Virginia Republicans, Divided in 2008, Struggling to Cooperate for 2009

RICHMOND

As Virginia Republicans continue to assess their Nov. 4 losses and plot their comeback in time for the 2009 state races, one big obstacle hangs over them: coordination.

The 2008 presidential and congressional races exposed a huge discrepancy in how the Democrats worked with other Democrats compared with how Republicans worked together.

Although they experienced a few bumps when President-elect Barack Obama's campaign came to Virginia for the general election, state Democrats were a well-oiled political machine that produced an impressive result on Election Day.

Sen.-elect Mark R. Warner (D) won his race with more votes than any other statewide politician in history. Obama became the first Democratic presidential nominee in 44 years to carry Virginia, winning a higher percentage of the vote in Virginia then he did in the traditional battleground states of Ohio and Florida.

And Democrats picked up as many as three House seats in Virginia, one of the best showings for Democratic congressional challengers in the country.

But while the Virginia Democratic Party emerges from the elections stronger than it has been in decades, Virginia GOP leaders are dogged by finger-pointing and disorganization as they prepare for the 2009 races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the state House of Delegates.

On the day after the election, Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick blamed the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for the party's poor showing in the state on Election Day.

"What happened had nothing to do with the Republican Party of Virginia," said Frederick, noting that McCain also lost Ohio, Florida and North Carolina. "It had everything to do with the candidate and campaign that was run. . . . We did our best to communicate with the McCain campaign and give them our advice, but they chose not to take it."

McCain campaign officials, who declined to be identified because they are not authorized to speak for the senator, said they were left with no choice but to marginalize Frederick and the state party.

A few weeks after Frederick unseated former lieutenant governor John H. Hager as state GOP chairman, advisers for the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee traveled to Virginia to meet with Frederick and other state party officials.

The goal of the meeting, officials said, was to begin preparing a strategy similar to the Democrats', in which national money flowed to the state party in a coordinated effort to strengthen the party up and down the ballot.