Karen Schultz: Another Democratic Senate Pickup?

By: Lowell
Published On: 8/31/2007 8:22:47 AM

This race was already a great pickup opportunity for Democrats, with Democrat Karen Schultz taking on right-wing Republican Jill Holtzman Vogel for the retiring Russ Potts' State Senate seat.  Now, it looks like Vogel is imploding:

The prosecutor who began the investigation of former Republican state Senate candidate Mark D. Tate leaked grand jury information to the media and was actively pushing negative stories about Tate, a former reporter on the story said in a sworn statement filed Thursday in Loudoun County Circuit Court.

[...]

  There's only one reason a prosecutor would leak such material: To throw the election, wrote Edward B. MacMahon, Tate's attorney, in a motion filed Thursday.

"There can be no disputing the fact that Mr. Plowman's involvement in this matter was part of a calculated effort to use the process of this Court to obtain information that would be used to benefit Mr. Plowman's choice in the Republican Senate Primary, Jill Holtzman Vogel," he wrote.

Fortunately, Karen Schultz -- an associate professor at Shenandoah University and an Elder at the First Presbyterian Church in Winchester for 20 years -- has been running a superb campaign and will make an excellent successor to moderate (aka, "sane") Republican Russ Potts.

By the way, I wonder what Frank  Wolf, who has strongly endorsed Vogel, has to say now. 

Comments



Not confident (JScott - 8/31/2007 11:42:30 AM)
I am not so confident that this will happen given the results from 2006 in the Webb/Allen election. The 27th represents all of Clarke, Frederick, Winchester City, and parts of Faquier and Loudon. Loudoun of course is the key and turnout is the major factor. Loudon dwarfs the other districts in terms of voters and Webb won the county by 2%. Webb lost Winchester, barely but also lost Faquier and Frederick rather handily to Allen. Allen took 62% in Frederick and 57% in Facquier. In the smaller Clarke area Allen took 51%. It will certainly come down to the turnout in Loudon where 80K people voted in the Senate election in 2006. Faquier, Frederick though Republican only recorded about 20k votes in each area last election. Its been a long while since I lived in Loudoun and am not sure the make up of the part of the county where the 27th hits but it is pivotal to her success.


Not so fast... (Mimi Schaeffer - 8/31/2007 1:33:54 PM)
Sheriff Charlie Fox, a popular Fauquier Democrat, is running this election cycle. Also, Bill Day from Fauquier is running against Scott Lingamfelter, R-Batwing Flip-flopper.

Bill Day is running one of the best campaigns I've seen; and I'm not saying that because I want to win; he's even amazed supporters like me.

His campaign has called my house at least three times and I just received the best campaign literature I've seen in a long time. He headlined it - "New Energy in Virginia."

Hell, if Dubya could win the presidency on a single campaign slogan, "Compassionate Conservative," I think Day has a good chance; he's sure doing everything he can and then SOME!

In other words, Schultz has a real shot.



several comments on this race which I have been watching (teacherken - 8/31/2007 2:54:26 PM)
because her finance director did the same for my college classmate in a congressional race in '06

- she really needs Marty Martinez to do a solid job in the Loudoun portion of the district

- Vogel's problems may yet get more severe.  She was RNC chief lawyer at time of the email scam by WH staff, and it is yet possible she could be called to answer by Waxman -  right now I'm not sure she could handle another hit like that.

Karen will do very well in Winchester -  if Russ Potts would outright endorse her, it would help, but he has made clear he will not support Vogel, which helps some.



I have a big problem with this family portrait (k8 - 8/31/2007 5:47:43 PM)
At first glance it looks like the husband is the main person (i.e., the candidate) in this picture, and that Karen is the supportive wife here. 

If she's going to win, she needs to pay attention to her body language and how she's positioned.  She's the candidate, so she needs to look like the candidate in all her pictures.

Message to the campaign manager: redo her family portrait.



You Are Right (norman swingvoter - 8/31/2007 9:35:12 PM)
This definitely needs to be redone.  I thought her husband was the candidate until I started reading closely.  One point, she and the children are in black or white shades.  Her husband is in color.  This makes him the focal point of the picture. She also needs to do sit up straight.