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September 2nd, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Great 2nd Ad, following up the first one that was also good. Nye is taking a much better approach than Rigell with his cheesy “First Vote” ad. All politics is local and this isn’t the 5th district of San Francisco.
As far as Nye leading on the issue and saving the carriers, I think Kenny summed it up pretty well at his town hall a couple weeks ago. It’s two carriers, not one, and every year is a new budget cycle. Florida has more members of congress and out numbers the Virginia Delegation on Appropriations something like 6 to 2. It really takes someone with high level contacts in the Pentagon and the Navy, like Kenny, to solve these problems.
When you hear Kenny and his campaign manager tell sea stories about working with Admirals Mullen and Roughhead, it really puts everything into perspective.
I like Glenn Nye a lot, but we really need someone in the delegation who can protect our military assets like John Warner used to do. Say what you want about bloated national defense spending , closing bases in Virginia and moving them to Florida does nothing to reduce spending. If you aren’t at the table, you are on the menu, and right now Virginia’s military installations are on the menu of other states desperately needing jobs.
I went to the debate tonight and thought Nye did exceptionally well, so I am torn between the two, but with all of Virginia’s military installations, we have no one in office with any significant military background.
September 2nd, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Where did you get the two carrier info? The original proposal was to return a single carrier to Mayport/Jacksonville.
Moving at least one carrier back to Mayport (where one came from during the last consolidation effort) makes sound strategic sense.
By putting all of our East Coast carriers in Norfolk, we are repeating the mistakes of Pearl Harbor and in the process creating a very tempting and easy target for the Communist Chinese, who have said that they hope to reach parity with our military by 2020.
It is short-sighted and foolish for any political representative to block the dispersal of our military assets, since such a move will strengthen our military and is therefore in our national interest.
Norfolk is no longer a sleepy, “Navy town” and does not rely entirely on the Fleet for its local economy. Norfolk can spare a carrier (or two) as well as JFCOM and a few other regional activities. We should be dispersing our military and government assets as a matter of general practice, in order to complicate the targeting problem for current and future enemies. The same should be done to DC. Some years ago I submitted the Government Agency Strategic Relocation Act (GASRA) (to Congresswoman JoAnn Davis) that would have mandated the relocation of key agency headquarters, at least 180 miles outside of Washington D.C. With the far better connectivity that we have today, there is even more incentive to spread our government out, all across America. The collateral benefit, of course, would be to force those career DC bureaucrats to live among normal Americans in the hinterlands and perhaps they would gain an appreciation of how the rest of the citizens are struggling.
September 2nd, 2010 at 8:35 pm
GNProgressive – were we at the same debate? You thought Nye did well?? Oh wait, it looks like you posted your comment at 6:56pm….before the debate even started. Now I understand.
I thought Nye and Golden were both bland. Rigell may not be the most eloquent speaker (yet…although he is improving by leaps and bounds), but he has by far the most business experience of all three candidates. From what I observed of the crowd, it seemed like people from both sides of the aisle were very interested in what Rigell had to say. Liberals can’t stand Nye. Interestingly enough, the economy is so bad that Rigell is picking up votes from non-Republicans who are scared about the direction of our country under our current Democratic leaders. Glenn Nye could never be called a leader even under the most generous definition of the term.
September 3rd, 2010 at 5:04 am
GNProgressive: “We have no one in office with any significant military background.” I guess you forgot about Sen. Jim Webb.
September 3rd, 2010 at 5:14 am
LC: What evidence do you have that “Rigell is picking up votes from non-Republicans?” Who has voted? Have there been any independent polls? Just wishful thinking?
“Glenn Nye could never be called a leader even under the most generous definition of the term?” After Nye successfully inserted a provision into the 2011 defense authorization bill passed by the House that would block funding for moving a carrier to Florida, Gov. McDonnell sent him a letter thanking him for his “leadership on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
September 3rd, 2010 at 5:21 am
J.Tyler,
The military and the US Navy keeps swinging between consolidation and dispersal.
If dispersal is such a great idea, then why was the huge Charleston Naval Base closed down?
All of the carriers previously based in Mayport were conventional, not nuclear. The infrastructure does not exist to support nuclear powered carriers in Mayport and it can not be provided without great expense and increased annual operational costs.
Why is the JFCOM closing being touted as a great cost savings, while on the other hand there is a proposal to shift one or even two carriers (two makes more sense – with only one the costly infrastructure would be sit idle when the carrier is deployed) which will add significant costs to the DOD budget?
LC,
Glenn Nye did more for veterans in his first four months in office then his predecessor did for veterans in her entire four years in office.
September 3rd, 2010 at 5:30 am
LC,
Look at the time your own comment is listed as being posted at. My last post comes up as 5:21 AM while my watch said it was 8:21 AM.
September 3rd, 2010 at 6:37 am
LittleDavid is correct. They will not spend the money to make Mayport Nuclear capable unless there are two carriers there. There were always two carriers there before. The issue is not about national security. If you look at a satellite photo of Mayport, it is much more vulnerable to attack than Norfolk. It is right near the mouth of the St. Johns river, a major shipping lane, and if a terrorist commandeered a ship, it could easily steer right into the carrier pier. The major industrial base for aircraft carriers is in Norfolk, any carrier moved to Mayport would be a maintenance disaster, just like every carrier based there in the past.
What you forget Tyler, is that we rarely have more than one or two carriers in port at any given time and the Chinese have enough nukes that if they want to attack us, they could take out all of our major cities with no problem. Any strike by conventional forces would have to come from the opposite side of the world attacking Pearl Harbor or San Diego, not Norfolk. Norfolk is still a Navy town, 43% of the regions GDP comes from the military.
This is not a military issue, this is a money issue. Florida is afraid of Mayport being BRACed and so they want more assets.
As for Senator Webb, he has experience, but he was not at all well liked in the Pentagon or the Navy when he was SecNav. It might have something to do with losing his famous boxing match with Ollie North at the Academy… I’m sure he is a nice guy though.
September 3rd, 2010 at 6:48 am
GNProgressive: I’ll accept that as an admission that your statement that “we have no one in office with any significant military background” was incorrect.
September 3rd, 2010 at 7:15 am
When I wrote that I was referring to the Congressional (house) delegation, not really our two Senators, but yes, I was incorrect. However, as far as in the house of representatives, we have no one.
September 3rd, 2010 at 10:21 am
GNProgressive: What you wrote was in the context of “we really need someone in the delegation who can protect our military assets like John Warner used to do.” That would be Senator John Warner, who (like Senator Webb) had prior military experience.
Must every elected official have military experience? Nye had significant foreign policy experience with the State Department prior to his election. As Congressman, Nye has been a tireless advocate for the military and veterans (almost to the exclusion of other important issues).
However, your point is well taken that (unlike Nye and Golden), Rigell has no prior military or governmental experience.
September 3rd, 2010 at 10:38 am
I wish to point out Glenn actively sought out the most combat torn areas within which to serve.
Glenn was in Kosovo when the majority of our uniformed service members served in safety.
September 3rd, 2010 at 10:47 am
Not every official, but Warner and Webb both have shown that they don’t have adequate contacts in the Pentagon. Kenny, who isn’t even an elected, got words via friends that the DBB was going to be coming out with something about JFCOM weeks before it hit the papers.
Some military experience is one thing, and Webb having been SecNav should have these contacts, which maybe he does have, but he was still in the dark. You really need someone who has those friends in the Pentagon and who has planned major operations and worked with 4 stars to represent the most military district in the world. If this wasn’t VA-2, I’d say Golden is out of his mind and should drop out, but our biggest issues are military related.
Nye’s service is admirable, but it doesn’t have anything to do with operations, planning, integration, or command of large military commands or Naval fleets. He certainly understands how the military and civilian worlds work together, but the question is how qualified is he really to question 4 star admirals and generals in the hearing rooms. It would be easy for Mullen, Harvey, or Roughead to pull one over on Nye, it would be impossible for that to happen to Kenny Golden.
So yes, Warner and Webb are nice on the Senate side, but they can’t be very effective without a good, strong partner on the house side. Right now they don’t have that. Nye is doing as good as could possibly be expected from someone with his background, but Golden would clearly do better.
That all being said, I’ll be happy to have either Nye or Golden. Anybody but Rigell. Nye doesn’t deserve to be fired, but like Golden said at the debate, his background makes him the perfect candidate to represent the district.
September 3rd, 2010 at 11:06 am
If Golden had advance knowledge about JFCOM, maybe he should have mentioned it to someone.
In the unlikely event that Golden is elected, he will find that issuing commands as a naval officer is quite different from the work of a Congressman.
I agree with you that “Nye doesn’t deserve to be fired.”
September 3rd, 2010 at 11:39 am
The BRAC that closed the Charleston Naval Station was a mistake, and at the time was claimed to be a cost-cutting measure by the puzzle palace (aka Pentagon).
GNP is confusing the Communist Chinese with our former Soviet enemies. While the ChiComs have nukes, they lack the ability to target our cities in the multiple ways that the Soviets could do.
Dispersing our carriers and our government agencies will complicate any adversaries targeting problem, and of course, there is a cost-benefit analysis that must be applied to justify how dispersed things can be.
As for the ludicrous claim by GNP that we only have one carrier in port at a time, I would like to invite you to tour either San Diego or Norfolk during the, now standard, Christmas stand-down period. Typically for two weeks prior to Christmas, and two weeks after, nearly every naval asset is in home port, unless deployed, as a policy made by the Chief of Naval Operations. I am sure there can be exceptions for war-time support.
Still, there is no rational basis for keeping all of our carriers in a single port. Sure, the bean counters will say it is cheaper to keep all the eggs in one basket; just look at how much money they saved by putting nearly the whole Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, back in 1941!
September 3rd, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Really the only thing a junior congressman can do is ask questions and get answers. Golden can ask better questions than Nye or Rigell and will better know when the answers are BS.
September 3rd, 2010 at 7:34 pm
I said one OR two carriers in port, sure Christmas is an exception, but do you really think hitting two targets is much harder than just one? You already said the Chinese couldn’t target us and the Soviets have enough nukes that if they did, they could take out two installations just as easy as they could one.
What good is it to have two carrier bases when the carriers you have at the 2nd one are going to be maintenance disasters. The carriers based in Mayport will always be in worse shape than ones based in Norfolk. Now if we had 10 billion to spare, I’d say sure, lets make a second carrier port, but we don’t.
It doesn’t do anything for national security to move two carriers to Mayport and it will cost us a ton of money. Anybody capable of seriously attacking Norfolk is capable of attacking Mayport at the same time as well. No one would ever dare attempt a bombing raid or an amphib assault on the US. It would be nukes only and if that were the case, both Norfolk and Mayport would be hit, along with every other major installation and city.
September 4th, 2010 at 5:14 am
J Tyler,
Do you think China lacks the capability to launch ballistic missiles that could reach the United States when they can launch into space? I seem to recall they even successfully completed the launch of an anti-satellite weapon into space, which they used to destroy one of their own obsolete satellites. I think you underestimate Chinese abilities.
The China threat is the one in ascent while the Russian threat is in descent. While there has been some evidence the Russians are trying to piece together some type of blue water navy on a greatly reduced budget, for awhile there most of her naval assets were incapable of leaving port due to lack of maintenance and operational funding.
At least that’s how I see it. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can shame me with my ignorance without disclosing anything classified. I’d enjoy the brief!
September 4th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Nye, according to The Hill, is one of the 10 most vulnerable Democratic house members this year-
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/117189-the-10-most-endangered-house-democrats
September 5th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
nye’s 86% voting with the Dems is abysmal, one of the worst in the house. but its better than rigell’s 0. i will vote for nye, try to stop bashing him. but i cannot bring myself to campaign for him or display his signs/stickers. out of 3 voters in my house, all liberals, i will be the only one voting. the rest are too disgusted.
September 5th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
nye’s 86% voting with the Dems is abysmal, one of the worst in the house. but its better than rigell’s 0. i will vote for nye, try to stop bashing him. but i cannot bring myself to campaign for him or display his signs/stickers. out of 3 voters in my house, all liberals, i will be the only one voting. the rest are too disgusted.
September 5th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
What a great ad. I made sure that the fat cat military contractors that overcharge the government can continue to sponge off the federal government until 2019. And I’ll make sure that wasteful JFCOM, a joke that does nothing to keep America safe, stays around as well. To hell with your health care, to hell with the effects of climate change, to hell with putting non-military persons to work.
Go down the road and work / contribute to Tom Perrielo, he deserves it. Glenn Nye does not.
September 6th, 2010 at 3:44 am
I can understand where progressives have such a negative opinion of Glenn Nye when I go to progressive websites that campaign so effectively against him.
Only 20% of Americans self identify as liberal and if the Democratic Party is going to be a big tent, that means some moderate candidates are going to have to be included in the mix. 40% of Americans self identify as conservative, so if liberals and conservatives split the moderate vote 50-50% guess who ends up winning?
If Glenn Nye is not good enough to win progressive votes (I have heard him described as not being from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party!) then I guess we shouldn’t be shocked if Republicans end winning a majority in the House. I guess this is an example of progressive reasoning. Glenn Nye isn’t progressive enough so Rigell will represent them better.
Attaboy Bob, you serve as a fine example of just how unreasonable progressives can be. You can not compromise to win elections and you are unwilling to share power. If things don’t go 100% your way, you will abandon the coalition.
September 6th, 2010 at 10:08 am
Yada yada yada. What coalition? When does Glenn Nye do HIS part for this coalition?
He’s the elected official. He made all those promises, then promptly broke them. Taking voters to task for expecting him to live up to his promises is not going to get him re-elected.
September 6th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
What promises did he make that he broke? You keep putting up these broken promises and I just want to hear what these promises where.
January 4th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
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