Virginia Crossland-Macha can’t remember when she wasn’t politically active, or when conservatism didn’t course her veins.
And, she said Friday afternoon from a sitting room in her home on a knoll just east of Cedarbrook Golf Course, recent events have quickened her enthusiasm for helping others.
Virginia was recognized Aug. 26 at the Americans for Prosperity Defending the American Dream Summit in Washington, D.C., for being the recipient of the Kansas Ronald Reagan Award given by the organization for being true to the organization’s central theme and promoting it.
More to the point has been son Drew Crossland’s experiences during deployments as a U.S. Marine, twice to Iraq and currently in Afghanistan.
He was wounded during his first assignment in Iraq, about three years ago, and that’s when Virginia said she realized she couldn’t run to his side when he was in trouble. To dull a little the pain of being a mom not able to help out, she threw herself more into political activism.
A part of her political motivation also was to help others in search of the American dream.
“I was lucky that I attained the American dream,” she said. “I got a great education and worked for a great company (Crossland Construction) and now I’m involved with my husband (Larry Macha) in his businesses.”
She sees others not so fortunate, including college students and military personnel coming back from Mideast deployments who are unable to find jobs.
“I don’t want their dreams to die or for them to be penalized because of our bad mistakes,” Virginia said, with the lion’s share of mistakes because of failed government policies that led to the prolonged recession.
“That’s what really drives me,” she said. “I want the best for Americans and I’m a good cheerleader for conservative causes” that she thinks will trump reverses of recent years, which she says occurred because of taxes being too high, too many government programs and those in power ignoring the will of the people.
TWO PITTSBURG State students and Amanda Norris, a sophomore at Iola High School, attended the Americans for Prosperity summit with Virginia last week.
The PSU students, members of College Republicans, had worked with her before in campaigns. She concluded Norris, a gifted student at IHS, would reap substantial benefits from a few days in the nation’s capital.
“We heard George Will, recipient of the George Washington Award, speak, along with several Nobel prize winners,” she said. “They talked about how we all could make a difference at the grassroots level, including in the schools.
“Dick Morris, who really tells it (the conservative theme) like it is, also was at the summit. You had all these Ph.D.s who could do anything but they were out there fighting for Americans, fighting the good fight.
“I was amazed at Amanda’s reaction. She is willing to question things with boldness and she is very serious about trying to make things better,” Virginia said. “They also talked about issues at the summit, about such stifling things as a bloggers tax and national sales tax on the Internet, as well as health care.”
Virginia and her entourage attended the Glenn Beck rally Saturday on the National Mall.
“It was wonderful to be able to take it all in, to hear the stories of people from all over the country, including many veterans who often were on their feet cheering,” she said. “We got there about an hour and a half early and all these people started coming, kind of like swarms of ants, but it had a calming influence.”
FOR YEARS Virginia restricted her political activities to helping distribute signs, a little fundraising and some overt campaigning.
That changed a few years ago, and two in particular, when she saw changes in Washington and Topeka, which she, and others, interpreted as more pervasiveness in government than she cared about tolerating.
Tea parties started to organize, where speakers railed about big government getting bigger and taxes escalating too much.
“I called Marjorie Ensminger — now dead but then a local Republican leader — about starting a tea party movement here,” Virginia said. “She encouraged me to get something started,” which occurred with the first rally on the Allen County Courthouse lawn. “Mary Alice Lair — another GOP activist — also was a good cheerleader for the tea party,” as was Bud Sifers, who later opposed incumbent Bill Otto for the Republican nomination for the 9th District legislative seat.
The tea party “is loose-knit,” she said. “We don’t have meetings,” rather rallies when an issue or occurrence prompts one, often in reaction to how candidates voted when they were in office. “It’s really a spontaneous group.”
THIS YEAR Virginia has seized the political moment to become more closely involved with several candidates seeking legislative seats, including Sifers, along with Caren Tyson in Bourbon County, Terry Callaway at Pittsburg and Mike Houser in Cherokee County.
The night election results came in on the Otto-Sifers race at the courthouse, Larry Macha allowed that he was “going to have to call a pretty sad girl,” to tell Virginia that her candidate had lost.
“I think he felt worse about it than I did,” she said. “We got in the race with just four weeks to campaign and I think we did pretty well, just getting beat” by 12 points, 54-44, by an incumbent. “I think we were overwhelmed by the race, with Otto’s familiarity, but the closeness may have sent a message to Otto that he should represent us and not try to be a YouTube star.”
Virginia spends her time on political tasks raising money, doing paperwork for candidates, advising them on how to reach their audiences and recruiting volunteers.
“It takes a lot of time and energy,” she allowed.
In downtime from campaigning, Virginia seldom lets her mind stray far from political thoughts.
She is on the Kansas board for American Majority, another conservative tentacle, and helps convince potential candidates that “it’s not impossible to run a campaign on a shoestring budget and that anyone who is willing to work hard enough has a chance of being elected.”
