The latest scorecard from the American Conservative Union is out, and the voters of Virginia might want to file a complaint about truth in advertising with the press corps. Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner have routinely been portrayed in news reports as “moderates” and “centrists.” But after two years in the Senate, Tim Kaine has a perfect zero on the conservative scale. Mark Warner has a lifetime score of 10.33 percent conservative, but his last two annual scores have been a 4 and an 8. They could be mistaken for Barbara Mikulski (lifetime rating of 5.1).
Mark Warner
By Tim Graham | November 6, 2014 | 5:15 PM EST
The squeaker of an election between Sen. Mark Warner and Republican Ed Gillespie is not a result that was either foreseen or desired by the liberals at The Washington Post. On September 14, I noted Gillespie's entire campaign was consigned to the back pages of the Metro section.
The shamelessly partisan Post wants to publicize nothing that helps Gillespie. This story appeared on page B-4. So which Gillespie story has appeared on Page 1? It came on September 3 with this headline: “Va. underdog Gillespie may have his eye on next race.”
Politifact Virginia Lamely Implies Sen. Warner Never Promised 'If You Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It'
By Tim Graham | September 29, 2014 | 3:27 PM EDT The people at PolitiFact clearly don't like being used in Republican ads. PolitiFact Virginia has designated a new Republican ad against Sen. Mark Warner as "False" for underlining he promised he wasn't voting for any bill that would eliminate your health care plan....and then he voted for Obamacare.
Somehow, GOP challenger Ed Gillespie is judged as wrong to suggest Politifact called this the "Lie of the Year," or suggesting it applies to every Democrat pushing Obamacare, not just Obama.
Bad Obamacare News for Dems? WashPost Keeps Burying Virginia Republican Senate Contender on Page B-4
By Tim Graham | September 14, 2014 | 8:40 AM EDT The shamelessly partisan Washington Post wants to publicize nothing that helps Republican Ed Gillespie make up ground on Democratic Sen. Mark Warner. A story on 250,000 Virginians losing their insurance coverage because it doesn't meet Obamacare standards appeared on page B-4.
So which Gillespie story has appeared on Page 1? It came on September 3: “Va. underdog Gillespie may have his eye on next race.”
By Tim Graham | May 10, 2014 | 9:49 AM EDT
NPR named a new CEO on Friday. His name is Jarl Mohn (pronounced “Yarl Moan”), who was a founder of the cable channel E and an executive at MTV and VH-1.
Leftists might worry with these corporate connections, but Mohn has been a major donor to Pasadena NPR station KPCC – as well as a major donor to Barack Obama and the DNC. For 15 years, from 1994 to 2009, he chaired the board of the ACLU of Southern California. His Mohn Family Foundation has continued to support the group.
AP Hails 'Centrist' Mark Warner (D-Va.) Landing Coveted GOP Endorsement; Voting Record Shows He's Far From Moderate
By Ken Shepherd | January 27, 2014 | 4:26 PM EST He has a lifetime American Conservative Union (ACU) score of 12.5 (his lowest marks were in 2011 with a score of 5), a 100 percent rating by the NARAL Pro-Choice America, a zero rating from the National Right to Life, and a solid 85 percent in 2012 (the last year the ADA scored) from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. With numbers like that, Virginia's senior senator Mark Warner (D) may be a rather plain vanilla legislator when it comes to rhetoric and demeanor -- he's no bombastic camera mugger like say Chuck Schumer -- but he is far from a political moderate on either economic or social issues.
Yet in reporting on Republican senator John Warner (no relation) endorsing the former governor's 2014 reelection bid instead of getting behind former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie's bid for the seat, the Associated Press's Larry O'Dell described Mark Warner as a "centrist" and uncritically forwarded the meme that both Warners exemplify the sort of bipartisan collegiality that is missing in Washington today but which Americans and Virginians particularly long for (emphasis mine):
WashPost Prints 'Right Turn' Blogger On Op-ed Page Trashing a Conservative, Skips Her Attack on 'Hagel Sinking'
By Tim Graham | February 1, 2013 | 1:32 PM EST
The Washington Post somehow calls one of their blogs “Right Turn: Jennifer Rubin’s take from a conservative perspective.” This is an odd title when Rubin complains that a politician is destroying himself and the Republican Party by advocating conservative principles. Rubin was put on the Post op-ed page on Friday trashing Virginia’s Attorney General and GOP candidate for governor this fall: “It is not like I didn’t spot the Ken Cuccinelli train wreck coming up around the bend.”
Then, in another blog from her pro-Israel perch, Rubin blasted Chuck Hagel, but this take did not make the newspaper: “It’s fascinating, actually, to see a nominee of this importance do so poorly. Chuck Hagel, nominated for defense secretary, has gone from awful to atrocious today... It is unclear whether he was not prepped properly, whether he refused to be coached or whether he simply isn’t bright.”
By Tim Graham | September 21, 2010 | 8:07 AM EDT
The Washington Post's undisguised loathing for conservative Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is on display again Tuesday. Post reporter Anita Kumar put him on the "far right" and questioned the propriety (and even the constitutionality) of his working relationship with other Republicans in Richmond.
Kumar began by noting a list of Cuccinell's "controversial" legal opinions, that "police could check the immigration status of those stopped by law-enforcement officers, that the state could impose stricter oversight of clinics that perform abortions and that local governments could allow religious holiday displays on public property. In each instance, the request for the opinion came from the same person: Del. Robert G. Marshall (Prince William), a like-minded Republican who shares Cuccinelli's far-right views."
Kumar obviously asked it this "symbiotic relationship" was unconstitutional legal activism that goes around the legislature:
By Mike Sargent | December 10, 2009 | 12:10 PM EST
The Washington Post has a problem with partisan memory loss.
Many of you may have heard of the recent nastiness of a Virginia homeowners’ association attempting to deny Colonel Van T. Barfoot (U.S. Army, Ret.), a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, the right to erect a flagpole in his own front yard. If you are like me, you heard about this first on Wednesday, December 2, on the Mark Levin radio show.
If you’re like the Washington Post, however, you heard about it from Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) on December 3, 2009.
Today’s WaPo story, by Christian Davenport, sums up the participants in the flagpole fracas in this way:
Many of you may have heard of the recent nastiness of a Virginia homeowners’ association attempting to deny Colonel Van T. Barfoot (U.S. Army, Ret.), a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, the right to erect a flagpole in his own front yard. If you are like me, you heard about this first on Wednesday, December 2, on the Mark Levin radio show.
If you’re like the Washington Post, however, you heard about it from Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) on December 3, 2009.
Today’s WaPo story, by Christian Davenport, sums up the participants in the flagpole fracas in this way:
By Ken Shepherd | October 7, 2008 | 1:34 PM EDT
With Virginia as a battleground state in the 2008 election and given Democrat Barack Obama's damaging gaffe earlier this year about rural voters clinging "to guns or religion", a new gaffe by another Democrat should be worthy of media attention. It remains to be seen if the mainstream media will even notice. (h/t Reformed Chicks Blabbing)
Running to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Republican John Warner, former Gov. Mark Warner (no relation) has a healthy lead in recent polls and the admiration of a pliant media. Yet an audio recording of Warner at a Democratic Party gathering caught the candidate disparaging gun owners, home schoolers, and religious conservatives as "threatening to what it means to be an American."
Republican opponent and former Gov. Jim Gilmore has a campaign ad (embedded below the fold) that features the audio:
By Colleen Raezler | August 26, 2008 | 6:46 PM EDT
During Monday’s convention coverage, CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin fretted that the Democrats weren’t doing enough Bush-bashing. Tuesday afternoon, CNN aired two segments during the 1:00 hour of CNN’s Newsroom in which they promoted Democrat fears that Virginia Senate candidate Mark Warner “won’t go for the jugular” in his speech tonight.White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux highlighted the split between Hillary Clinton supporters and Barack Obama supporters in the first segment. She stated, “A lot of the Clinton camp want that kind of attack dog, want that red meat to be thrown to the delegates. They're ready -- they're ready for that fight. The Obama folks, a little bit more laid back about it, saying, look, you know, we're reaching across the aisle. We want to reach out to the independents and some of the Republicans. A little less, though, of that red meat style.” In the second segment congressional correspondent Dana Bash labeled the Democratic former Virginia governor a “moderate” and “more socially conservative” and drew parallels between his keynote address and that of Obama’s in 2004 before she noted “there's a little bit of concern about the fact that he's not going to be -- sort of go for the jugular the way that many Democrats are hoping that they really step up here at this convention here in Denver.”
By Tim Graham | January 10, 2006 | 5:42 PM EST
In the Promoting 2008 Democratic Presidential Hopefuls category, the Washington Post carried a goopy story promoting outgoing Gov. Mark Warner, hailed by some as the Southern-fried moderate alternative to Hillary "I Love New York So Much I Adopted It" Clinton. George Will used to scour Reagan by disdaining his "Morning in America goo." What the Post gave us today is "Morning in Virginia goo."