There’s a group of young Democrats in the area who I’ve addressed a few times, high school students who have organized a multi-school group named the Charlottesville Young Liberals. They work on campaigns together, arrange educational forums, and generally do the sorts of things that people lament kids don’t do enough of these days.
They visited the General Assembly yesterday and, as is often done, they were welcomed publicly. Many of them are represented by Del. David Toscano, and he did the honors. The Democratic Party of Virginia captured the closed circuit video of the occasion.
Yup, you heard right — this group of students was booed, presumably by house Republicans.
To be fair, this is the tone of the house. This is how they treat each other. It’s raucous, often disrespectful. But, again, that’s how they treat each other — not guests. House Republicans have become so partisan that they can’t even behave politely to a group of school children who happen to be Democrats.
This is why house Republicans are bound and determined not to transmit video of their sessions. If people could see how they behave, they’d have lost the majority already.
As they may say — F ’em.
The house Republicans, that is.
Stay classy RPV, you’ll need all that style and charm for your coming century in the minority. Enjoy it while you got it.
Did someone that was there tell you that it was the House Republicans? There’s no way of telling, but it just as easily could have been someone else in the gallery.
That said, you’re right about the tone of the house. That place is a zoo (and has been for years).
Yup.
Had that been the case, the speaker would surely have gaveled them down, and Del. Toscano would have been looking up rather than at eye level. That would be truly extraordinary behavior on the part of such a large group of people in the gallery.
I think we should look at this from the other side. If I was one on the Young Liberals (and I do own their T-shirt), I would be proud of this. I would take it as recognition that I had become a successful thorn in the side of the Albemarle/VA GOP. One of the disadvantages of organizing as a young person (and this is compounded when you are both young and not Brian Bills) is that someone else always gets the credit for your successes. And who better to acknowledge your successes than your opponents. So I say, bravo Young Liberals. Chalk this up as another victory.
I completely agree.
If I were one of the Young Liberals who got booed by the House of Delegates, I’d not only use it as a badge of honor, but mention it at every campaign stop when I ran to unseat one of the soon-to-be-ex-Delegates.
I agree with ajc and fishing – having attended many college sports event, I almost view booing as a sense of solidarity, an acceptance of a rivalry, in a weird way. (Non-solidarity would’ve been screaming “f— the young liberals!”, I suppose.) But maybe the fact that I’m comparing politics to a basketball or football game is sad in itself.
Still, I think the young liberals can certainly use this to their advantage. I imagine the UVA student dubbed “macaca” by George Allen is extremely happy with the way that worked out. Gotta love youtube.
The college sports analogy is a good one. The teams are free to bad-mouth one another — it could even be argued that it’s a part of the sport — but it would be pretty inappropriate for a team to go after fans of the other team for the offense of showing up.
Is there a reason the video is no longer available, as of Saturday afternoon?
I’ve been getting that “video no longer available” message sporadically since yesterday afternoon. Try it again and it may well work.
That’s pretty disgusting behavior from adults directed towards kids. No analogy or frame of mind is needed. It’s just wrong.
And for what it’s worth, it really bothers me when people compare sports and politics. It’s like comparing apples and zebras.
The Republican Party lost their ability to govern long ago, it is all a kabuki performance now. Across the Commonwealth their ignorant minion cheer approvingly to see their ignorant leadership snicker and boo “liberals”. It’s an easy crowd. And an easy gig.
It was all in fun, geez. Toscano didn’t look too surprised. They let out a very light-hearted “boo” when the “liberal” buzzword came out, and then many had a little chuckle over it.
Let’s keep our sense of humor about us, shall we?