By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Five of the six Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates who were targeted for ouster by anti-tax organizers survived their primary challenges yesterday, leaving the conservative movement's threat of ballot box retribution largely unfulfilled.
Anti-tax organizers had characterized yesterday's primaries as a referendum on the state's controversial 2004 tax plan, a $1.5 billion tax increase over two years they had decried as unjust and unnecessary. The conservative movement was particularly critical of the 17 Republican legislators who had defied party leadership and voted for the tax package championed by Gov. Mark R. Warner (D).
But the anti-tax groups fielded primary challengers for only six of the 17 Republicans who had supported the tax increase -- and of those six, only one challenger won. Chris S. Craddock, a 26-year-old youth pastor who had adopted the movement's anti-tax pledge, defeated Gary A. Reese (Fairfax).
snipThe other incumbent Republicans won handily. "I take my 3 to 1 victory as total reaffirmation," said L. Preston Bryant Jr. (Lynchburg), who had led his Republican colleagues in voting to approve the tax plan. "The overriding issue in each and every one was the tax reform package of 2004. Most people saw the big picture."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061401729.html