Frankly, I never liked or knew Leslie till she stepped up for Jim Webb. That was huge for many of us. I am not part of any Hatfield and McCoy thing inside FCDC. I am glad that Leslie is running. Respected, honorable leaders such as Chap Petersen are supporting Leslie. That bears repeating. Chap Petersen is an honorable guy. He cannot be bought and he is supporting Leslie Byrne.
Maybe everyone else is hearing the same thing.....word seems to be getting out that the Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is getting ready to run for Congress. I am not saying what is going to happen, but I have heard that he is going to announce shortly after he is sworn in for another term in his current job. On a related subject, George Burke has reportedly been issuing unconvincing denials of his association with the pen name Thomas Paine Patriot. I think there is persuasive evidence that Mr. Burke sullied the good name of Thomas Paine. Of course, if the Chairman does run for Congress, George Burke is going to support him in the primary or, if you want to be cautious about it, people are entitled to suspect that.
So, the Chairman is tired of the job he just got re-elected to do for another four years. Has not even been sworn in yet for the new term. Hmm, that is a little inconvenient. It would, however, be appropriate for him to kickoff his new campaign by announcing his intention to waste the taxpayers money on an additional round of musical chairs. Why doesn't the guy just do the job he just got elected to freaking do?
This guy is a total insider. He cares not a whit about people. Politics is all about personal ambition for him. Let me be clear: I do not know this person. What I do know is what he's done to this county with his miserable land use policies. His election year conversion to "cool cities" may have fooled a few lame local Sierra Club leaders (he probably bought them off too), but it should not have deceived most people. Only a fool or someone with a lot to gain would be trying to drop an above ground Metro line through Tysons.......all the cynical maneuvering notwithstanding. There is no excuse for it when you could've done BRT. There is no excuse for the McMansion craze, There is no excuse for what Dominion Power is doing to our trees. We don't live in a 3rd world country where this crap should not be done either.
As someone said to me at the recent DNC meeting, Connolly is bad news. As we grow the Democratic Party in Virgina, lets send public servants to Congress.
I only see one reason why Dem primary voters might be convinced to prefer Connolly over Byrne: if Tom Davis runs for re-election.
I think Tom Davis is a very wounded political animal who is low on money after wasting a lot of it on his wife's losing bid for re-election. I also think that his bitter spiteful talk about his party and its leaders indicates they probably wouldn't help him try to get another term. If Davis does retire, I see the GOP abandoning this seat to the Dems, not that they won't put up some token candidate with token support in hopes of seasoning that person for the future. If Davis does run for re-election, however, he might throw caution to the wind and beg, borrow, and steal whatever he can to wage the nastiest battle possible. In such a case, I can see Connolly making the case, not in so many words, that the Dems should opt for the nastier candidate to ensure that Davis is defeated. He'd probably add that Davis beat Byrne before, which is lame, but true.
Byrne supporters have a window of opportunity now to make the case that not only would Byrne be a great Representative for VA-11, but also that taking this seat from the Republicans is too important to squander on an expensive protracted, probably dirty, primary battle. Insiders, even friends of Connolly, ought to privately say what we here in the blogosphere should loudly and proudly proclaim - "Sorry Gerry, it's gotta be Leslie."
As for Burke, he has a window of opportunity, too, to apologize and do the right thing in helping capture VA-11 for the Dems. As I've stated, and I admit I'm biased, the right thing is to consolidate now behind Byrne. If there are any Connolly supporters who think they can make the case as to why Connolly would be a better Representative for VA-11, please speak up. Otherwise, Burke and you should be prepared for inevitable irrelevancy.