Barnie Day was a Democratic delegate from Patrick County from his election in 1997 through the 2001 session. A former county administrator and business owner, he is now a banker.

A pansy one?

Give the guy a break. Look at the hand he’s been dealt, for crying out loud. Look at the playing field he’s on. And give him this: He’s still on plan-- may not be the best one --but he’s still on it--still game, still conciliatory, still non-partisan.

Okay, after stunning defeats of the two tax referendums in November, the governor cobbled together a substitute legislative agenda going in to this, his second session of the General Assembly, that was, by some estimates … well … a little thin.

It included a raft of ‘reform’ bills that collectively may bespeak some semblance of efficiency in state government. But that was before the Republican majority re-wrote his budget into something unrecognizable to him. That was before the Republican majority laid on that tax break for millionaires -- assisted, to be sure, by 10 Democratic votes in the Senate.

It included a push to make driving without a seat belt a primary offence. (Look, for lack of big ideas, little ones sometimes take on some stature. Let it go. Nothing wrong with that.) As of this writing, that still might go.

And, hey, he can get scrappy. Look at the Kay Slaughter appointment. She’s back on the Water Control Board. And rightly so.

And then, somehow, two-term governorships became the marquee issue.

It makes a lot of sense. It always has. Term limits don’t. If you get an idiot in, one is too many. (Some days, I’ve wished Gilmore had to stick around for another term to deal with the catastrophic mess he made. It is a mean streak in me.) If you get a good one, two aren’t enough.

And there was a lot of bipartisan support for it. There were lots of patrons, Democrats and Republicans.

McGuire Woods, the best be-all-things-to-all-people bunch of Republican leaning water-toters in the business quietly signed on, pro bono, to ‘deliver’ this one. The business community weighed in big.

It looked like this one was on rails. The governor might, just might, win one.

But, how foolish of me! Things are rarely what they at first appear to be. Trouble was afoot. Before it all ended the train was off the track.

Seventeen Republican members of the House, including Speaker Howell, who co-patroned the bill to begin with, wound up voting against it, or at least against a motion to reconsider killing it. Which is the same thing. Believe me.

What happened? Aaaaah. Depends on who you ask.

Some are blaming McGuire Woods, suggesting that MW’s Richard Cullen, a capital ‘R’ Republican and the nominal co-chair of the bipartisan push for two terms, was the proverbial fox in the henhouse.

Says one senior Warner staffer: “Now, one might question the impartiality of Richard Cullen on matters that would accrue to the resume enhancement of Mark Warner.”

Says another: “I didn’t see any effort on Cullen’s part.”

Not so, says a McGuire Woods senior vice president. He says the deal fell through because Warner didn’t understand that he’d have to trade something for it. “Vance and I had this same discussion when Gilmore was governor and Vance said, ‘Sure. What’s he going to give us?’ I’m not sure this guy understands that.”

Counters a Warner staffer: “No serious demands on powers of the governor were ever initiated before the Sunday just before the Tuesday House floor vote.”

So, wherein is to be found the truth on this one? Neither place.

Pure and simple, the governor’s marquee issue fell victim to a partisan ambush. Who engineered it? My bet is Morgan Griffith. I’d say he made it a ‘loyalty’ vote to deny Warner a win. I could be wrong. But I doubt it.

This is politics. The merits of an issue frequently have little to do with the chances of success. That’s the way it works.

And on a nonpartisan note, best wishes for a speedy recovery to friend, colleague, and fellow scribe Preston Bryant.