Shaun Kenney

Just this weekend, Sarah (the youngest Kenney) chose to figure out how the DVD player in my office works. She chose option 23: Opening the disc tray and leaning on it. This successfully knocked it off track, and while I kissed my daughter repeatedly for doing so, Mrs. Kenney went straight to work.

Determined not to plunk $100 on a new DVD player, we cracked the top open and discovered the tray to be slightly off track. Repaired, and probably on it’s 80th showing of “The King and I” the DVD player lives to see another series of years, even if Sarah continues to make a beeline for the machine whenever the opportunity presents itself.

The lesson? Most folks would have thrown that DVD player out. It was jammed, it couldn’t be fixed, it might have taken hours, etc. Mrs. Kenney has a fairly insatiable appetite for figuring out how things work and repairing them… and I just happen figure things can be fixed. Just because there’s a cover on there doesn’t mean it operates by magic, after all. It’s a machine with moveable parts! If someone put it together, someone can ideally see if the fix is doable, right?

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Today is the 22nd anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s epic speech in front of the Berlin Wall.

Hard to believe there is an entire generation of Americans (not too much younger than myself) with barely any idea of what the Soviet Union was, or why the Berlin Wall was built and what it represented.

I don’t often agree with Rachel Maddow, but there’s no question regarding her intellect. She is probably the most intelligent talking head on television today.  Though I do disagree with her often, the clips and thoughts I do see have the virtue of at least being well thought through.

So when it came down to the question of the status of prisoners/detainees at Guantanamo Bay, I was mildly shocked that Maddow broke away from the fawning most folks expect from the MSNBC crowd.  Instead, she absolutely hammers Obama — and correctly — on the idea of prolonged detention:

Prolonged detention?

At least under the old framework, terrorists were held under a military tribunal. Now, Obama purports to create a “legal framework” for prolonged detentions

? Without benefit of the rule of law or trial? For an act one might do as opposed to an act done?  Tearing down the rule of law for the sake of preventing future, presupposed actions by a few?

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EDIT:  Apparently this was not an exclusive… someone leaked the offical RPV numbers to McAuliffe supporter Ben Tribbett before the Virginia rightosphere received them.  Congratulations to Ben for the scoop.

There has been a lot of back-and-forth on the RPV State Convention Results.  And although preliminary numbers show Bolling with an 86% win (the highest in Virginia history) and Mullins with 76%, there has been a great deal of last-minute misinformation.  

EDIT x2:

 WaPo’s Anita Kumar reports 84% for Bolling and 70% for Mullins.

For instance, Brownlee’s swan song offered the following:

Well, the Convention is over, the votes have been counted, and we came up a little short. Although the actual result will not be officially released (Dave Foster and I asked that Ken Cuccinelli’s nomination be made unanimous), we understand our campaign mustered approximately 42% of the vote in the 3-way race. For that, I greatly appreciate all who attended and supported our campaign.

42%?  Really?

A face saving 42% isn’t so bad… until you get the real numbers.  

According to soon-to-be-released numbers, Brownlee’s campaign for Attorney General barely cleared one-third of the convention attendees — Brownlee received a paltry 37%.  

Ken Cuccinelli’s performance had been judged by most outsiders before the convention to be a razor-thin chance at surviving the Brownlee-Foster pincer movement.  If one only listened to the critics, Cuccinelli was on the verge of being swallowed up by a one-two punch.

The real numbers?  According to well-placed sources, Ken Cuccinelli delivered a resounding 57% of the convention delegate votes — a 20 point drubbing for Mr. Brownlee that left no doubt as to who the grassroots selected to carry the battle standard for the Republican Party’s AG nod.

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David Ray is a State Central Committee member from the 11th District and a staunch conservative.  This is a rather lengthy and intense debate within the Republican Party of Virginia, and has long been a topic of coversation.  Ray does an outstanding job of outlining the problem in its entirety, and distributed this work to most of the folks on Bloggers Row at the state convention.

I forward it with his permission here for your perusal (nay — you should print this and read over lunch this week) and consideration.

Convention vs. Primary?

Obviously the rest of my blogger allies in Richmond are going to be posting a series of items.  Rather than attempt to give you a story, I’ll give you observations — albeit randomly — and in real time.  Some of the things you can’t communicate to the rest of the world are items like the atmosphere, conversations about idea, or the sights and sounds.  Hopefully, I’ll do my best to communicate this.

Firstly…

1.  RPV Bloggers Row is excellent — right up front and close to the action.  The MSM press box?  Tucked away and to the back.  Some reporters aren’t happy about the arrangement, as NBC 12’s Ryan Nobles comments

ryanobles  http://twitpic.com/699e3 – My view at #rpv09. Press row is not as choice as bloggers row.

There was a general sentiment that most folks knew what the MSM was going to write, and probably negative towards the RPV.  So…  Not only are the digs better for bloggers, but access to principles is excellent.  Jim Hoeft over at Bearing Drift is practically scoring every interview possible (in fact, they are coming to him).  I wouldn’t quite call it “blood in the water” in a sense, but the idea that independent bloggers will get the message out in a professional manner has been made very clear.  

2.  Acoustics.  Yes it’s the Colossieum, and the A/V is pretty good.  But the bounce off the back end of the court is noticable.  Almost like having a convention in a cave!

3.  Jim Hoeft and I are getting ready to interview Rep. Eric Cantor at 11am.  No idea whether it will be simulcast over the web, but check back to the McDonnell website and RPV.org.

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This weekend, I had the chance to sit down and speak at length with RPV Chairman Pat Mullins.  For a good hour, Mullins went back and forth about his thoughts for building back the Republican Party in Virginia, as well as how conservative principles should inform and lead the party.  

One thing that continually impressed me was Mullins’ attention to personalities.  As a communicator, you couldn’t ask for a more personal touch.  

Moreover, Mullins went into great detail as to why Virginia Republicans have performed so poorly in recent elections, and how we can regain our majority in the Senate, build on our majority in the House, and take back the Governor’s Mansion in 2009.  My questions are in bold, all answers are paraphrased as fast as I could type the answers.

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