“While
the voice of every Republican should be heard, our challenge is to
figure out how to be a conservative party, without allowing the most
extreme voices of the day to control our party and determine its future
direction.”
That was former Virginia Lt. Governor Bill Bolling in the pages of the
Washington Post responding to the election of Fred Gruber to head up
Virginia’s 7th Congressional District Republican Committee. Bolling
called the result “extremely disappointing.”
So, what was it about Gruber that compelled Bolling to refer to him as
one of the “most extreme voices” in the Republican Party?
Judging from Gruber’s rather mundane campaign website, it is somewhat
hard to say. His biography does state that “Fred believes our Party is
on the wrong track, and has been an outspoken advocate for the need to
reform.”
Okay, so he’s not an establishment guy, and is not supportive of the
current Republican majority in the House, thinks we’re spending too
much, and the like.
But so what? Isn’t there room in the Virginia Republican Party for
activists like Gruber, who heads the Louisa, Virginia Tea Party and
otherwise has spent his career as a financial analyst?
Otherwise, Gruber ran on a rather innocuous platform “to bring in new
activists from the Tea Party, the Liberty movement, and pro-Family
movement, and unite them with traditional Republicans to build a
stronger GOP toward winning elections in our state and nationally.”
Frankly, that’s all pretty standard boilerplate as far as Republican
politics goes.
Then again, Bolling’s frustration may have had nothing to do with
Gruber’s political beliefs, and everything to do with Gruber’s support
of Dave Brat to oppose House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.)
in the upcoming June 10 primary.
Adding insult to injury, Gruber had just defeated Cantor loyalist
Linwood Cobb to win the local party election.
That is apparently enough to get smeared by the former Virginia Lt.
Governor as one of the GOP’s “most extreme voices” in one of the
nation’s most widely read newspapers, rather than congratulating him on
a hard-fought victory.
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