A local tea party activist appears set on challenging Sen. Thomas K. "Tommy" Norment for his seat in the Virginia Senate in 2011, even though it's unclear exactly what the district is going to look like.
Norment, the Senate Minority Leader, has been in the General Assembly for more than a decade and he's a tough campaigner who has survivied stiff challenges before - remember his knock down drag out race against Paul Jost?
But Norment represents a largely conservative district - check out how the folks voted in all the recent statewide elections and you get a sense that the only logical challenge is coming from the right.
Enter Mark Frechette, a local tea party activists who has already set up to run against Norment. Frechette's name is up on the Virginia Public Access Project, the non-partisan campaign finance watchdog, and he also got a bit of mention in a recent Washington Post article on the tea party turning attention to state legislatures.
This snippet from the post includes quotes from Karen Hurd, one of the leaders of the Hampton Roads Tea Party.
Leading Republicans in the state Senate have repeatedly joined Democrats on budget issues, often clashing with more conservative members of the GOP who control the House of Delegates.
"The RINOs know who they are," Hurd said, referring to those she thinks are "Republicans in name only."
"Any Republican who's voted for tax increases or who's voted to restrict our rights under the Second Amendment," she said, "they should definitely be looking over their shoulders."
Already, a tea party-backed candidate has announced that he plans to challenge the Senate's leading Republican, Thomas K. Norment (James City County), for the GOP nomination.
By targeting sitting Republicans, the tea party will probably clash with the GOP establishment in some areas. Elsewhere, they would work with Republican leaders to back conservative candidates. Regardless, Hurd said, the goal will be to help tea party candidates win Republican nominations rather than to run third-party campaigns.
So Frechette didn't get him name in the Post yet - but you get the idea.
Frechette is not to be confused with the 1970's actor of the same name - so make sure you get specific about your Google search. According to VPAP's donation database Frechette hasn't given much cash ever to Virginia political candidates - Republican or Democrat. In fact this is the only Frechette we could find.
Frechette has set up a website, where he offers up his views which include ending legal abortion in Virginia, dropping the state's income tax rate to a flat 5% and setting up term limits for members of the Virginia House and Senate. According to his site he's a Army veteran who came to Hampton Road when he was stationed at Fort Eustis.
"As far as my politics are concerned, I am a conservative libertarian. That is, I hold to traditional family values, I think that we should stop trying to push God out of government (but not force Him on government either), and I think that the federal government should strictly adhere to the limitations laid out in the Constitution of the United States, especially to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
According to VPAP, Frechette lives in Hayes Virginia, across the water from Norment's James City base. So redistricting might get even more interesting around Hayes this year.
The funny thing is with census numbers not coming in until February, and the new state maps needing a sign off from the Department of Justice - there's no telling exactly what Norment's district is going to look like when the primary comes around.
Add in the fact that the primary is probably going to be delayed until the late summer - the set up is very different that traditional Virginia elections. VPAP has the early guess on the primaries - which usually hit in June - are going to be August 16, 2011. But that remains to be hashed out.
Either way it looks like arguably the most influential lawmaker in Hampton Roads is going to have to prepare to defend his seat in Richmond next year.
Comments