New Virginia Lawmakers Cite Ways They Would Cut Spending

Richmond, Va. Balance the budget. Rein in spending. Stick a hungry government bureaucracy on a diet.

Those were mantras of Virginia's Republican congressional candidates who won big in Tuesday's elections. But within weeks, the critics will move to the corridors of power and it will be their unbalanced budget and their national debt.

Within their immediate control are their $174,000 annual salary and an office budget of roughly $1.5 million. We asked Virginia's three Republican congressmen-elect what they personally are willing to cut.

Scott Rigell, who defeated Rep. Glenn Nye, D-2nd, promptly issued a series of reforms he says he will follow whether they are enacted into law or not.

The car dealer from Virginia Beach says he will roll back his congressional office budget to 2008 levels and allow government trips only on official business -- "real official business."

He has pledged a 12-year term limit and he wants to "reduce the incentive to stay in Congress" by replacing the current retirement system with a 403(b) match program.

He has even sketched out rules on mail -- "Only two direct-mail pieces will be sent each year, no closer than three months prior to an election, standardized in form and content, one page only, using recycled paper and black and white ink."

That kind of up-front commitment is smart politics on Rigell's part, said Steve Farnsworth, a political analyst at George Mason University.

"I think the one thing that voters cannot stand about politicians is hypocrisy," he said. "A congressman-elect who promises to cut his own office expenditures, that's absolutely a smart move for congressmen looking ahead to 2012. That's what people want to see."

A challenge for Republicans over the next two years will be to demonstrate that they can make change happen while they control the House but not the Senate or White House, he said. That split in power makes it virtually impossible to repeal the health-care legislation, for example.

"That's why it's such smart politics for Republicans to look at things that are more directly under their control, like their own office expenditures," he said.

. . .

Rigell's plan is pretty specific, and while the other congressmen-elect did not offer the same level of detail, they gave some insight during the campaigns.

State Sen. Robert Hurt, who defeated Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th, has said he would vote to reduce the salary of members of Congress. His campaign also says he will use the franked mail system "only for legitimate constituent services."

The lawyer from Chatham said last week in a news conference about his transition plans that he doesn't anticipate greatly altering the number of district offices. There are four in addition to the Washington office.

"Right now I have no reason to believe that we'll change anything [that's] in place, but we will take a fresh look at that because obviously we want to make sure we're as accessible as possible," he said.

Congressman-elect H. Morgan Griffith of the 9th District has advocated for a 10 percent pay cut for Congress, and he wants to end the practice that allows members of Congress to lease a vehicle through the House of Representatives.

"There's got to be a lot of other things like that," he said.

If his pay-cut idea doesn't go over well with his colleagues, Griffith said he will donate the equivalent of a 10 percent cut into the 9th District to not-for-profit charitable organizations.

He said of his early ideas: "They're not going to solve the budget problem, but you've got to start somewhere."

The office budgets for the new Congress have not been decided, but Perriello's for 2010 was $1.46 million, Nye's was $1.48 million and Rep. Rick Boucher's was $1.5 million.

That allowance will not likely vary dramatically for the new members. It is supposed to cover the expenses congressmen incur as part of their official role, and it is based on three major components: staff salaries, office expenses and official mail.

Funding for salaries made up the largest component in 2010, at $944,671. House members can decide how many employees they hire and how much they pay them, but there are caps on how many and how much.

Office expenses include a travel stipend that varies based on the distance of the representative's district from Washington, as well as district office rental expenses. That also varies by member -- space in downtown Los Angeles will cost more than on Main Street in Chatham.

In general, however, members can spend the money as they see fit, as long it complies with federal and House rules. Spending on campaign or political purposes is a no-no, for example.

Voters serious about the spending-cut message this year likely will keep tabs on how their new congressmen operate on Capitol Hill.

"In the new Congress, the tea party's influence will be far larger than their numbers," Farnsworth said, "because so many Republicans are going to be looking over their shoulders wondering if the tea-party activists are going to run a Republican nomination opponent against them the next time they face the voters."

www.timesdispatch.com

No Beer Summit For The Republicans

President Obama has just given Slurpee something it could never buy: global street cred.

Hours after the leader of the free world jokingly suggested at Wednesday's day-after-election press conference that he might hold a "Slurpee Summit" with the new Republican leadership, the brand of slushy soft drinks is in overdrive to make the summit real.

"This is a rare opportunity for a brand," says Margaret Chabris, a spokeswoman for 7-Eleven, which owns 44-year-old Slurpee. "We don't want to be opportunistic, but nothing has ever been this big for Slurpee."

This is what brands dream about. Bud Light got a big PR lift after Obama drank a Bud Light at the White House "Beer Summit" in July 2009. That brought together Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and James Crowley, the police sergeant who arrested him.

During recent campaign speeches, Obama said Republicans stood around drinking Slurpees while Democrats did the hard legislative work. Now, Slurpee's getting the last laugh. Already in motion:

•Negotiations. White House officials were contacted late Wednesday by officials representing 7-Eleven with a proposal for the Slurpee brand to cater a Slurpee Summit between key Democrats and Republicans. The summit could be at the White House — or wherever the president chooses.

"If the president wants a Slurpee Summit, we're offering to cater it with red and blue Slurpees — and we'll even offer a purple Slurpee, since that's what you get when you bring red and blue together," Chabris says.

7-Eleven's request to the White House was made via the public relations firm New Partners, which has many employees who worked on the Obama campaign in 2008.

•Advertising. 7-Eleven on Friday will place an ad in national newspapers that plays off the idea of Slurpees bringing people together, says Chabris. One concept in discussion is a picture of a purple Slurpee with a red straw and a blue straw sticking out.

•Strategy. Slurpee is re-evaluating its brand strategy. It's looking at a new theme to be a drink that "brings people together," says Chabris.

Consultant David Aaker says it doesn't get any better. "If they actually have a summit, it's worth tens of millions of dollars in free advertising."

Strategy guru Mark Coopersmith says Slurpee should quickly go big in social media, nudging folks to have Slurpee Summits to solve problems.

"How often do you get the leader of the free world to associate your brand with all of these positive elements?"

www.usatoday.com

~~We All Know What Today Is ~~

TODAY IS ELECTION DAY !!!

Political Choice - Cat Or Dog?

John Merline

Opinion Editor

AolNews

Elections are supposed to be about politics and public policy and big issues. And this election has its share of all that, given the stakes.

But elections are also about people -- the kind of people who want to run for federal office. And we at AOL News wanted to get a better sense of just who these people are.

So rather than asking a bunch of boring policy questions, we invited candidates for the House and Senate to answer 10 mostly fun questions. We got a response rate of about 5 percent. And while the results aren't exactly scientifically valid, they are still pretty interesting. Here's one of them:

Are you a dog person or a cat person?

According to the results, 61 percent of Democrats said they are dog people, while 37 percent of Republicans candidates said they prefer canines.

Meanwhile, 26 percent of GOPers identified themselves as cat people, compared with just 5 percent of Dems. (Keep in mind that these are not scientifically valid survey results.)

www.aolnews.com Which Political Party Is Going To The Dogs?

Steele Says Tea Party Won't Hurt GOP In Key Va. Races

RICHMOND, Va. — Independent conservatives running with tea party backing in key Virginia House races won't be spoilers for GOP challengers to freshmen Democratic congressmen, the Republican National Committee chairman said Wednesday.

Candidates on the party's right championed by tea party groups beat establishment Republicans in New Hampshire and Delaware primaries Tuesday. A day later, Michael Steele dismissed suggestions that tea party-backed candidates in the 2nd and 5th Congressional Districts would dilute support for GOP nominees.

"Our folks don't need to run around being scared or afraid of the tea party," Steele told reporters before a rally with Chuck Smith, a longshot Republican challenger to nine-term Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va.

"A lot of these folks were card-carrying Republicans four or five years ago who felt that the party had walked away" from core principles including the Contract With America, Steele said.

The contract was a series of conservative reforms proposed in 1994 during a midterm election two years into Democrat Bill Clinton's presidency when Republicans gained control of the House and Senate.

But in the two House races Republicans are targeting in Virginia, there are tea party candidates on the ballot alongside the Democratic and Republican nominees.

Kenny Golden, a longtime Republican activist, is competing with Republican Scott Rigell to unseat Rep. Glenn Nye, a moderate Democrat, in the Hampton Roads 2nd District.

In central and Southside Virginia's 5th District, Jeff Clark, a poorly funded tea party favorite, is vying with state Sen. Robert Hurt to deny Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello a second term.

Asked if the tea party candidates could split the Republican and conservative vote, Steele shot back, "We don't know that."

"We'll see what happens. Everybody's got to state their case with the American people, the people in the various districts in the state," Steele said. "We don't get to pick and choose who represents the American people. Guess what? They do."

Democrats control six of Virginia's 11 U.S. House seats. The GOP took aim at Perriello and Nye from the moment they ousted Republican incumbents in the 2008 Democratic landslide led by Barack Obama, the first Democrat to carry Virginia in a presidential race since 1964.

Steele and Smith addressed about 100 people in a renovated art deco movie theater in a middle-class Richmond suburb.

www.usatoday.net

Gingrich Considering Running For President

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday he's seriously considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination and will announce his decision early next year.

Gingrich, 67, told The Associated Press that he would focus on helping Republican candidates through the midterm elections in November, then decide in February or March whether to seek the GOP nomination.

"I've never been this serious," Gingrich said.


It's fair to say that by February the groundwork will have been laid to consider seriously whether or not to run," he said.

Gingrich, in Des Moines for a fundraiser and workshop for local Republican candidates, predicted President Barack Obama would be a one-term president. Obama's poll numbers have dropped below 50 percent, and Gingrich predicted they would continue to fall, making him vulnerable in 2012.

Unlike President Bill Clinton, who rebounded from first-term problems by pushing for welfare reform and budget balancing changes that pleased moderate voters, Gingrich argued that Obama shows no inclination to move toward the center.

"He's not like Bill Clinton," Gingrich said. "Bill Clinton was an Arkansas, Southern Baptist, sort of understood middle American. While he had some Yale overtones being liberal, the truth is Bill Clinton was quite happy to move to the right."

Gingrich has been mentioned as a possible 2012 presidential candidate along with other Republicans, including former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Gingrich had a long congressional career and was House speaker from 1995 to 1999. He was given much of the credit for the Republican takeover of the House in 1994. But he abruptly resigned from Congress in 1998 after his party faired poorly in midterm elections. He also was reprimanded by the House ethics panel for using tax-exempt funding to advance his political goals.

The former speaker, who championed a family values agenda, spearheaded efforts to impeach Clinton for perjury over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Gingrich later admitted having an extramarital affair of his own in 1998 with a former congressional aide, Callista Bisek. He married Bisek after divorcing his second wife, Marianne.

After leaving Congress, Gingrich created American Solutions for Winning the Future, a tax-exempt organization that promotes conservative causes. He acknowledged considering a White House run in 2007 and said he also thought about a run against Clinton before deciding it wasn't possible.

"You couldn't be the first Republican speaker in a generation and engage in a contest with Bill Clinton for setting the direction of the country and run for president," said Gingrich. "It wasn't physically doable."

Gingrich said he would to return several time this year to Iowa, where precinct caucuses lead off the presidential nominating process. He said he planned to lay the groundwork for a campaign by working hard for Republicans in the midterm elections.

Gingrich is known for his frequently harsh rhetoric, and he didn't hold back in speaking about Obama.

"I think he will replace Jimmy Carter as the worst president of modern times," said Gingrich.

Thanks to Obama's performance, Gingrich said he expected that whoever wins the Republican nomination would win the White House.

"He is a disaster," Gingrich said of Obama. "His principles are fundamentally wrong. The people he appoints are more radical than he is and less competent."

Despite his fiery personality, Gingrich said he wasn't worried that his comments would turn off moderate voters. At a time when the economy remains fragile, Americans want results and aren't worried about personality, he said.

"I think likable is a word you have to think about a lot," said Gingrich. "If people believe their country is in trouble, they want a captain of the lifeboat, they don't want a fraternity brother."

www.dailypress.com