Neil H. Simon of Media General’s Washington bureau reports that in an effort to minimize the growing number of Republicans defecting to support Democrat Mark Warner’s Senate bid, Northern Virginia GOP activists wagged their finger Tuesday night at Republicans who have already strayed from the fold.
The Fairfax County Republican Committee passed a resolution at their monthly meeting stating “its disapproval of Republicans publicly supporting Mark Warner,” and encouraging “those that have already done so to discontinue their active support.”
The resolution passed by voice vote among the roughly 200 members present, committee chairman Jim Hyland said.
Earlier Tuesday Republicans had considered voting on other measures to punish Republicans who support Warner. One idea would have amounted to a censure of recently retired State Delegate Vincent F. Callahan (R-McLean), who has backed Warner.
The final resolution did not name any Warner-backing Republicans, but did acknowledge the lack of enthusiasm some Republicans have for their own Senate nominee, Jim Gilmore.
“We know that any one Republican, at any time, may be dissatisfied with the nominee,” the resolution read, “but that dissatisfaction is best reflected in the privacy of the voting booth.”
Fairfax County Republican Committee chairman Jim Hyland said, “People had wanted something stronger. We have a lot of people who are upset about this series of Republicans endorsing Mark Warner.”
“We ended up with more of a consensus resolution,” Hyland said.
Gilmore’s and Warner’s campaigns did not immediately return calls Wednesday.
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