least favorite time of year? Why? Summer. You can always get warm no matter how cold it is, but you can’t keep cool if it’s 110 degrees outside.

4. Do you do anything to celebrate or recognize the changing of seasons? Um, no. Watch football?

5. What’s your favorite thing to do outside? Most things that involve the outdoors make my list, but the top of the list has to be hiking in the Shenandoah. If I can’t get there, then walking around Downtown Fredericksburg does in a pinch.

As for the Virginia Republican Party, we seem to be doing pretty well. It seems as if more conservatives voted for Bob Dole in ’96 than George Dubbya in ’00, while the Dems turned out thier Labor and minority votes in droves. One would think this would indicate that we need to run on issues that appeal to conservative voters, right? Well, not to our moderate “win-at-any-cost” friends on State Central who seem to believe that the solution is just to contact these conservatives and tell them to vote for someone that doesn’t share their values and don’t believe in.

If the reason why we lost the gubernatorial elections in ’01 was because our candidates watered down their message in Southwestern Virginia and tried to convince folks in Northern Virginia that they were tried and true conservatives, then maybe the problem isn’t that conservatives aren’t voting. Maybe we just need to run on the issues rather than running to win. Not to throw caution to the wind, but there is a difference between running to win and running to win at all costs. You don’t sell out to win votes, it’s as simple as that.