Good Ol’ Boys Nostalgia Won’t Solve Warren County’s Problems

One wonders: as anti-Catholicism rises, will the KKK ride again?  The question was provoked by a recent letter to the Royal Examiner by Lynn Urban.   Democrats, Freemasons, and the remnants of the Good Ol’ Boys who so badly managed Warren County have noticed that well-educated Catholics have stepped into the public square to fix the County’s institutions. And they are not pleased.

The antidote to having well-educated Catholics in public office was offered by Ms. Urban: Elect to the Board of Supervisors Hugh Henry, a septic system expert, and Tony Carter, a member of the Board of Supervisors who was criminally indicted for malfeasance in 2019 for sleeping while the EDA was plundered.

The Royal Examiner’s 9/15/19 article by Roger Bianchini, “Exploring Warren County’s EDA financial scandal – How did it happen?” asked:

“How could personal and procedural checks and balances collapse so catastrophically for such a length of time, in so many directions?”

“I had no reason not to trust her” is a comment offered by more than one EDA or municipal official in explanation of the lack of due diligence performed on project proposals and financing or the purchase and sale of properties through the EDA on the word of its former executive director.

Perhaps it is that personal comfort and familiarity – “I had no reason not to trust her” – born of long-time social, professional and organizational ties that gives us a clue at a root cause of that “catastrophic failure” of procedures and oversight cited at this story’s outset.

It is a familiarity born of business and legal transactions, organizational memberships, not to mention in many cases political party affiliations. In Warren County those political affiliations are almost exclusively on the Republican side of the political aisle, from local to state and federal levels. And that is not to point a finger at one party or the other, but rather just to acknowledge the local political landscape.

Is it nostalgia for the good old days when the Good Old Boys, who had personal relationships with each other, dominated the Warren County Republic Committee that provoked Ms. Urban to warn that “the sky is falling because:

• They’ve taken over the Warren County Republican Committee, not through community engagement, but by signing up about 80 new members, just enough to seize control. Most showed up to vote in Christendom-backed leadership, then disappeared.
• They’ve been handing out “Republican sample ballots” for years, fooling well-meaning voters into thinking their candidates reflect conservative values. They don’t. These aren’t traditional Republicans. They don’t believe in smaller government or personal liberty. They believe in censorship, control, and conformity.

The irony of that last paragraph is that the last time the Warren County Republican Committee handed out sample ballots for a Board of Supervisors election was in 2023, when Robert Hupman was its chairman.  Mr. Hupman is a nice man who is as Good Old Boy connected as it gets. Currently, he is a principal in the new Political Action Committee led by former Republican Committee dropouts who did not like the MAGA direction in which its members chose to go.

The well-educated newcomers are trying to move Warren County into the future, while those of Ms. Urban’s persuasion long for the past.

Thomas McFadden, Sr.
Front Royal, VA

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