RichmondLiberty.org

The Shad Planking is Virginia's premier political event. Sponsored by the Wakefield Ruritan Club, the event has been held annually for the last 60 years.

This year the sign war didn't really start until you got into Wakefield. In previous years it started as soon as you got off the Interstate and onto US 460.

As I've done for the last several years, I helped with the VCDL table. The table volunteers met at The Virginia Diner for breakfast. As we ate, there were a lot of Mark Warner volunteers arrive an just starting to put out signs. There was no sign of other candidates.

On the ride from the diner to the Wakefield Sportsmen's Club where the event took place, the signs sprung out of the ground like a fungus spreading across the land. Warner had about 90% of the signs. There were a few for Bob Marshall. I saw none for Gilmore.

There was also a patch of "KC4AG" signs. These signs had a website or something printed below it, but the print was so small I couldn't read it.

Finally spread very thinly and almost lost in the sea of other signs was a few "NO OLF" signs.

Really someone needs to tell KC4AG and NO OLF that people don't know what this crap means and aren't going to bother to look it up. I'm involved in politics and even I'm not going to bother to figure these signs out.

Anyway the event area had lots of tents and tables. Many handing out free beer, hot dogs, or something. There was the usual Gill Davis hot dogs. However Bill Bolling had bigger tastier ones. Several groups also did popcorn.

Deeds and Moran had large tents as well. That race will certainly be an interesting one. Moran winning the Democrat's nomination for Governor, could mean an end to the traditional "Conservative" Virginia Democrat. Of course that's all for 2009.

Also inside the event area, it looked like Gilmore decided to go with a horde of volunteers carrying signs saying "McCain/Gilmore". Made me wonder if he thought he might be running for VP instead of Senate. I think Gilmore won the "how many volunteers can you get to this event" contest. However as we've seen in past years, the winner of the sign war wins the general election.

The VCDL tent was busy all day, as was most of the other tables.

I finally stumbled across the KC4AG table. It means Ken Cuccinelli for Attorney General.

I also stumbled across the NO OLF table. OLF stands for "Outlying Landing Field." Apparently the military is being pushed out of VA Beach because of development and they want a new landing field somewhere in a place where the residents don't want it.

There was a very big crowd at the "NO Real ID" table. I was personally glad to see them out here. There was also the Libertarian Party tent, which also had a steady stream of people.

The Sierra club, giving away free compact fluorescent light bulbs, attracted a large number of people as well.

There were numerous other groups operating tables. As always it was a lot of fun seeing talking to these people and seeing which issues motivate people.

The only one I couldn't understand was the AARP table with their petition "for the election" and something about "getting politicians to work together." It was so vague I don't think anyone could tell what they were advocating. Also don't forget usually when politicians work together, they're working to take away our rights.

Anyway about 1pm or so the shad was ready. I'm here to report, shad still have the most tiny little bones as they have ever had. As usual I was thankful I ate a huge breakfast.

Finally around about 2 or 3pm the speeches started. Around 4pm they got to the main folks (the ones running for US Senate).

Mark Warner spoke first. It was a nice warm and fuzzy speech. He's a radical centrist. He avoided the issue about his time as Governor and breaking his promise not to raise taxes. In fact his speech seemed to me to be completely devoid of any substance. After hearing him talk, I know nothing more about his positions than I did before hearing him.

Next came Bob Marshall. He talked more about God and Jesus than most preachers do on Sunday. He's a Catholic and wants to make sure marriage is one man and one woman (unfortunately he wants more government involvement to do this instead of getting government out of it). He closed with a statement about needing to fight gun violence. Well at least we know where he stands. I gathered from the No Real ID folks, that Marshall is championing the fight to stop that horrible intrusion on our liberty. Unfortunately he didn't mention it in his speech, so one has to wonder how important it is to him.

Finally came Jim Gilmore. He started his speech talking about how the only way to predict what a politician will do is by looking at what they have done. He then proceeded to talk about how he kept his word to eliminate the car tax. I must confess I stopped listening after that lie. My guess is that he probably went on to say something about how he increased spending by 40% during his term, which helped give Warner and the VA Senate Republicans an excuse not to eliminate the car tax and to eventually give us the largest tax increase in VA history.

After the windbags were done, people got back to eating shad and drinking free beer. Overall this is an extremely fun event and worth taking the day off to attend. Hope to see everyone next year.

Pictures will be posted as soon as I get them off the camera. Check back here in a few days.