Times-Dispatch staff writer Jeff Schapiro recalls being pulled off a political convention to cover the manhunt for the Briley brothers. Word was, they wouldn’t be taken alive.

It’s an oldie but maybe no longer a goodie. Virginia’s 62-year-old prohibition against union membership as a condition for a job—the so-called right-to-work law—is popping up in the preliminaries of the 2009 campaign. As an issue, it’s largely manufactured, the handiwork of Republicans trying to get back in the good graces of checkwriting businesspeople and business organizations trying to remain relevant.

Political columnist Jeff Schapiro comments on the democratic primary showdown. With the debates over, let the real fight for the gubernatorial nomination begin.

For Bob McDonnell, Republican candidate for governor, this is a Sunday of sacrilege. His alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, today is awarding an honorary degree to President Barack Obama. That a great Catholic university would do so, given Obama’s support of abortion rights, is an affront to the faith’s social teachings, McDonnell says.

Hours before lawmakers returned to the state Capitol for their spring session, Dick Saslaw welcomed deep-pocketed visitors: the head of giant payday lender Advance America, the company’s chief lobbyist and its fixer in Richmond. The trio told the Senate Democratic boss that the company had found a legal way to—and would—bypass profit-cutting restrictions Saslaw won last winter, perhaps as penance for his status as an industry defender and major beneficiary of its campaign cash.

Political columnist Jeff Schapiro says the three candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination are making noise but not gaining traction.

The Republican convention in Richmond next month is supposed to be former Attorney General Bob McDonnell’s bar mitzvah—some food, a bit to drink, lotsa flash. But for McDonnell, entering the political equivalent of manhood as his party’s nominee for governor is a surprisingly low-dollar affair. Like those schlocky floral centerpieces that end up in Mrs. What’s-her-stein’s living room the morning after the big party, McDonnell’s fundraising appears to be wilting.

While Mark Warner hides out on card-check, Jim Webb plunges into prison reform. These issues, conventional wisdom has it, are career killers. One Democrat shudders. The other says big deal. This tale of two senators spotlights their different temperaments and very different approaches to politics. On card-check—the new bloody shirt of business and labor—Warner is learning the hard way that being a “radical centrist” means you’re a target for people on both sides of a tough issue.

The late A.L. Philpott, a House speaker of the old school—taciturn, crafty, attentive of detail—is reported to have said it is the prerogative of every lawyer-legislator to seek a judgeship. Del. Kenny Melvin of Portsmouth might seem an unlikely prospect to put Philpott’s words into action, having made it to the House by toppling a Philpott confrere, Cleaves Manning, in a Democratic primary.

As a former commander of Norfolk Naval Base and a nuclear weapons officer who worked on Russian atomic secrets at the National Security Council, Joe Bouchard knows something about uranium. As a Ph.D. and Democratic delegate from Virginia Beach who works on environmental and scientific issues on two important House committees, Bouchard also knows something about the politics of uranium.

A state Republican chairman with firm beliefs runs afoul of party potentates. Disagreements rooted in personality, policy and pettiness erupt in full view. Next there is a coup attempt. Jeff Frederick? Nope. Pat McSweeney, who thwarted Gov. George Allen in a front-page struggle 15 years ago for control of the GOP apparatus. Allen attempted to orchestrate an ouster vote by the party’s governing body, the central committee.

Crowded into a windowless conference room at the John Marshall Courts Building, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Leroy Hassell and the eight judges of the Richmond Circuit Court quarreled over a proposal to scrap a Holy City tradition: separate civil and criminal judgeships. Hassell, intent on leveling the workload of the busy court, wanted the practice dropped immediately. Most of the judges favored a phase-in.

Fillets in one barrel, fish heads in another:

Even before fellow Republicans blew smoke in his face over tougher controls on puffing in public, Bill Howell was reminded that, like Rodney Dangerfield, he sometimes gets no respect. Despite a brief, embarrassing revolt, Howell ultimately steered his feisty and fractious caucus behind restrictions on smoking in restaurants, providing the glib but prickly House speaker and Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine potent talking points for November.

Sen. Walter Stosch has got a secret. At least it looks that way. Same with Sens. Mark Obenshain, Tommy Norment, Ken Stolle, Ryan McDougle and Del. Bud Phillips. Stosch, a Henrico Republican, is an accountant. His firm represents businesses and individuals before state agencies. On his conflict-of-interest report, he is supposed to identify those clients and what he’s paid.