The Party of 'Nyet'

Virginia Republicans are in their usual place: at each other's throats.

VIRGINIA Republicans gathered at a handsome resort the other day to lick their wounds and plot their future. Or rather, some Virginia Republicans did -- namely, the party's right-wing, anti-tax ideologues, who have contributed mightily to devastating back-to-back losses in races for the governorship last year and the U.S. Senate this year. Virginia's more pragmatic Republicans, who are more interested in addressing the state's problems than in upholding the true faith of anti-tax doctrine, did not bother to show up.

And who can blame them? The moderates, although they control the state Senate, have so far failed to nudge their hard-line colleagues in the House of Delegates toward practical solutions for the state's most critical problem: its crumbling, inadequately funded transportation infrastructure. The likely result is further electoral setbacks for Republicans, particularly in Northern Virginia's well-educated, centrist suburbs, and a loosening of their control of the House. With all 140 seats in the General Assembly up for election next year, many in the party are already bracing for the worst.

Having spurned Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's proposals for new taxes to fund major improvements for the state's roads and rails, House Republicans are now warning that they will shoot down one of his signature proposals from his 2005 campaign: universal preschool for the state's 100,000 4-year-olds. Granted, Mr. Kaine has not yet bothered to divulge how he would go about paying for the initiative, which would be very expensive -- at least $300 million over four years to provide for the 80 percent of 4-year-olds who the governor figures would sign up. And there are legitimate reasons to question the wisdom and equity of providing an entitlement program for middle-class parents already willing and able to pay for preschool. But the GOP fundamentalists aren't interested in having that discussion or weighing the governor's ideas dispassionately. They would rather just be the Party of "Nyet" -- nyet to taxes, nyet to new roads, nyet to new preschools.

The new state GOP chairman, Ed Gillespie, is speaking soothing words to the party's warring factions, sensibly urging dialogue and compromise and warning against division. At the same time, though, one of the hard-liners, Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, who represents Prince William and Fauquier counties, answered Mr. Gillespie with a cold splash of reality. Writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Mr. Lingamfelter, who has voted to block new funding sources for transportation, warned of "liberals" seeking "to craft a socialist solution for you and me." It seems that the Virginia GOP's day of reconciliation is not yet upon us.