My asessment of Earley may well be off, but it was formed by listening to my neighbors, who are farmers and blue collar workers with long memories. The VAGOP should let Earley go. He won't change the minds of people in gravel road country. They already feel like they got burned by electing him AG.
Now, let's run that noveau riche carpetbagger back to wherever he's claiming to have come from this week.
I doubt that will be a problem. Jerry Kilgore is Virginia's new rising star and to go for any other statewide office Earley will have to line up behind Kilgore, Gilmore and supposedly (from a comment last night) even John Hager.
That may be a moot point. Unless John Warner retires next year - and currently he does not plan to - we don't have a "vacancy" for Earley to fill, and the GOP nod for Governor in 2005 will go to Kilgore.