Free Republic

Dennis Patrick “Pat” Mullins, who served as the chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia from 2009 to 2015, was identified Monday as the victim of a single-vehicle crash a day earlier in Hanover County. Mr. Mullins, who lived in Bumpass in Louisa County, was 79. He took over chairmanship of the state GOP the same year that Bob McDonnell led a sweep of the state’s top three offices — governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.... (snip)

The U.S. Supreme Court vacated former Gov. Bob McDonnell's conviction on corruption charges Monday morning. The decision was unanimous, according to SCOTUSblog, which is tracking opinion releases this morning in Washington, D.C. The court overturned a decsion that rose out of the U.S. District Court in Richmond, then was affirmed by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The nut of the government's case against McDonnell, and his wife Maureen, was this: In taking some $177,000 in gifts and loans from businessman Jonnie Williams, and then setting meetings Williams sought to gain legitimacy for a controversial dietary supplement, the McDonnells engaged...

(AP)WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has failed to qualify for Virginia's March 6 Republican primary, a development that complicates his bid to win the GOP presidential nomination. "After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10K signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary," the Republican Party of Virginia announced early Saturday on its Twitter website. Perry also fell short of the 10,000 signatures of registered voters required for a candidate's name to be on the primary ballot, but former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul will be on the...

For those coming in late, let me summarize*: both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have been excluded from the Virginia Republican primary by the Virginia GOP. This has placed the VA GOP in an awkward situation, given that: they have excluded the current national and Virginian front-runner from their own ballot; have currently no write-in option on the ballot; do have an open primary that anyone can vote in; and generally have created an environment peculiarly suited for conspiracy theories involving Mitt Romney (and ones that won’t contain the word ‘Mormon’ anywhere in their description, by the way). The current...

Virginia's Republican chairman said Tuesday that his remark tying Democrat Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden during the presidential campaign was stupid, but he refused to apologize. During the campaign, GOP head Jeff Frederick told a small group of Republican volunteers that "both Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden have friends that have bombed the Pentagon." The remark, a reference to Obama's ties years ago to 1960s-era radical William Ayers, was condemned by Democrats and Republicans after it was published in Time magazine. Ayers was a founder of the Weather Underground, a radical, Vietnam War-era group that claimed responsibility for...

U.S. Rep. Thelma Drake on Wednesday refused to concede victory to challenger Glenn Nye and said through a spokesman that she is waiting for the results of absentee ballots to be added to vote totals. Nearly 27,000 absentee ballots in Virginia Beach need to be included in the final tally, said Anne Rinehart, the city's chief of absentee ballots. The counting was suspended Wednesday afternoon and will resume this morning.

Republicans lost the governorship of Kentucky and the state senate in Virginia last week. But the elections were not as bad as they looked for Republicans. Knocked down and trampled on by Democrats in 2006, Republicans are at least back on their feet in 2007. The Democratic trend in Virginia, especially in the suburbs of Washington and urban centers of Hampton Roads, was the most discouraging aspect for Republicans. It reinforced the likelihood that former Democratic governor Mark Warner will win the seat of retiring Republican senator John Warner next year and suggested the long Democratic drought at the presidential...

The multibillion-dollar transportation plan Virginia lawmakers approved earlier this year is a constitutional train wreck that sells out the party's basic tenets of low taxation and less government, a group of Republicans says. "This is an ongoing massacre," Delegate Robert G. Marshall, Prince William County Republican, told The Washington Times this week. "Blood has been drawn and the incumbents sure are going to take the biggest heat. . .. If the Republican leadership thinks they can get out of this unscathed by shutting their eyes and hoping it goes away, it is not going to work." Mr. Marshall is one...

<p>RICHMOND, Va. - The former executive director of Virginia's Republican Party was indicted Thursday on federal charges he eavesdropped on conference calls among Democratic legislators last year. Edmund A. Matricardi III, 34, was accused of using a telephone number and access codes to listen in on the teleconferences. He was charged with five counts involving the interception of electronic communications. Each count carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Matricardi resigned over the scandal but was later hired as operations director of the South Carolina Republican Party. On Thursday, after he was indicted, he resigned that post, too. "Without disclosing he was on the line, he secretly listened for approximately 2 1/2 hours and recorded the call on a tape recorder," U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said. The indictment said Matricardi disclosed the contents of the call the next day to an official in the office of Republican Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, who alerted the Virginia State Police.</p>

<p>A political action committee is being formed to support five senior Republican state senators who helped thwart former Gov. Jim Gilmore's political goal of repealing the car tax.</p> <p>All five Republican incumbents are rumored to be on a hit list of conservative Republicans who plan to challenge them for the GOP nomination next year.</p>