A Very Good Sign

NLS is reporting counts on the volunteer participation for political campaigns in the Fairfax City and Clifton parades. The most interesting news:

Fairfax- Chap creams Jeannemarie
Clifton- George slams Jay

Great job guys!

Deeds Impressing

At the event I mentioned in the last post I also got to talk to Creigh. Strangely enough he recognized me and appropriately, (if not accurately) in his role with the Senate Democratic Caucus, exhorted me to support all of our State Senate candidates including George Barker. (I assured him that I have consistently been resolved to do my part to make sure we win all these State Senate races. Primaries are important, if temporarily divisive, but at the end of the day we’ve all got the same goal.)

I’ve got to say I was impressed with Creigh for picking me out of a lineup. This small proof that the modest Deeds has some pretty good raw political skills, combined with his highly amusing, self-deprecating interview with the Ditzocrats has Creigh’s stock rising. He’s still got a good ways to go to trump Brian Moran with me, but I am pleasantly surprised. Sure would like to see them work something out.

New Voters in the 39th

George Barker has a very good chance to win this one for the Democrats but despite some conventional wisdom, he’s not going to be able to do it on the favorable shifting population numbers alone. It’s true that we have seen great returns in the district since the last State Senate election.

• In 2003, Jay O’Brien defeated Greg Galligan by about 5,000 votes.
• In 2004, Bush won it with just 51%.
• In 2005, Kaine flipped the 2003 results, besting Kilgore by a little more than 6,000 votes.
• And in 2006, Webb reaffirmed that result against a South County resident-incumbent in Allen.

These numbers all sound great right?

21-51: Ranking the State Senate

Kenton Ngo, the blogger prodigy, inspired me to write up my own list of which State Senate districts are most likely to switch hands this fall.

Likely Democratic Pickup
1. 34th District – Chap Petersen v. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis
Chap is doing everything right here. He’s raising enough money to be competitive, he’s working hard and he’s also running in a district which he has, in substantial part, already represented. But the bottom line is that the numbers in the district have gotten so far away from the Republicans. Tom Davis may try his tricks but they’re not going to work on a candidate like Chap who always works like he’s 20 points down.

2. 6th District – Ralph Northam v. Nick Rerras
The State GOP have known that Rerras is their weakest incumbent for some time. And now Northam has shown that he is willing and capable to put the fundraising work in to finish the job. This has to be the GOP’s most concerning race.

Negative Campaigns

Greg Galligan’s massive loss to George Barker brings home an awful reality. Negative campaigns- especially in low information races- work. George Barker went very negative toward the end and Greg Galligan mentioned George Barker a grand total of ZERO times. On another blog I was indirectly accused of being dishonest about the nature of Barker’s campaign, so in keeping the promise I made in response, here are some of the things Barker put out there. This isn’t all of it, just what I was able to get my hands on.

barker-hit-piece.pdf

barker-contrast-piece.pdf

barker-voter-guide.jpg

While I have little doubt that George probably could have won without his scurrilous attacks (hats off to his great turnout in what everyone knew, going in, were HIS precincts), the deafening margin is clearly a result of the negative mail voters received in the final week. When voters know little to nothing about the candidates they are especially susceptible to such tactics. Imagine: the voter looks at the materials from both candidates, both candidates print positive aspects of themselves and only one prints negative aspects of their opponent. This voter, not having any other impressions from which to test the validity of the attack, only knows good things about one candidate and at least something bad about their opponent. This accounts for Greg falling short of his IDs in the neutral precincts.

The downside of negative campaigns is that there are now literally dozens of local volunteers that will be difficult, if not impossible, to convince to work for the nominee. I, for one, believe strongly that regardless of what has happened we must defeat Jay O’Brien. But George Barker has some serious explaining to do. Time will only tell if he is willing to put in the necessary work to re-unite the party.

Updated: Light Turnout in the 39th[?]

There has been, no surprise to most, light turnout so far across the 39th State Senate District. Who does this benefit? Standard logic would tell you Barker benefits as the more “establishment” candidate. But I happen to think that it helps Galligan because of Barker’s decision to go negative in the mail. Negative mail works best on the least informed voters.

Still a lot of time to vote. We’ll see.

Update (1:57 pm): Turnout has continued to be pretty low. I predict that we will hover around the 2005 results, maybe slightly less if I’m overestimating what percentage might report in the afternoon and maybe slightly more if there’s an afternoon surge. This is based on a survey of turnout from about 2/3 of the precincts.

Update (3:05 pm): Seems turnout really has kicked up since noon. Strange happening. Turnout should exceed 2005 results, hard to say how long this new trend will be sustained and it’s still unclear from the partial results I’m seeing whether this increased turnout is spread evenly over the district.

George Barker Gets Desperate, Dirty

Yesterday the Barker campaign proved that the only thing that matters to them is the success of George Barker. Throughout this campaign I have been an advocate of Greg Galligan because I’m just so impressed with him, but I never thought that George Barker would make a bad candidate. I have never said a bad word about the guy and neither has Galligan’s official campaign. In fact, at the beginning of this campaign both candidates promised to keep the campaign positive. And Greg has kept his promise.

Not only has Barker proven his hypocrisy and corrosive selfish ambition, he has run one of the foulest pieces of trash I’ve seen in a Democratic primary. It’s one thing to go negative, it’s an entirely different thing- to disguise your attack as an official Democratic party “voter guide”. Barker’s clear goal here is to trick the voters. What kind of DEMOCRAT is that? Big or small “D”.

Guess what else? This is exactly what Jerry Kilgore did. Only Barker seems to have one-upped Kilgore- at least Kilgore put his authorization line in a font size that is legible!

Note: That picture above is the actual front page of the negative piece. I refuse to run the second page which would just recycle Barker’s distortions. It’s enough for everyone to know that he was not being candid with the voters about the source of the mailing.