By Bob Gibson
Daily Progress political blogger

Bob Marshall said fellow GOP U.S. Senate candidate Jim Gilmore is trying to tally ignore him and pretend he’s won the nomination

“I am the space alien in this race to him,” Marshall said. “I will walk in a room and he will not even look at me.”

“He doesn’t want to admit he’s got an opponent,” said the veteran delegate campaigning as a populist.

“Gilmore and Warner are both part of the establishment,” Marshall said between bites of the bony shad served Wednesday afternoon by the Wakefield Ruritan Club. “I am the anti-establishment guy.”

Marshall said he is being supported for the GOP nomination by “Right-to-lifers, home schoolers, anti-tax people, libertarians and people who are mad at Gilmore.”

Asked which of those five groups of Republicans is the largest, Marshall laughed and declined to respond “on the record,” indicating that each is sizeable but the last group might be biggest.

Dick Leggitt, a longtime Gilmore aide, insisted that the Marshall-Gilmore nomination contest “is over,” saying Gilmore employs consultants who can count the already elected and committed delegates to the May 30-31 Richmond convention.

“We call them and talk to them. We count them,” Leggitt said. “Bob Marshall is a good candidate and we hope he’ll be supporting us in the fall.”

By Bob Gibson
Daily Progress political blogger

Potential GOP candidates for attorney general are dropping out in pairs.

One day after Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, said no to a 2009 bid, Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, joined him in citing family considerations for not running statewide.

Bell said he and his wife, Jessica, just learned she is pregnant with their second child.

Obenshain cited other family considerations, leaving former Del. Paul Harris as potentially the strongest challenger to the only announced Republican in the field, Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax County.

Del. Steve Shannon, D-Vienna, appears to be the most active Democrat eyeing the 2009 attorney general’s race.

Here is the text of Obenshain’s statement announcing today that he is not running:

“Over the past several months I have been encouraged to run for Attorney General of Virginia. After great consideration and deliberation, I have decided that I will not be a candidate for that office in 2009.
 
“To have the opportunity to serve Virginia’s citizens as Attorney General would be a great honor and privilege. It is a job for which I feel well suited by my professional endeavors over the past 21 years and by my public service. I have been encouraged by phone calls, e-mails and comments from friends from across Virginia and for that I am grateful.

“My family is the abiding consideration for me in deciding to forego a run at this time. I have two children in high school, and I am very proud of them. I understand the sacrifices my family would have to make in order for me to seek statewide office at this time, and they are too great.

Thanks to one and all for the encouragement you have provided both for my consideration of a run for AG, and for my service in the Senate of Virginia.“

By Bob Gibson
Daily Progress political blogger

Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, said today that he will not be seeking the statewide office of attorney general next year.

“Jessica’s pregnant and we just got our test back,“ Bell said of his wife. The two already have a young son, Robbie, and now are awaiting a second child.

“That makes it easy,“ Bell said. “I’m not going to run.“

The only Republican in the field as an announced attorney general candidate for 2009 is state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax County.

Others examining a GOP bid include Paul Harris, who for four years held the House seat Bell occupies; John Brownlee of Roanoke, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia; Sen. Ryan McDougle of Mechanicsville; and Sen. Mark Obenshain of Harrisonburg.