Ed Gillespie, a former top aide to President George W. Bush who chaired both the Republican National Committee and Virginia GOP, is quietly building support for a 2014 bid against Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, according to potential backers.
“He’s called a few of us,” said state Sen. Bryce Reeves, who chairs the influential Senate Republican Caucus Campaign. “I think he’s in,” Reeves said, adding, “Ed is an excellent candidate for the office.”
Reeves and others said that Gillespie is focused on building enough support to win the nomination at a summer Republican convention where the Tea Party has been a big force in the past. There are two Tea Party candidates already in the primary.
Should Gillespie win the nomination, he will face an uphill fight. While Gillespie has deep ties to the state GOP, having chaired Gov. Bob McDonnell’s campaign, some conservatives are wary of nominating a former Republican National Committee chairman who has never run for office before.
Warner is a former governor and first-term senator, giving him two statewide wins.
Gillespie is likely to make his campaign against Warner a national one. In a statement, he slapped the Democrat for backing Obamacare and President Obama. “He’s voted with President Obama 97 percent of the time since he got elected with him in 2008,” said Gillespie.
While Gillespie should be able to raise enough money to run, analysts said that Warner will be heavily favored. Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ “Crystal Ball,” said that Gillespie might be trying to follow the model of Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic Party boss who beat Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in this fall’s gubernatorial race.
“I just don’t think Gillespie is actually going to run, and if he does, maybe we move it to ‘likely Democratic.’ But that’s probably it,” said Kondik. “Gillespie might be looking at McAuliffe and saying, ‘Hey, I can do that too, but Cuccinelli is not Mark Warner.’ ”
GEORGE H.W. BUSH SIGNS ONTO TWITTER
You can ignore those murmurings about the health of former President George H.W. Bush, who was the sole living U.S. president to miss former South African President Nelson Mandela’s funeral.
Turns out that the wheelchair-bound Bush is just fine, but not up for a long flight to a destination half a world away. So he decided to make his absence a reason to get on Twitter, typing his first tweet about the world leader: “Barbara and I wish we could have joined the U.S. delegation honoring President Mandela today. He, and his countrymen, are in our prayers.”
Spokesman Jim McGrath told Secrets that the 140-character limitation suits the 89-year-old fine. “While he’s still very sharp, the president has also described himself as a man of fewer words these days.”
STUDY: BLACK JUDGES GO EASY ON BLACKS
Black federal judges, inspired by racial “solidarity” and “conditioned” in life to sympathize with other blacks, side with African-Americans filing discrimination cases in significantly higher percentages than white judges, according to a first-of-its-kind study provided to Secrets.
The California State University study of 516 discrimination cases in federal courts over eight years found that black federal judges side with black claimants 32.9 percent of the time. For white judges, it was 20.6 percent.
And when the study looked at how black and white judges ruled on discrimination claims made by “non-black claimants,” there wasn’t any difference in their rulings.
The solution to black judicial favoritism might be unexpected. The study calls for more black judges, arguing that blacks are underrepresented on the bench when compared to the racial makeup of discrimination claimants, which are majority African-American.
MOUNT REAGAN AN UPHILL CLIMB
Suddenly, efforts by Team Gipper to name a Las Vegas-area mountain top after former President Reagan have been derailed.
In a surprise move, Nevada Democratic Congresswoman Dina Titus submitted legislation to name the same hill for the state’s first female lieutenant governor, Maude Frazier, a move that trumps the Reagan campaign in the obscure system of landmark naming.
Reagan’s supporters slapped that as “petty, partisan and politically vindictive,” but Secrets hears that there is a compromise in the works that could lead to a Mount Reagan and a Mount Frazier.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
