THE INDEPENDENT NEWS
“Winning is awesome, right?” professor of public administration and policy and Army combat veteran Daniel Gade asked supporters on Tuesday, June 23, after an overwhelming victory to be the Republican Party nominee to face incumbent U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in November.
Gade, of Mount Vernon, defeated Alissa Baldwin, a civics and economics teacher from Lunenburg County, and Thomas Speciale II, a national security contractor from Woodbridge, in the primary by earning 67.4 percent of the vote. Baldwin earned 18.1 percent and Speciale 14.5 percent.
Gade, according to a video of the victory speech posted online, said he called the others and said they would work together to defeat Warner, seeking his third term in the Senate.
“So now I have the same oath but a new mission, and that is to serve you as your next United States senator,” Gade said. “For too long – for far, far too long – Virginia has been governed by career politicians more interested in serving D.C. lobbyists and special interests than serving the people. We had a historic night tonight for the campaign and won every county and every city in Virginia.”
Regarding Warner, he added:
“My opponent is only interested in power and prestige and being called a senator. He really likes that. He said he was for gun rights when he was running as a moderate for governor. Then he went to Washington, D.C., and now he says he’s going to confiscate guns. He said he was for balanced budgets. He’s done nothing in the past 10 years on that issue.”
Gade, in his remarks, tied Warner to liberal leadership in Congress.
It may, of course, be an uphill climb to defeat Warner. “I hope that Virginians will rehire me when they look at not only what I’ve done but what I intend to do if I get another six years,” Warner told Gray DC reporter Alana Austin. Warner said Virginians, as Austin reported, see him as “a problem-solver in hyper-partisan times.”
The Republican Party of Virginia Beach will choose a new chairperson during a mass meeting from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Monday, July 13, at the Law Enforcement Training Academy, 411 Integrity Way.
All registered Virginia Beach voters are allowed to vote in the contest between Bill Curtis, the vice chairperson of the city committee and a financial resources manager for the Navy, and Jimmy Frost, a website and campaign consultant and longtime member of the city committee who, as astute readers may recall, has penned a column or two for The Independent News.
That’s right. It’s full disclosure time. Frost’s columns were unrelated to politics, and he is not contributing while pursuing a party position. Please address all complaints to Columbia Journalism Review via editors@cjr.org. CJR is a real thing, by the way. Notebook assures you they will not know what to make of your many, many complaints about an obscure community newspaper.
Anyways.
Curtis is a retired Navy captain. In addition to his present work as a civilian with the Navy, he is the board chairperson for STOP, Inc., and a member of the state party’s central committee. He is also part of the Hampton Roads Black Caucus board of directors and the Virginia Beach Mayor’s African American Roundtable. He is running on accomplishments of the city party, and he plans to recruit and support “solid 2A Trump conservatives.” For those who aren’t in the know, 2A is how some folks are abbreviating the Second Amendment these days.
Curtis has also pledged to grow the party’s “big tent,” unite various Republican organizations through common goals, and form a committee to create a process for endorsing candidates in City Council and School Board races, which are nonpartisan. He also wants young Republicans to shadow city committee chairs to learn the work.
“I think that’s critical,” he told Notebook during an interview on Friday, July 3. “How else do you prepare for the future?”
Earlier this year, the candidates spoke during a forum, and Curtis said it is important to bring in new people. “Yes, I do recognize that there needs to be some change,” he said. “There has to be some change because you have to look like the community. You have to feel like the community. If the community changes, the organizational leadership, the structure has to change.”
Frost has cited a decline in city party membership and resources as a reason he is running. He is a former first responder who spent 20 years as a long-haul trucker. He has worked in support of political campaigns as a consultant and a digital media consultant. In his campaign for chairperson, he strongly advocates for endorsing candidates in the nonpartisan local races.
“I have been locked in a death struggle with party leadership for the past two years to get this party involved in local campaigns,” was how he put it during the candidate forum.
At his website, he wrote: “If we’re going to be called the Republican Party of Virginia Beach, we should at least take positions on things that happen and candidates that run for office in Virginia Beach.”
Frost also wants to rebuild the “big tent”and recruit more members to the city party. “For the past several years, I’ve seen the party in a state of decline,” Frost said during a Facebook Live talk earlier this year. “I’ve seen us losing members. I’ve seen us losing elections. I’ve seen our party losing influence in the city.” Democrats are taking charge of elected offices, he added, which is troubling “because I’ve always believed Republican values are part of the core foundation of the City of Virginia Beach because we have so much military here.”
Curtis, during an interview, noted that the party has struggled in Virginia recently, though he said Virginia Beach has fared better than other areas of the state.
Due to restrictions related to the novel coronavirus, only 50 voters are allowed in the academy at a time and people must wear a mask indoors. Visit the party website via rpvb.org for more information. Curtis is on Facebook via @Curtis4Chair, and Frost is on Facebook via @FrostforChairman.
Maybe “1A” will catch on next. Unless people confuse it with a draft designation. Or they live in an apartment complex. Or they are Notebook’s junior year report card. Say, Notebook did not give this enough thought. Please disregard.
Speaking of acronym magic. Indeed, this is a military town. Here is a random acronym from the greatest book in American letters, the Dictionary of Naval Abbreviations, also known as the DICNAVAB:
TIPSY – Task Input Parameter Synthesizer
Go forth and impress that one neighbor with the tight haircut and even tighter lawn.
Notebook runs announcements of political endorsements, fundraisers and events as space allows at no cost. Reach jhd@princessanneindy.com with submissions and tips.
© 2020 Pungo Publishing Co., LLC
