I don’t hold a special brief for Jim Gilmore, but I’ll say this for the guy: As governor of Virginia, he cut my taxes significantly. He didn’t cut them as much as he had promised and he spent too much money (which is the root cause for his failure to cut taxes even more), but there’s a lot more cash in my pocket today because he ran the show in Richmond for four years. He has also won something like four elections, including two statewide (governor once, attorney general once). Previous success on the campaign trail is an important indicator of future success. Conservatives could do an awful lot worse than Sen. Gilmore.