Frederick: Conservative values didn’t fail GOP

By JONATHAN HUNLEY

Published: December 2, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama's win last month reflects the failure of Republicans to offer common-sense solutions rather than a problem with conservative philosophy, the chairman of the Virginia GOP said Tuesday.

At a meeting of reporters and editors from around the state, Del. Jeff Frederick of Woodbridge said that former Gov. Mark Warner didn't mention he was a Democrat in ads this year for his successful run for U.S. Senate, and he noted that Obama ran at least partially on a platform of tax cuts, usually a Republican staple.

"This isn't a failure of conservative values," he said at AP Day at the Capital.

The GOP's hangup was in moving those values forward, Frederick said. For example, a staunch pro-life voter isn't thinking about abortion when he's stuck in traffic, he's wondering how he can get home quicker.

But Frederick's Democratic counterpart didn't buy the argument. He said his party's wins didn't come because they were "acting like Republicans."

"It's basically a victory for the middle," said longtime Western Virginia politico Richard Cran-well, who leads the state Democrats.

Politics is like football or basketball, Cranwell said. If you've got the best players, you win. "I think we had a better message," he said.

Regardless of the quality of the message, it got out—at least in the Prince William area.

Virginia Commonwealth University political-science professor Robert Holsworth, who appeared with Frederick and Cranwell, said that Obama's margin of victory over Republican Sen. John McCain in Prince William County was larger than McCain's win margin in any jurisdiction in Virginia.

Obama carried Prince William by more than 25,000 votes, Holsworth said, and that was in a county that had trended Republican.

"There's a real change that's going on," he said.

To address that change, Frederick said the GOP has to build strong relationships with voters and seek to reach lots of different kinds of people. It's what he had to do win in a district that otherwise leans toward Democrats.

"We can't continue to be an old white guy party," he said.

The trio of speakers also addressed issues such as taxing and road funding in a wide-ranging discussion that saw Cranwell raise his hand like a schoolboy to be recognized and Frederick gesticulate with both index fingers.

The latter politician also was asked about a pre-election incident that garnered national headlines and attracted lots of hate mail.

Time magazine reported that Frederick drew a comparison between Obama and Osama bin Laden when speaking at the McCain campaign office in Gainesville.

"Both have friends who bombed the Pentagon," Frederick said in the Time story. "That is scary."

Frederick said he saw a man wearing a Rush Limbaugh T-shirt and repeated the remark told as a joke on Limbaugh's radio show.

Asked if he regretted the comment or wanted to offer an apology, Frederick searched for the right words.

But before he spoke, Cranwell piped up and said, "Just say, 'I'm sorry, yes,' " which drew laughs from the crowd.

Frederick said he was just trying to follow talking points from the McCain campaign, which had been touting Obama's supposed ties to William Ayers. Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, which was tied to domestic bombings, including one at the Pentagon in 1972.

"The fact of the matter is what I said was true," Frederick said, but he added that the response it generated wasn't worth making the comment.

He also lamented what he sees as a world of tabloid-style journalism.

"We live in a 'gotcha' society now," he said, where someone's words can overshadow his deeds.

In one of their rare moments of agreement, Cranwell said that people should give Frederick a "free pass" for saying something in the heat of a campaign.

He said he too has been "skewered" countless times by the press during his three decades in poli-tics.

"They'll probably get me today," he said.

Staff writer Jonathan Hunley can be reached at 703-369-5738.