GOP opens office in northern Va.

Media General News Service
Published: May 20, 2008

ARLINGTON, Va.—In a bid to show the Virginia GOP is ready to compete in Northern Virginia, state party chairman John Hager cut the ribbon on a new office here Monday.

“This is where our biggest challenge is and our biggest opportunity,” Hager said after a ceremony with Rick Davis, John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, and leading Virginia Republican activists.

The Virginia GOP’s first ever office in this part of the state is collocated with McCain’s national headquarters in Crystal City, an area near the Pentagon that is teeming with defense contractors.

“We must seriously focus on Northern Virginia,” said Republican National Committeeman and Arlington resident Morton Blackwell. “The voting trends up here have not been good.”

Blackwell supported Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney before coming around to McCain, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee.

When asked if McCain would help the party win moderate Republicans in the fall, Blackwell was blunt.

“I hope not,” Blackwell said.

Blackwell was one of several people here who think winning Northern Virginia does not have to equate to winning moderate voters.

Virginia Democrats used the GOP’s move-in celebration as another chance to say that McCain is “in lockstep with (President) George Bush.“

“Virginia doesn’t need or want the third Bush term McCain is offering us,“ said Democratic spokeswoman Danae Jones.

Hager said an office in the Washington suburb is just part of the Republican Party’s strategy to win the state for McCain in November.

“Virginia is still a conservative state,” he said.

While about a hundred party activists milled around inside the campaign office—some eating a lunch brought in from Chick-Fil-A, others writing campaign contribution checks—a handful of conservatives demonstrated outside against McCain’s candidacy.

Wearing shirts that said “Republicans Against Maverick McCain,” the group wants Republicans to leave ballots blank or write in a presidential candidate in November.

“I’m a conservative before I’m a Republican,” said Michael McLaughlin of McLean, Va.

Bob Shoemaker of Vienna, Va., said, “We want a Republican who represents Republican ideals.“

“Eighty percent of the party is against amnesty and our nominee is an amnesty king,” he said, referring to the senator’s compromise position on immigration reform.

Inside David Lakin, of Arlington, talked about his switch eight years before from Democrat to Republican.

It was based on national security, he said, the same thing that will help McCain in areas like Northern Virginia this cycle.

“I think the Republican Party has work to do. But it’s not anything we can’t overcome,” Lakin said.

(Contact Neil at .)