Class Clown Now Holds Leadership Position

I'm sure you know by now that Ward Armstrong has finally won his long fought battle for the leadership position in the Virginia Democratic Party. It's been known for some time now that Ward was working very hard to attain his new position. Ben has had several stories about it in the past few months alone.

The Roanoke Times today quotes Ward;

"The parties are kind of like flying buttresses on a building," Armstrong said. "The building falls down unless we press hard against one another, and that's what I'm to do on the floor, to press very hard and provide an alternative to their [Republican] proposals."

Armstrong said his new duties will require personal and professional sacrifices that, among other things, will affect his Henry County law practice.

"It is going to be a sacrifice from a professional standpoint, but I don't go into this with my eyes closed," he said. "That was certainly something we discussed but I pledged to do what is necessary to put this caucus first."

Thanks for clearing that up for us Ward. Somehow we here in the 10th district always suspected that something else came first on your list of priorities, now we finally get to hear you say it.

Numbers

I really don't have a problem when folks ask me how it feels to be in the small 30% who support President Bush and the troops.

I reconcile it with the fact that the other 70% knows the names of every contestant and judge on American Idol, but can't name their own two Senators and their Representative.

ODBA Blogger Featured In WaPo

Congratulations Hans....
Somebody noticed your work.

Barnie Day

I read your article today Barnie. I liked it.

I can't improve on the introduction Badrose gives you, so those first two sentences will have to do.

Carnival Time

Not only in the Crescent City, but all over Virginia. Ward Smythe has the current Virginia Blog Carnival put together. Go on over and check it out.

20th Senate District Race Has Started

If it's Saturday morning, it must be a Ruritan club breakfast. But which one? Let's see, last week it was Figsboro and the Blackberry community breakfast. The week before that Mt. Olivet and Spencer. Next week? Who knows? But don't worry Jeff; Vance Overby will keep you on schedule.

Meet Jeff Evans, candidate for the 20th Senate District. Jeff got started on this campaign well before the cold winds of winter began; he's just now broken into a stride in the race that lies ahead. I met Jeff at Honduras Coffee in Stuart one afternoon that now seems like ages ago as he was beginning his campaign.

Jeff told me then that he knew he had some hard work ahead of him. Because of his past work with the State Police and his current duties on the Carroll County Board of Supervisors he is fairly well known in his home area of Carroll, Grayson, and Wythe Counties. From the beginning of the campaign he was well aware that the keys to this race lie scattered in the many small communities on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge from Vesta to Axton. That area is the double-edged sword that hangs over his campaign. It's the area where Roscoe Reynolds is best known, but on the other hand, it's also the area where Roscoe Reynolds is best known.

The 20th Senate District is quite large, beginning in the softly rolling farmland of Axton in Henry County; it rises three quarters of a mile in elevation to Meadows of Dan and Floyd before descending into the southern New River Valley at Galax and Wythe County. It lies across the Blue Ridge Mountains like a saddle blanket.

This district is also very rural, with a couple of urban and semi-urban areas thrown into the mix for flavor. Wytheville, lying alongside I-81 and I-77 is a busy city. Galax is a full-grown city and Hillsville and Stuart and Ridgeway and Fieldale are all incorporated towns, Collinsville is larger than Stuart, and it's not even incorporated, but they all have a personality more like a village.

Even the city of Martinsville is a mere shadow of what it once was. Like Ward Armstrong, Martinsville has lost a considerable amount of weight, and not in a good way. I've never been attracted to skinny, frail women. Skinny, frail cities are even less attractive. Not only to me, but even less so to business. Businesses don't generally succumb to that phenomena known as "beer goggles".

Jeff has started his campaign by making it a point to get to every Ruritan Club function he can possibly fit into his schedule. He seldom makes a stump speech at these events, preferring instead to develop one-on-one conversations during the event. When he does speak at these breakfasts, it's always a speech laced liberally with common sense and general American values, never heavy on policy. Not yet. There is plenty of time to get into policy, after the campaign gets into full swing. Right now he simply needs to let these community leaders know exactly who he is and what he stands for. It seems to be working well for him, as I've been to most of these Saturday morning breakfasts with him and he is always well received.

The most recent Saturday morning again found Jeff eating breakfast twice, at two different Ruritan clubs. Saturday evening he and I had a great catfish dinner at Rangeley Ruritan’s benefit fish fry and dance for a member of the Rangeley community. Once again there was no Jeff Evans speech, just a cordial visit with the community. And once again he was invited back to speak to the full membership at a later date.

Who is he? And what does he stand for? I'll expound on this further in a later article, but for now I'll give you an abbreviated biography of Jeff Evans.

He is a native of Grayson County, currently living in Carroll County with his wife of 28 years, the former Janet Harmon, and their daughter, Charity. They also have a son, Aaron, who is attending West Georgia Baptist College in Douglasville, GA.

After working in various local industries in Carroll County and following a tour of duty in the United States Army, Jeff applied to the Virginia State Police. He was accepted and began his service in far southwestern Virginia at Grundy in 1978. In 1984 he transferred back to Carroll County where he retired from the State Police in 2002.

Jeff continued in public service after retirement from the State Police by running for and winning a seat on the Carroll County Board of supervisors in 2003. Now in his fourth year on the Carroll County Board of Supervisors he wants to extend his service to his home area by serving as your Senator.

Like Jeff I spent a considerable amount of time in Buchanan County. We both hold a dear affection for the coalfields and its peoples. Saturday afternoon I spent several hours with Jeff telling and re-telling stories we both have of those times. I know from experience that any outsider who is accepted in Buchanan County as one of their own is either sufficiently flexible or extremely hard, and quite possibly a combination of the two. Either way will ensure he does very well in Richmond.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will be working on the Jeff Evans campaign in an unpaid capacity. I have designed and will maintain the campaign’s website and will work with his media coordinator during the campaign when such a position is filled. There will be an advertisement banner placed on this website. That advertisement as well as all of my efforts will be fully reported as "in kind" contributions to the campaign.

From this date forward any statements made by me on this website that do not concern the 20th District Senate race are my opinions only and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Jeff Evans or the Republican Party. The sole exception to this rule is the subject of Eminent Domain. My opinion is well known regarding Mr. Reynolds’ lack of concern for this subject, when and if the Evans campaign voices an opinion on the subject I will report it as such.

Hans Mast, Reporting Live From Tyson's Corner

I wrote some time back about Hans Mast and his diligent efforts to derail Tim Kaine's efforts to push through an elevated rail system in Tyson's Corner. Hans is covering this issue thoroughly, and if you are anywhere in that proposed corridor I suggest you check out Hans' research. Actually, since it appears to be a major fiscal boondoggle in the making, you might want to learn more about it no matter where in Virginia you are.

• No Bid Contract
• Offer To Pay For Alternative From Local Business
• Alternative $200 Million Less Than Sole-Source Contract
• Kaine's Response
• Bolling Calls On Kaine To Reconsider
• Woe Unto Tyson's Commuters

Hans has been all over this issue. Go learn more about how important transportation funding issues really are to Tim Kaine.

They Finally Have Their Chance, But They Politely Decline

It never ceases to amaze me, that thing we call the liberal mind. It is quite comfortable living in a world of paradoxes. It can't stand the idea of ultimate punishment for a worthless criminal, yet it clings quite happily to the belief that it's perfectly OK to poke a baby in the head with a pair of sharp scissors, as long as that baby hasn't taken a breath yet.

But I seldom discuss abortion here, so let's move along folks. There's nothing to see.

What currently holds my fascination is the position liberal Democrats find themselves in now. After years of itching for and trying to gather momentum for a fight against fundamental religion, they finally have their chance. Hell, I'll even join them in that fight, if they would only take it up honestly. But that seems very unlikely.

Democrats want to pick their adversaries in this fight against fundamental religion. They still condemn, in the strongest of terms, fundamentalists like James Kennedy, Pat Robertson, and that real whackjob from Kansas, Fred Phelps. What they fail to realize, or at least fail to acknowledge, is that most Christians join them in much of their criticism of these guys.

Now, adherents of fundamental Islam are regularly threatening America and the Democrat Party is offering apologies for them. "They don't represent the true Muslim world" they say. Well, would someone please let the "true Muslim world" know that we need to hear from them? It would be nice if CAIR, which claims to represent the "true Muslim world" in America, would chastise those who give them a bad image. Unless CAIR agrees with those radicals, their consistent refusal to denounce terrorism does nothing to help the "true Muslim world". If it exists at all other than in a liberal Democrat mind.

Liberals finally have a chance to fight radical fundamentalism, but the problem is, it would put them on the same side of the fight as America.

I'm Back From The Past

The flux capacitor has been replaced, but I've yet to find a power source capable of producing 1.21 gigawatt's. It will be 6 days into the future before that source will become available.

It's Friday, and I don't have to go to the office. So I'm holed up in my favorite booth (smoking section, far back) at the Dutch Inn, mooching a WiFi connection.

He's not Emeril . . he's Emmett!!

He's Emmett, as in Brown. As in flux capacitor.

Emeril, I mean Emmett, plugged something (usb phone?) into his something else (I have NO idea) and his modem started smoking. He bought a new modem but so far Comcast/Adelphia hasn't been able to figure out what in the cat hair he's done.

Meanwhile, while Em's busy trying to hack into his neighbor's wireless network, he's asked me (comment #3) to hold down the fort over here. Humanitarian that I am, I agreed. So don't worry, Em. Your blog's in great hands . . .

Setting The "Tone" For The Virginia Blogosphere

No comment...

Well, I couild [sic] show you a picture of her, (Jerry & Terry Kilgore's mother) and then it would get a great deal more hilarious.

Badrose Explains It All

For the best commentary to date on the Virgil Goode/MZM/Martinsville non-controversy, go read Badrose's thoughts on the matter.

Very well done, Ms.Rose! I applaud you.

Hans Mast On Virginia's Own "Big Dig"

I've been meaning to mention this for days now. But I don't live in NOVA and the trip from Tyson's Corner to Dulles is not regularly on my agenda.

Hans Mast has been covering the proposed rail line through Tyson's Corner and the seemingly dumb decisions that have been made regarding it. Check it out;

No-Bid Contract: Dulles Metrorail Extension
Metro Tunnel Underwritten by Tysons Businesses

And these, his contributions at Raising Kaine;

http://raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6915
http://raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6944

Hans has really done his homework on this very interesting subject

A Parable, By Mayor Waldo

My previous post was in response to a recent diatribe from Waldo Jaquith directed at Rep. Virgil Goode. It was not Waldo's first foray into this realm, and I'm certain it will not be his last. Not only was my initial trackback deleted in an apparent attempt to hide the truth from his readers, my response was also met with some derision in the comment section at Waldo's site. I even was called a name based upon a rather vulgar representation of the male anatomy, by Mark Brooks, a Democrat and chair of his County's party committee. Another, a gentleman who actually appears on my right sidebar Virginia blogroll, suggested that I am somewhat dense.

My primary response to all of Waldo's rather uncouth visitors was the old adage, "put up or shut up". If any of my facts are shown to be untrue, I will publish a public retraction of that item in my original post, in a newly published post, and in the comment section of Waldo's original post.

It's been well over 24 hours since I posted yesterday's article, in today's era of the internet and Google, that's an eternity. You can find out how to build a nuclear bomb in that period of time. No one has refuted an item yet. (By this, please do not assume I am closing my challenge. It remains intact. Please research this issue and find a fallacy in my post.)

In a rather strange reply, in the comment section of his original post Waldo did in fact admit to the truthfulness of my response. He even goes so far as to turn it into a parable. (Just for Chris, Lynne, Alex, Elle and Carl, a parable is a brief story that illustrates a spiritual or moral lesson, but I'm sure you all knew that already.)

I urge you to go read all of Waldo's reply to my request for a factual refutation. It's quite an interesting little peek into the liberal mind. But first, let's all sit in a circle, join hands, and listen while Waldo relates his parable.

I’m Waldo, mayor of Nonesuchtown. I was recently reelected thanks in no small part of my friend Phil. He was my #1 campaign contributor. Phil’s from up in D.C., but he’s thinking about moving down here. He owns a couple of chain businesses, and we could certainly use some of his money down here in Nonesuchtown. So I go to Ginger, a friend and a resident of my town. I explain to Ginger, who owns some rental houses, that it’s important to the town that Phil move down here. My hope is that he’ll decide to locate some of his businesses here, which would be good for the tax base. The trouble is, I tell Ginger, he needs some persuading to move down here. If I could tell him that I’ve found a house for him with low rent and no deposit, I think he’ll do it. Ginger’s not sure, but I vouch for Phil, and she has her attorney draw up the paperwork.

Phil accepts the offer. He moves down here and rents from Ginger for a year and a half. But before any of his stores can open, he gets busted by the police. Turns out he was using the house to run a meth lab. Phil goes to prison. The house is a wreck, because that’s what running a meth lab does. It requires thousands of dollars in improvements. With no deposit, poor Ginger is stuck with the bill. She made enough in rent that she breaks even on the entire deal. But she hadn’t budgeted thousands of dollars for repair bills — that money was earmarked for her daughter’s college fund.

Who’s fault is it? Well, there’s enough blame to go around. First and foremost, it’s Phil’s fault, no question. Ginger certainly messed up taking a renter without a deposit which means that, by extent, she erred in trusting me — after all, I didn’t actually call up that Phil was a big-time investor in my campaign. Finally, I messed up — I vouched for Phil which meant that I was asking Ginger to trust me, not Phil, which of course she’d do as her friend and mayor.

I have absolutely no legal obligation to help out Ginger with her bills. She’s a big girl, and she made the deal with her eyes wide open. And I didn’t draw up her contract, although I did come up with the terms. But I do have a reelection campaign coming up in a couple of years, and I’ve got my reputation to look after. What with all of the money I made from Phil, it be so terrible to cover Ginger’s costs. (After all, it’s not really my money, anyhow — it’s my campaign’s money.)

Whether I pay back Ginger is ultimately a gamble — will the voters of Nonesuchtown care about the fact that I wrongly vouched for a criminal? Will they care to the tune of the cost of the repair bill?

Dead on analogy Waldo. It's perfect, except for just a few little details. Like all of them. You know how those details can be so messy.

Just as he did with Virgil, Waldo has misrepresented a few facts. Let's look at them, shall we?

• Ginger sold the house, she did not rent it.
• Phil's meth lab was in San Diego, not in Nonesuchtown.
• Phil did not wreck the house he bought from Ginger, instead he increased it's value by at least 50%.
• The house is still in Nonesuchtown, on the market, and will eventually add to the economy of Nonesuchtown.
• Ginger is still receiving residual payments from Phil's brother, who now owns the house.
• Ginger's repayment to the grantors was not made with her daughter's college fund. It came instead from a business account she has just for such contingencies.
  
• Ginger did not lose money on the deal, she in fact made a profit.

Again, rather than looking only at the facts, Waldo spends much more time trying to divine the motives of Mayor Waldo and Phil. All the while assuming Ginger to be a virginal innocent lass who was led by the hand into a bad deal.

There is more than enough evidence that Ginger saw Phil as a hunk, and was willing to do whatever it took to get him into her bed. She was even willing to lose a considerable chunk of change in order to do so.

It turns out that Ginger had her fling with Phil, gained enough from the affair that she didn't lose monetarily, and still has Phil's brother making regular payments to her bank account.

The Truth Of The MZM Martinsville Deal

Once again Waldo is off in his Virgil Goode Bizarroworld. In this, his most recent foray into the unreal, he would have his readers believe that Virgil Goode somehow manipulated the MZM/Martinsville deal that brought the defense contractor to the Clearview Business Park.

In an article replete with links to sources, most of which are earlier posts of his own, he puts forth as his own the completely ridiculous idea that Virgil is morally obligated to repay the (roughly) $145,000 that Martinsville is liable for. If this truly is Waldo's idea, then he should be aware that fellow Charlottesville liberal Al Weed plagiarized it way back in August of last year. You remember, this was also about the time Al Weed was trying to set up a contest to see who could write the nastiest letter to the editor with Virgil Goode as the subject and lunch with Barnie Day as the prize. But I digress.

Go read Waldo's latest slam on Virgil, I'll wait here until you return.

Did you find that enlightening? I really didn't think you would. As I'm sure you noticed, Waldo's last sentence once again drives his point that Virgil Goode was solely responsible for the MZM/Martinsville decision. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me tell you the truth of the matter. A truth that is easily discovered if one only looks for it, rather than merely wishing for future Al Weed campaign slogans, lies, and half-truths.

In late October of 2003 rumors began circulating throughout Henry County about a possible new employer, some said it would be a defense contractor. On October 30th Ginny Wray of the Martinsville Bulletin wrote a story confirming the rumors and naming MZM as the new employer, citing Virgil Goode as her source.

At this time MZM already had a presence in the 5th District so Virgil was familiar with the firm. He also was familiar with a shell building that Martinsville had to offer in the Clearview Business Park. According to Ms. Wray, Virgil urged MZM to take a look at Martinsville and their facility.

The following day a story by Mickey Powell of the Bulletin adds a few more details, with some quotes from Mitchell Wade, President and CEO of MZM at the time. Powell found it difficult to get much more information, such as the selling price of the shell building from either Wade or Tom Harned, Martinsville's Economic Development Director.

All we knew at that time was that the City had sold its $945,000 shell building to MZM for an undisclosed sum, and that Virgil Goode had introduced the two parties.

The following Tuesday, at an announcement ceremony attended by then Governor Mark Warner, it was disclosed that the City of Martinsville had received $1.027 million for the facility. $400,000 from MZM, $500,000 split equally between The Governor's Opportunity Fund and the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, and $127,000 in private funds from the Chamber's Partnership for Economic Growth, a partnership affiliated with the Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce.

According to Mickey Powell of the Martinsville Bulletin;

Information from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that MZM is Goode's top financial contributor, donating more than $37,000 to him during the current election cycle. That money was given either through a political action committee, people associated with the firm or their family members, a Web site indicates.

Goode admitted those contributions. He said, though, that he would have given information about the shell building to any firm, regardless of whether it financially backed him.

He received MZM's money "before I knew they were interested" in the building, he said.

This clearly refutes Waldo's insinuation of any "quid pro quo".

Now, let's look at what we know of the background negotiation that went on before this deal was announced.

• Martinsville had a shell building that had been on the
  market for 3 years with no takers.


• Martinsville owed $940,000 on this shell building and
  desperately needed both a buyer and the employment that a buyer would
  bring to the area.


• A firm with a presence in Virgil's 5th District was
  searching for a facility in order to expand part of its business.


• Virgil introduced the two parties and negotiation began
  for the purchase of the building. MZM offered $400,000 for the
  building, knowing that it would require another several million dollars
  in renovations to make the building suitable for its purposes.


• Tom Harned, Martinsville's Economic Development Director
  at that time asked Virgil to request a better offer from MZM.


• That request for a better offer was turned down by MZM.


• Tom Harned then asked Wade to apply for state incentives
  to make up the difference.


• Virgil Goode was not a party to these negotiations,
  though he was copied on most, if not all, of the correspondence between
  Harned and Wade.


• At a stalemate point in the negotiations, Virgil
  suggested that Martinsville apply for two $250,000 grants from The
  Governor’s Opportunity Fund and the Tobacco Indemnification
  and Community Revitalization Commission to help retire the debt on the
  building.


• At that point MZM refused to cooperate, insisting that it
  wanted a simple cash real estate deal, leaving Martinsville with the
  option of dropping negotiations or signing the performance agreement
  obligating it to repay the forgivable loans if the company did not meet
  its projections.


• At the time, John Sternlicht, general counsel to the
  Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the state agency that
  drafted the performance agreement, expressed concern about the unusual
  nature of the City's request.


• Earl Reynolds, City Manager at the time responded to
  Sternlicht, “The city understands that this is outside the
  normal procedures,” indicating the City's eagerness to
  complete the deal.


• Sternlicht's reply, from a Dec. 11, 2005 story by
  Lawrence Hammock in the Roanoke Times, “The company is
  usually on the hook. But in this instance, based on
  [Martinsville’s] urgent request, this is what we did,"
  further indicates that the deal was pushed through to completion by
  Martinsville officials.


• The final disposition is yet to be determined, but City
  Finance Director Wade Bartlett said in today's Martinsville Bulletin
  that any funds repaid will come from the City's fund balance, currently
  at $9.5million. The Bulletin article quotes Bartlett; "No matter how
  much of the $500,000 the city ends up paying, it will not impact our
  ability to provide services in the future to residents or bankrupt the
  city."

In summary, one can blame Earl Reynolds, Tom Harned, Gene Teague (then Mayor), Terry Roop (then Vice Mayor), and the rest of City Council for making the final decision to request the grants and taking the highly unusual step of signing the performance agreement. All Virgil Goode did was bring the two parties together.

UPDATE:
Let's do a little accounting exercise, shall we?

Cost of shell building to Martinsville	$945,000
From MZM	$400,000
From Governor's Opportunity Fund	$250,000
From Tobacco Commission	$250,000
From C-PEG (Local Chamber Econ. Dev. group)	$127,000
Total Sales Price	$1,027,000
Profit (sales price, less actual cost of building)	$82,000
Balance of tax and other revenues gained from MZM/Athena	$161,430
Profit Sub-total	$243,430
Refund of grants due to MZM non-performance (est)	($145,000)
Martinsville Final Balance	$98,430

The above balance sheet does not include revenues from utilities such as water, electric, and sewer. Also not included are local income and sales tax revenues from MZM/Athena employees. Obviously a $100,000 return on a $1 million dollar investment is not what one would hope for, especially since it ended after only a 4 year term, but it's not the catastrophic loss that Waldo would have you believe it is..

Who will actually repay those grant funds Waldo? Obviously MZM and Athena already have repaid them.

UPDATE II:
I have just been informed that the trackback I left at Waldo's earlier today had mysteriously disappeared. So I just left another. It will be interesting to see if this one is deleted as well, I took a screenshot of it this time, just in case Mr. Jaquith decides on another attempt to hide in the dark.

No Foul?

I'm trying to understand Roscoe Reynolds' logic, (I know that's an oxymoron, but stick with me for a moment), with this cockfighting bill.

Personally, I abhor the sport, but I know it has a longstanding history and tradition in Virginia. I also know that gamecocks are very well tended and taken care of by their breeders. (That's true of most breeders, anyway.) The libertarian side of me says that this sport does you and me no harm, so where's the foul?

Many will say that the state has an interest in ending the cruelty inflicted upon the birds. I have attended a cockfight or two, and many of my former neighbors in Buchanan County raised the birds. I have also done some work at several chicken processing plants. Believe me, the birds raised to fight have a much better life (and death) than those fat white chickens that end up on your plate.

On the whole, however, I could support a ban on the sport. If for no other reason than the fact that the sport has done such a poor job of regulating itself.

I guess the part of this most recent episode to put Martinsville and Henry County in a national spotlight (and by extension, Floyd, Patrick, and Carroll, since he does represent the entire area) that bothers me the most is that Roscoe goes from being a good little A. L. Philpott disciple who ignores cockfighting for 10 years, to entering a bill that makes even the ownership of a single gamecock a Class 6 Felony. Hell, drunk driving is not even Felony, and I'm pretty sure that no one has been killed by an out-of-control gamecock in years. Thankfully the full Senate saw fit to reduce the penalty to a misdemeanor as it was passed on to the House of Delegates.

Roscoe claims to have the best interest of the 20th District at heart, but he has been completely ineffective as a state Senator. During the last General Assembly session he introduced, along with 13 "Celebrating the life of..." bills and one that would make it easier for local governing bodies to ban dancing, exactly two bills that could or would have directly affected this region. One, a bill to extend the terms of an October 9, 2001, access grant made by VDOT to Floyd County until March 30, 2007, never even made it into a committee for a hearing. The other was his ubiquitous Highway 58 bond bill, which he cannot get passed.

So far this year he has reintroduced that same Highway 58 bond bill, knowing that it would never make it out of the Committee on Finance. Once again it didn't make it, failing last week. Along with what is sure to be numerous "Celebrating the life of..." bills he has these other efforts underway; A bill that endeavors to ensure that all Bail Bondsmen are residents of the Commonwealth. (A problem that I've considered to be of monumental proportions for years.) A bill to designate the third week in September, in 2007 and in each succeeding year, as Civics Education Week in Virginia. (It's about time we recognized Civics Education.) And along with Ward Armstrong, a bill that would Designate the Virginia Covered Bridge Festival held in Patrick County as the "Official Festival of the Commonwealth". (I'm worried about parking, though.)

Let's be realistic. Roscoe's been in the Senate for 10 years now, and finally decides that cockfighting deserves his utmost attention, and he can't even get his anti-cockfighting bill out of the Senate in the form he wishes. How can he ever get Highway 58 funded? Much less get the covered bridge festival designated as the "Official Festival of the Commonwealth", parking concerns notwithstanding.