The Virginia House of Delegates’ Democratic and Republican caucuses each elected their leadership for the 2010 General Assembly session during the weekend. The Republican caucus, strengthened after picking up at least five seats in the House this month, re-elected Speaker of the House William J. Howell, R-Stafford. They also voted to keep Del. H. Morgan Griffith of Salem as majority leader, Del. Samuel A. Nixon Jr. of Chesterfield County as caucus chair and Del. M. Kirkland Cox of Colonial Heights as majority whip. The party posts were chosen by acclamation, but the full House membership will vote on Howell’s post when the General Assembly meets in January in Richmond.

History told Virginia Democrats it wasn’t going to be easy. For the past 32 years, the party that wins the White House has lost the governorship—a trend that sometimes portends shifts in national politics.

Political commentators have often observed that our two political parties fulfill different parental roles. Strong on security and national defense, the Republican Party is seen as the Daddy Party. Like many fathers, the Republicans have tended to stress fiscal restraint and individual responsibility. When the country is threatened by external forces or by those who would do us mischief, Americans often gravitate toward Republican leadership.

Because seizing control of the energy, automotive, and financial sectors of the economy evidently just whets the appetite, Washington is now hell-bent on further nationalizing the country’s health care apparatus as well. House Democrats have introduced a bill of gargantuan proportions and hypodermic invasiveness, which they and the White House insist must be passed by late afternoon tomorrow, if not yesterday.

To many Virginia voters, the Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general may seem like the obscure celebrities who appeared in those old credit-card commercials, uttering the line: “Do you know me?“ Mike Signer and Jody Wagner may not be household names. But both want to be the party’s nominee for the No. 2 job in Virginia.

The three men seeking the Democratic nomination for governor stopped in South Richmond last night to discuss jobs, education, health care and their support for restoration of felons’ voting rights. More than 150 local residents, city politicians and campaign operatives gathered at the Southside Community Services Center on Hull Street for a forum sponsored by the Richmond Crusade for Voters. The predominantly black voter-mobilization group traditionally has supported Democratic candidates.

Pat Edmonson will not be a Democratic candidate for the nomination to run for lieutenant governor. The little-known Virginia Beach School Board member failed to file the required 10,000 signatures with the State Board of Elections Friday to get her name on the ballot. Friday was the deadline for filing to be a candidate in the June 9 primary.

Don’t real leaders stand up and do the right thing in the face of pressure, no matter where that pressure comes from (in this case from President Obama’s Treasury Department)? This is the same Dodd who, while head of the Senate Banking Committee, received below-market rates for mortgages from Countrywide Finance and now faces a Senate ethics investigation. Don’t real leaders take the moral high road, particularly when no one is looking?

Teachers with subject-matter expertise should be paid in part based on the subject matter they teach. Math and science experts, for instance, command greater pay in the private sector than art or literature experts.

Finish line for U.S. presence President Barack Obama announced here yesterday that he’ll withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010. But his plans to leave as many as 50,000 U.S. troops there through 2011 made many Democrats in Congress angry, while Republicans cheered. It was an ironic reception for a new commander-in-chief whose presidential campaign was built initially on his early opposition to the Iraq war and his promise to end it if elected.

Blogger Karen Duncan, who bills herself as “proudly liberal since 2005,“ was clearly acting out of gratitude when she posted pictures and descriptions of Democrats Terry McAuliffe, Brian Moran, Creigh Deeds, and Jody Wagner handing out coffee and popcorn—and being generally cheerful and supportive—during a union-sponsored picket line. The event was held on Jan. 19 at the Hilton Crystal City at National Airport.

Former President Bill Clinton told Virginia Democrats last night that the party must maintain its new level of support nationally by respecting Americans’ trust in the party and focusing on how to solve problems. “The only thing that will make it work is that we think our differences are interesting but our common humanity matters more,“ Clinton said at the Democrats’ JeffersonJackson Day dinner, an annual fundraiser.

Catholic politicians seem to be everywhere these days. In Virginia alone, the governor and attorney general are both Roman Catholic. On the national level, Catholic politicians seem to be spilling out of every tabernacle in town. This is not surprising given that 24.5 percent of Americans are Catholic. Except for brief interruptions, American Catholics have remained loyal to the Democratic Party since the days of mass Catholic immigration when the party was quick to dispense desperately needed jobs and cash to struggling families in return for votes.

Alicia Kozakiewicz, who survived being abducted as a child, urged Virginia legislators yesterday not to cut the Internet safety funding she helped secure 10 months ago. Kozakiewicz, the namesake of “Alicia’s Law,“ stood beside state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, and Del. Phillip A. Hamilton, R-Newport News, to call for the funding, which is not included in the 2010 budget.

Virginia Democrats are so excited about tomorrow’s inauguration of Barack Obama—and turning Virginia blue for the first time in 44 years—that they’re celebrating a day early. The state party’s brightest stars, big-money donors and rank and file loyalists are holding a black-tie soiree tonight in Northern Virginia to trumpet their success and to raise funds for this fall’s pivotal state election battles.