Given the ongoing debacle over Virginia’s presidential primary ballot, I imagine that the only knowledge many of my fellow RedStaters may have of Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling is that he is Mitt Romney’s state campaign chairman and a gubernatorial rival to Tea Party favorite and fighter of Obamacare Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Neither of these items are likely to endear him to the RedState community or to the conservative movement at large.

Speaking as a committed supporter of both Rick Perry and Ken Cuccinelli, I think this would be a crying shame. That’s why I want to share with you my impressions of Bill Bolling. Admittedly, those impressions are not based on much more than what I have garnered from meeting and speaking with the lieutenant governor a few times on the campaign trail, plus whatever I’ve picked up from reading the news and staying abreast of Virginia politics. Regardless, what knowledge I do have, I would like to share with all of you. The two-part video below is a recording I shot of the lieutenant governor’s talk to the University of Virginia College Republicans on April 15, 2008 (apologies in advance for shakiness and for the lack of transcript). Skip to about the 3:00 mark to get into actual content of his talk.

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Rick Perry gained a supporter tonight.

I’ll be upfront and say that I was leaning his direction already. As much as I’m drawn to Herman Cain’s candor and optimism, the past three years have made me rather wary of electing a president with a dearth of political experience. Newt Gingrich has a veritable graveyard in his closet, and I’m troubled by some of his past policy positions on AGW and “green” technology. Mitt Romney is…Mitt Romney. Rick Perry seemed to offer the combination of conservative philosophy and a full resume of experience as a political executive for which I was looking.

Still, I wasn’t ready to sign up with a candidate simply by virtue of their being the “least bad” choice. If I am going to offer someone my time, talent, and treasure, I want him or her to offer me something to believe in. I want that candidate to get me excited about something other than throwing Barack Obama out of the White House.

Tonight I read Gov. Perry’s economic plan, “Cut, Balance, and Grow”, and I got excited.

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Elections matter. Here at RedState, we pride ourselves on covering, not just the grand political narratives of the day, but the smaller yet no less crucial battles that take place at the state and local level. One of the great-untold stories (at least by the mainstream media) of the 2010 midterms was the tremendous sweep of state legislatures by the GOP, driven by the Tea Party movement and the unprecedented level of grassroots conservative activism that came with it. It is difficult to fully articulate just how great of an effect this re-alignment promises to have on the political future of our nation: beyond post-Census redistricting, the hundreds of Republican, mainly conservative state legislators who were swept into office will steer the political conversations of their respective bodies in a direction that is pro-liberty, pro-limited government, pro-life, pro-free market, and anti-statist for years, possibly decades to come, while providing a deep bench from which to draw conservatives candidates for governorships and seats in the US Congress. Perhaps most importantly, citizens who grow accustomed to being represented at the state level by pro-liberty, limited government legislators and see the success of conservative policy in action will grow less tolerant of statist politicians at the national level. These fights matter.

One such battle is approaching its finale in the Commonwealth of Virginia. A key pick-up for Barack Obama in 2008, Virginia served as a harbinger of the coming Tea Party maelstrom when in 2009 it elected Gov. Bob McDonnell. Now in 2011, Virginia serves as test of the staying power of the newfound zeal of grassroots conservatism. In a little over two weeks, all forty members of the Virginia State Senate, which the Democrats hold by a slim margin of 22 seats out of 40, will be up for election. A net gain of at least three seats in the Senate promises to hand control of both houses of the General Assembly to a Republican caucus that is markedly more conservative than any in recent history. The promise of removing the last major roadblock to Gov. McDonnell enacting some of the strongest pieces of his conservative agenda has the Democrats sweating bullets.

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TheSophist’s recent diary on Herman Cain’s “9-9-9 Plan” for reforming the tax code showcased a lot of great arguments made by those both for and against the plan. It is clear from reading the diary and the comments that this is a vital conversation to have, and the kind of discussion this forum was founded to promote. I happen to come down against 9-9-9, for a number of reasons, but I won’t attempt to replicate all the arguments carried out above.

However, I do have to take issue with something that TheSophist said, as I haven’t seen anyone challenge it.

I haven’t heard a serious critique of the 999 Plan from the Right on the merits of the idea. For example, no one on the Right thus far has criticized 999 Plan for being regressive taxation on its face. I haven’t heard anyone critique it because it fails to combat the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Those are Leftist ideas after all.

Certainly the latter argument against income disparity is a Leftist one, but the former? Not on your life. I would just like to state for the record that I find the idea of regressive taxation to be a fundamentally immoral and unconservative one. I don’t think that is an inherently Leftist idea. Indeed, I believe that a tax which falls most heavily on the poor is profoundly unconservative, as it attacks the basic concept of fairness and equality under law on which our society and our Constitution is founded. Just as a system of taxation that disproportionately punishes success and ingenuity is unjust, just as today’s skyrocketing inflation, which falls hardest on those least able to sway with the economic winds, is a national shame and a human tragedy, a national sales tax of any sort is unjust and unconservative because of its unequal impact on our fellow citizens.

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My name is Michael Gannon, and I’ve been reading and contributing to RedState since shortly after the 2004 election (my current user name is Icythus, and my old name and history, MichaelG, got lost in one of the switch-overs a few years back). I immediately fell in love with the website, and indeed the RedState community. Though for a good length of time I have been an infrequent poster, and a more infrequent diarist, this is due almost exclusively to my respect for the site; I’ve learned a great deal more by sitting back and reading than I ever did when I was regularly posting. For about the past eight months RedState has become my primary source, not only of political commentary, but of news in general.

With this context, I would like to bring up a concern that has been growing in me for some time, and that is what I perceive to be the increasing incivility by some of our posters and contributors. One of the things that has always drawn me to RedState has been the courtesy and presumption of intellectual honesty shown to all. Name-calling, profanities, and ad homenum attacks have never had a place here. The flip side has long been that, if a member violated these rules enough times, or proved themselves to be operating in bad faith (“trolling”), they were swiftly booted. I am beginning to fear that this is no longer the case.

Lately it seems to me like these formerly strict standards (with the exception of the profanity rule) have been relaxed to a discouraging extent. Name-calling seems to have become an acceptable weapon of discourse, even by some of the front-page contributors, who should know better. Some members have taken to regularly bringing up the length of time their critics have been members. At best, this is a simple case of hubris that comes from being an established member of the community. At worst, this is a thinly-veiled accusation of being a troll. As some of our more veteran members will remembers, in the past, only those about to be banned as trolls had their “length of service” called into question. Either ad homenum attacks have become more acceptable, or the criticisms are valid and RedState has been overrun by trolls. Whatever the case, we clearly have a problem. The moderators need to take charge of the site once more, and we all need to take ownership of the debate, and hold ourselves and others accountable.

Serious, constructive debate and commentary requires that we abide by the basic rules of civility and good faith. For years that has been one of the cornerstones of RedState’s greatness. If we let that go, we will end up discouraging and driving away the kind of members and we want, while encouraging and attracting the wrong kind of commentators. It will kill the site as we know it.

Discuss.