From the diaries by Erick.

view a slide show of this weekend’s RPV convention here

Will Virginia field the first wave of comebacks for the GOP this coming November or will the momentum of Obama-mania continue unabated through 2009 and on into the next federal elections? Saturday’s convention in Richmond for the Republican Party of Virginia holds some interesting lessons for us all.

At the best attended convention in nearly 15 years, Republicans gathered at the Richmond Coliseum to crown their next set of candidates for the upcoming 2009 elections. (Virginia is one of the few states to hold off-year elections for state level offices.) All politics is local as they say, so what follows is a series of lessons learned from the debates leading up to the convention and the final results. Glean from it what you will:

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I have taken a special interest in the Republican Party of Virginia’s Chairman controversy. Let me tell you why.

I moved to Macon, Georgia in 1993, to attend Mercer University. I had been politically active, but despite a conservative leaning campus there were no outlets for politics on campus. Consequently, I started the College Republicans at Mercer.

A couple of years in, the University of Georgia, which was the largest and most heavily funded College Republican group, had for the third consecutive year maintained the Chairmanship of the Georgia Federation of College Republicans (”GFCR”). They had grown the organization, had grown the coffers of the organization, and were effectively mobilizing scores of college aged volunteers across the state. By every measure, the GFCR was a stable, healthy organization.

But that wasn’t good enough for some people. Some people wanted to be Chairman and thought that it was unfair for UGA to keep getting their guy elected Chairman. To be clear — UGA couldn’t do it alone. It had to have multiple other schools help because Georgia Tech also had a large contingent of College Republicans.

There was this one guy from Emory who thought he deserved to be Chairman of the College Republicans. He allied himself with Georgia Tech, but was so snide that not one of the colleges outside Atlanta would back him. In 1995 (or maybe 1996), I, my friends from Mercer, and College Republicans from across Georgia elected the third straight candidate from UGA to be the Chairman of the Georgia Federation of College Republicans. I even made the nominating speech.

The guy from Emory, Jeff Frederick, led a walkout of the convention. He claimed it was rigged, which it wasn’t. He could not accept that people did not like his “all about Jeff” operating style. After he left, he tried his best to mar the reputation of the GFCR. It didn’t work. It was all about Jeff Frederick.

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Jim Hoeft at Bearing Drift has the text of a letter from Bill Howell, Kirk Cox and Sam Nixon asking that Jeff Frederick be removed as RPV chairman.

While I continue to find the public release of such letters entertaining, and useful, they do serve their intended purpose: tightening the noose around Frederick.

Erick makes a case that Shaun Kenney would be a solid replacement for Frederick. While I can’t disagree with the choice (Shaun is about as conservative as they come, in spite of that five o’clock shadow), I’m not sure that those baying for Frederick’s head (for the second time in four months) have given the matter that much thought. They are in the position of the dog who chases a truck and then catches it. What does that ol’ dog do now?

Many names have been floated, including that of Tom Davis (which is a non-starter).  And more will be…some of them quite interesting and even energizing.

However, that a replacement will be a conservative ought to be taken as a given.  And the one person who will most likely influence that choice is Attorney General candidate Ken Cuccinelli.

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Finance chairman Walter Curt resigns…and kicks over the trash can on his way out the door:

“Unfortunately the problems of structure, power projection, consultant interference, interpersonal difficulties, years of internal malaise, luddite attitude, leadership, and unity of purpose stand in the way of any hope of success,” Curt wrote.

Describing the state GOP as “dysfunctional,” Curt credited Frederick with attempting to end the party’s reverses.

“Your leadership style obviously needs polish,” Curt said in his “Dear Jeff” letter. “But given the tremendous headwinds you are trying to move against it is amazing what you have accomplished.”

This is in direct contrast to the “happy party” depicted in the Weekly Standard. Which one is more accurate? I leave it to Tolstoy:

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”