When your state is known as the “Mother of Presidents”, and home to Yorktown, Mount Vernon, Monticello, Appomattox, and the first permanent English settlement in America, you don’t toss around the saying “we made history” too lightly.

But, my friends, I am pleased to say that is exactly what the Commonwealth of Virginia did Tuesday. We Made History.

With their votes yesterday, Virginians gave Republicans working majorities in both chambers of our state legislature. In the House of Delegates we now have 67 Republican delegates, the most in Virginia history. We won 13 of 14 open seats and defeated two Democratic incumbents. In the Senate we gained two seats, moving the body to 20-20 and placing it in Republican control with GOP Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling holding the tie breaking vote. We won 3 of 5 open seats and defeated two Democratic incumbents. All of this means that this upcoming session will be only the second time since Reconstruction ended, 141 years ago, that the GOP will control Virginia’s Executive Mansion, State Senate and House of Delegates at the same time. The only other time this occurred was during a brief two-year period from 1999-2001. That’s right, since 1870, Republicans have controlled the executive and legislative branches of Virginia government for all of 1.4% of the time.

In politics change can come quickly. In our case, quickly doesn’t begin to do this turn around justice.

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Yesterday, Virginia Democrats selected Creigh Deeds as their nominee for this year’s gubernatorial campaign. I congratulate Creigh on his victory. While I had held out hope for a contentious and drawn out recount it doesn’t look like that will happen! Now, the general election is underway. I’m looking forward to it. And, no matter what state you call home, I hope you are too.

We are running a positive, issues-driven campaign here in Virginia. We are the campaign of “Yes.” We are saying yes to new jobs, yes to offshore drilling, yes to a worker’s right to a secret ballot, yes to greater choice in our public schools, yes to spending restraint and yes to greater transparency in our state government. Voters are responding. We are met by great crowds at every campaign stop. This is a campaign with momentum. Now I’d like to ask for your help in keeping it going.

Please visit www.BobMcDonnell.com to learn more about our campaign. If you can, we’d be honored to receive a small donation.  Sign up for our email list. Pass on information to your friends. Virginia, and America, faces tremendous challenges right now. Voters are looking for candidates with solutions. I’m running a campaign of solutions that are based in our shared conservative philosophy.

This election is about Virginia. But I know that they eyes of the nation are on us. I hope you’ll take a minute to check out our campaign, read up about our proposals, and get involved in our effort to implement common-sense conservative solutions that will create new jobs and more opportunities all across Virginia. Today my campaign launched an effort to raise 20k online , can you help us reach this goal?

Thank you.

Bob McDonnell, Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia, will be here to answer your questions on RedState from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. ET. You can start posting your questions for Bob in the comments, and he’ll get to as many as he can in the time he’s here.

I want to first thank RedState for giving me this opportunity and for the wonderful work Erick and the other contributors do. RedState is a place where conservatives across the country can work together to shape and mold policy. Never has this work been more critical, or more necessary.

November 2008 marked a new beginning for the Republican Party. Leading up to the 2008 elections, I think we all recognized that our party needed to make some changes to the way we do things. The sweeping victory of President Obama and the Democrat majorities in Congress made that fact crystal clear. As the Republican nominee for Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia I know our race this year will be the focus of conservatives all across the country. People will be watching us to see what lessons we have learned, and if we can help start the process of bringing conservatism back. I believe we can, but not without your help.

I want our campaign for Governor to provide an example for Republicans across the country to follow. With that in mind our campaign will have a few defining traits that I hope will both set us apart from our opponent, while putting us ahead on Election Day. I would like to mention two of them today.

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