CPAC - Jim Gilmore
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James Joyner | Friday, March 2, 2007 |
Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore came by to shake hands and I managed to talk to him one-on-one for a few minutes. His term preceded my having moved back to Virginia in 2002, so I mostly knew him from his time as RNC Chair and a few appearances on the Sunday shows. He was quite impressive.
What most impressed me about him is that he seems to have a very firm grasp of foreign policy issues, which I wasn’t expecting from someone with a domestic-focused political career. It turns out his undergraduate degree is in international relations and he served his first few years out of college as an Army intelligence officer. More importantly, I had forgotten his tenure as head of the Congressional Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction, aka the “Gilmore Commission.”
I asked him about how he would approach breaking out of the pack of the second tier candidates, many of whom have genuine conservative credentials, and establish himself as the “conservative alternative” to the Big Three. He said that they’re raising a lot of money, to be sure, but they’re having to spend it to convince people they’re something they’re not, while all he had to do is tell people who his is. He thinks that’ll be cheaper.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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