Home › Blogs › Soren Dayton's blog ›

VA: Tomorrow could be a good day for Steele and a bad day for Kaine

Submitted by Soren Dayton on Mon, 02/02/2009 - 14:03
in

Swing State Project sees tomorrow's special election to fill Rep. Gerry Connelly's seat as a proxy fight and preview of the fall Republican and Democratic gubenatorial match up:

If the Dem wins, I expect we'll see all kinds of competing claims over who deserves credit. Of course, the GOP will just say that the Dems should have won, and they'd be right - Fairfax went 60-39 for Obama. On the other hand, a loss or even a close call will lead to predictable recriminations and give Virginia Republicans a dose of momentum they certainly don't deserve. Regardless of who wins our gubernatorial primary, that's something the Dems can't afford.

There is, potentially, another interpretation. Perhaps it is a proxy fight between Tim Kaine and Michael Steele. Certainly the VA GOP is at a low point (hopefully). But the VA Democratic Party should be riding high, and Tim Kaine, both the Dem governor of Virginia and Chairman of the DNC, would suffer a huge black eye from a GOP victory, which is not out of the question.

In January, an 80-20 district, District 46, was won by the Democrats by only 16 votes. This may be found to be the beginning of the end of one of the Democratic candidates for governor:

This is a bad sign for Brian Moran and Alexandria Democrats no matter what the end result is, this is one of the most democratic districts in the state (75% for Obama, 80% for Warner, and 73% for Kaine) and the margin is razor thin!

We have a chance tomorrow to scalp another Democrat and help Pat Herrity pull this off. Michael Steele would get to go on TV and claim that "the comeback starts now" with him.

It would be a great symbolic rallying moment for the GOP and a wonderful way to start Steele's chairmanship. 

3.333335
Your rating: None Average: 3.3 (3 votes)

Comments

Too Many Virginianisms

Submitted by RedMango on Mon, 02/02/2009 - 14:25.

IDK what '80-20' is suppose to mean.  It's not even clear whether this a Congressional election or for VA Assembly. 

It's a County Board Seat

Submitted by CraigOrn on Mon, 02/02/2009 - 15:59.

Gerry Connolly (they got that part wrong) was formerly Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors until being sworn into Congress last month representing Virginia's 11th District, which is focused around Fairfax County, the state's most populous locality. Usually the Board Chairmanship and a couple thousand dollars wouldn't get you elected to Congress in most of Virginia, but leading Fairfax is on par with being Governor of a tiny state. 

80-20 refers to the usual margin between Dems (80) and Republicans (20) in that District, though as you can see has swung between 73 and 80--a 7 point swing, but still very clearly a heavily Democratic district. 

Andy Stern (UGHHHH!) & SEIU just dropped $50,000 on Bulova.

Submitted by Crow on Mon, 02/02/2009 - 20:04.

Not to mention the robo-calls she's been making for weeks.  Fairfax County is in no way comparable to a small legislative district in the People's Republic of Alexandria.

Connolly only won the the congressional district 53-47 against a very under-funded far-right Republican.  I doubt the Fairfax Dems will be caught napping.  On the other hand, targeting Connelly in '10 with an attractive, well-funded candidate would attract a lot of Dems who don't like Gerry's style & self-dealing lobbyist links.

Wonder why he didn't buy himself a Rolex for that kinda cash?

Submitted by Ironman on Mon, 02/02/2009 - 20:57.

;))

Election

Submitted by BulldogsRule on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 11:35.

Pretty slim hope but we can all think positive.

I voted for Herrity

Submitted by The Edge on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 16:03.

As did my brother. Polling place was very quiet  

Why Herrity Lost - My Thoughts

Submitted by serfs-up on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 22:14.

1.  His Daddy, Jack, was responsible for the overdevelopment of the county and ignored transportation needs.  Hurt Pat's credibility on the key transportation issue.

 2.  I volunteered, did some GOTV calling.  Call center was chaotic, volunteers were in a overly confident mode.  No need to work hard or push, Herrity was going to win big.  

3.  Phone scripts were lousy, way too long.  Doesn't anyone test the usefulness of a particular phone script?  Volunteers were making scripts up, usually talking waay too long into answering machines, which cut down on the productivity per hour per volunteer.  This stuff is measurable.  One volunteer bragged that he like to piss off the people who answered the phone, and he did.  Why was he in the room?  Because no-one was supervising the GOTV activity.

4.  Limitations of cell phones:  cheapo cell phones = inability to talk to voter + inability to hear what voter is saying to you.  Remember the sound of Charlie Brown's teacher from the Peanuts shows?  Me:  Hello Mrs. Smith I'm calling on behalf of Pat Herrity for Chairman.  Answer:  wah-wah-wah-wah.  Me:  Did you vote today?  Voter:  Wah-wah.  Or -- voter saying, I can't hear you!!  I had a dropped call when I was trying to tell voter where her polling place was.  No good.

5.  Lessons learned:  test the phone script so it's not too long; supervise the callers; spend the money on land line phones.