Amy Reger 0-5- UPDATED

Democratic Party Executive Director Amy Reger was hyped as an expert in Prince William County when she was hired this year.

Her record in the FIVE local Prince William races since becoming Executive Director-
ZERO wins
FIVE Losses (Hurst, Feder, Rishell, Pandak, Dion)

What makes this worse is the opportunities lost.  Prince William has always been more Republican in lower turnout election.  Getting an opportunity to elect a Board Chairman in a federal election year, with a Democratic wave- and Jim Webb winning the county at the top of the ticket- Democrats were still crushed.  When will they ever get an opportunity like that again?

Meanwhile, the 50th District Special election is another great example. Held in a district no statewide Democrat had carried in memory- Jim Webb came within 400 votes of winning this year.  All Democrats needed was 200 crossover voters and they could steal a long held GOP seat.  Instead the crossover went AGAINST them as Rishell lost by almost 1,000. Again, when will they get an opportunity like that again?

With Democratic hopes in the State Senate resting on Prince William success in the Colgan and O'Brien seats- and House of Delegates hopes rested on winning in the McQuigg, Frederick, and possibly Marshall and Lingamfelter seats- the question becomes:

How many more Reger led losses can Democrats afford?

UPDATE:  As BVBL is covering, the resignations of the PWCDC are now rolling in.  These are all Reger allies- FYI. She trashed Hilda Barg while she was supposed to be helping her on the Coordinated Campaign in 2005, and they went on to lose that race 51-49.  Reger has chosen the wrong side of this fight.  Now due to her divisiveness, the Prince William Democrats are collapsing.

Comments

NLS, this is all Larry Roberts. He has to surround himself with weak people to boss around. That is why Mark Warner would not let him near the party when he wanted to Chair.

What, Amy not returning your phone calls and emails?

BTW, you twist the facts. In 2005 Amy was on the ground in PWC working for the Kaine campaign. Kaine winning in PWC was a stunning victory.

But nice try attempting to lay blame on DPVA instead of the candidates, their backgrounds, and their organization and resources--not to mention the PWCDC.

[Not Larry Sabato]

I've actually never met her, nor have I ever contacted her. Nice try though.

"Getting an oppertunity to elect a Board Chairman in a federal election year, with a Democratic wave- and Jim Webb winning the county at the top of the ticket- Democrats were still crushed. When will they ever get an oppertunity like that again?"

...maybe when opportunity is spelled correctly.

Oh, and another thing--shouldn't it be 1-5 record for Amy since, after all, Jim Webb did win PWC while she was Executive Director?

[Not Larry Sabato]

oops on spelling. :)

No, she gets no credit for Webb winning Prince William. As I documented during the campaign, the DPVA focused on Kellam and Feder. Jim Webb did no better in PW then he did in other NoVA localities. It wasn't Amy Reger that started a war in Iraq and got out thousands of extra Democrats.

However, while they were at the polls, she couldn't deliver anything else.

[Riley, Not O'Reilly]

"How many more Reger led losses can Democrats afford?"

They only have Colgan, Barg, Jenkins and Ebert left as well as Puller whose district stretches into PWC even though she doesn't live there. By my count, that makes 4 or 5 depending on how you want to count it. After that, they're bankrupt.

Also "has" should be "was." Do you even read these things before you post them?

1212 is correct. The blame here goes to Roberts.

The democratic party didn't win in PWC for one reason: THE CANDIDATES SUCK.

[not gretchen bulova]

That could also be a DPVA problem then if the candidates suck.

Poor recruitment, poor training etc.

[lindy]

we don't need infighting but we also need to know that people should be picked for these positions for their past work,not who they know.
If we want Dems to win we have to have strong people with backbones to get things done.
I don't know Amy so will not judge her but locally there is cronyism going on too and it has got to stop.

[Greg L]

The real story is the mass resignations happening right now in the PWCDC leadership. So far they've lost the chairman and the 1st CD Vice-Chair. I get the feeling more is on the way.

[not gretchen bulova]

Who is going to be the first to blame PJ for the dismantling of the PWCDC leadership?

[lindy]

I think training is a top priority. I think the va dem party needs to get on this. and make it local.
the 50 state strategy has some good training but it hasn't reached all areas yet.
training - do it.

[Just another FCDC hack]

Any possibility that Ginny Peters could resign also?

Who is going to be the first to blame PJ for the dismantling of the PWCDC leadership?

Posted by: not gretchen bulova | January 31, 2007 at 02:01 PM

George Burke?

[lindy]

I think at this time the local committees should be front and center. they are the conduit to make things happend the grassroots if you will.
we need strong leadership who listens to the locals. don't alienate, bring people in.

[Carl]

NLS - your wrong on this one man. This doesn't sound like it has anythign to do with Amy Reger. Actually it just sounds like a completely disfunctional PWDC party at the fault of those who are NOT Reger allies - FYI.

[lindy]

is the pwcdc a power grab? what is up? like we have the power!

Carl, is your nickname Amy Reger?

Good one there anon -- you mock b/c I made a perfectly reasonable and realistic assessment of the situation presented by NLS. Is your nickname Hilda Barg?

[Not Larry Byrne]

Did Larry Byrne write this post? Seems a mighty big stretch to link a failure in PWC with the Exec Dir of the State Party. I smell an alternative motive.

[Carl]

FYI - anon 3:00 was me

[Daniel Plaugher]

I would like to say that I will second what Matt Harrison has said. Touche' to the PWCDC on standing up for the new guard. Hilda was worthless in the races that I ran in PWC.

Hilda only supports that which is directly beneficial to Hilda. Always has, always will.

Come to think of it, the very same thing can be said of John Jenkins.

Let's get real people. Look at the candidates that the Dems fielded. Pathetic is about the most generous word I can come up with.

Hurst? Rishell? Feder?? Dion? And lazy Barg for delegate? Seriously, these are rotten candidates. Even Pandak was only a good candidate on paper - there was no passion there.

[Just another FCDC hack]

At least Jeff didn't take a vacation to Croatia in the middle of the campaign.

Jeez, if you're going to skip campaigning, at least go some place warm.

[James Young]

Gotta agree with Anon 1:25 here. While I hesitate to tell you Dems how to self-destruct (I tend to abide by the Napoleonic admonition: "When your enemy is in the process of destroying himself, DON'T INTERFERE"), it would be difficult to lay the blame on any one person. In fact, the Dems have fielded extraordinarily weak candidates in PWC. I frankly expected something more challenging from Vic Bras, who struck me as a pretty sensible guy (though I don't know him well).

On the other hand, if the most sensible people you've got are Barg, Jenkins, and Ebert ....

Not to pile on the "mistakes in your posting" band-wagon, but wasn't she also hired LAST year?

The DPVA still has a steep hill to climb, no doubt about it, and an earlier reponse about candidate recruitment may be an accurate statement of one of the party's failures. Some of the candidates running lately have been running lame (a candidate who takes time off in the middle of a campaign to travel in Europe???).

Other candidates ran good campaigns that had no chance in hell at winning, as exemplified by Feder getting completely smoked out last year. I could nit pick over her campaign, but it's not worth it: the turnout demonstrated pretty clearly that even with some minor positive adjustments to her campaign, ie better media production values, a better ID/persuasion program, etc., she was going to lose anyway.

If we're going to play the blame game, though, when are we going to get around to blaming your buddies at the Webb campaign? The disparity between Northern VA performance versus Feder and Hursts' performance is an effing joke; why didn't that dysfunctional senatorial do a better job delivering on the Northern VA CDs?

[Potential Candidate]

The comments about recruiting and training are right on. I have, in the past, contacted local Dems about my desire to run for certain offices. It usually took weeks before someone got back to me. There is no one in the party who can help with getting a campaign off the ground (even simple stuff like coordinating petition signatures). The state party doesn't do much better. They hold "candidate training" in August (or at least did two years ago). August is a little late in the game for a first-time candidate to get training. Then that training was basically worthless (more of a rah-rah from the AFL-CIO than actual pratical advice). If VA Dems want to turn Va from Red to Blue, they've got to get their act together and really get some good cadidates on the ballot then provide them some REAL support and infrastructure.

The correct scorecard here is nls -- 0-all. When is this idiot going to do anything for any candidate?

Mike May won Occoquan. Hurst won Occoquan. What does that say about Porta? I thought he was the Dem kingmaker in this portion of PW.

[JMU Duke]

This is mostly just to tweak Ben, but Potential Candidate, you know, the Sorensen Institute has a great candidate training program, you should check it out.

[CloudsInMyCoffee]

Is it true that the DPVA made a large cash contribution to Pandak's campaign. If so, the Prince William County Registrars office is required to keep a record of all contributons. record of this. Can anyone check this out?

Is is true that Reger recommended that Pandak's campaign hire someone who had very limited experience running a campaign, was not from Prince William, had no understanding of the politics in Prince William and who was appaently commuting back and forth from Richomnd to Prince William on occassion?

No wonder she lost! What a mess!

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

NLS and you people who bash Amy Reger without knowing her, or knowing anything about her are STUPID.

NLS said: "I've actually never met her, nor have I ever contacted her."

Exactly.

Ben, you know I appreciate most of your posts, but on this you're wrong, and you're hurting the Democratic Party.

The PWCDC has had a long way to go for a long time, and may still. But to imply that the whole party is "imploding" is just stupid.

I agree with NGB that the state party SHOULD play a role in building local party committees, including in candidate recruitment and training. However, you don't even belong to the FCDC and I'd dare say know next to nothing about what the local or state level parties are doing about improving services and support to local committees.

Let's put it this way, the issue is now front and center and being worked on very hard. Before, it wasn't even on the agenda let alone an afterthought.

You know, Ben, being an experienced campaigner yourself, that to build a grassroots organization that is there to support a party's nominee with resources is time-demanding, intensive work, and requires stepping up locally as well as resources and/or guidance from DPVA. DPVA cannot build a local committee, the local people have to do that. At least providing the resources and tools to ENABLE local people to do that is a top priority of DPVA since Amy Reger took over.

Blaming Amy for Democratic losses in PWC is ludicrous, particularly when actually most of her past work was in Loudoun.

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

"you should know" was supposed to precede "yourself" in the last post.

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

Besides, as the rest of NoVA has been turning blue faster than a Republican in a chokehold, the only reason PWC is lagging behind is because the Democratic Committee is still having its growing pains down there. But there is no mistaking that the Democratic trending in NoVA extends well beyond the Occoquan River....

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

lindy,

your comments are right on the money!

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

Once a committed groundswell starts in a populated county like PWC, it sustains itself with good leadership and available resources.

Look at Loudoun. Ten years ago, it was a Republican bastion. Now, the GOP in Loudoun is TRULY on the verge of utter implosion (see the Protic article on Leesburg Today web site from Jan 30th)--note the Dale Polen Myers "in your face" treatment of sitting Supervisor Lori Waters. But what happened out there? I can tell you.

Similar to the Webb campaign, a small group of way over-committed precinct oriented people took control of the LCDC in the late 90's and began building precinct presence, operations, and recording information about who their voters were, and who the GOP voters were. This intelligence was smartly recorded and retained campaign after campaign. This committed group of people on the LCDC began to grow and grow as the county did. Soon, candidates began winning occaisionally, then often, and now it seems fairly regularly. It didn't happen overnight. We had a large pool of smart and talented people who understood politics. We had supporters with money. If we had much support from DPVA at the time, it would have been easier, but it was done mostly by a core group of very active, very hard-working Democrats. That core has grown and grown until its reached a critical mass, and it now rivals in professionalism and resources of the FCDC and ACDC level committees, and has developed social subcommunities within various constituencies (business, neighborhood, GLBT, etc). It's still growing, but the people Loudoun has running its Committee are devoted, smart, and hard-working.

When this happens in PWC, and they consistently have great people and great candidates, the Democratic Party in eastern PWC will dominate. This is not to say that they aren't smart or hard-working in PWC but they're not concentrating all the energies and efforts to work together yet, either.

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

In fact I'm told last night the LCDC meeting was an overflow, SRO crowd, and that all the candidates who spoke and introduced themselves were just phenomenal. We have very strong candidates already lined up to go against Delgaudio, Snow, and Staton, at the very least. And there are several others.

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

We need this, in PWC. Bruce Roemmelt and Jeff Dion are huge assets to the PWC building this kind of presence.

Remember, not every election loss is a total loss....

[Matt in Burke]

I don’t normally post on blog’s but had to respond to the 12:16pm post that is not correct. NLS was correct about one thing in this post and that is that Amy did work for the coordinated campaign in 2005 and not for the Kaine campaign. I know I was there. It is amusing though to read all the post and see all the inaccuracies. Looks like a lot of spectators and no players.

Jeff Dion and Bruce Roemmelt might be huge assets to the PWCDC. But they, and candidates like them, have NO CHANCE of winning elections outside of the Woodbridge and Neabsco districts. PWC is not Arlington.

Occoquan is a district that leans slightly right of center. Running an openly gay liberal candidate was a sure ticket to a loss.

The party spends far too much time cheerleading and not enough time dealing with reality.

(The republicans do exactly the same thing on occasion, too - like running conservative Hirons in the Neabsco district. Talk about tilting at windmills.)

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

Anon 9:20

People used to say exactly the same things about Dick Black's district in Loudoun. In fact, about all of Loudoun.

Hard work turns it around.

Matt, nobody's perfect. But we don't always have to be perfect if we put in the effort, do we?

[Riley, Not O'Reilly]

"the only reason PWC is lagging behind is because the Democratic Committee is still having its growing pains down there"

Good one, Doug. The PWCDC is shrinking faster than you can say "Pandak." Heck, two of the '03 BOCS candidates have since joined the GOP...

I think BVBL's posting of the resignation letters from Matt Harrison and Vic Bras make it pretty clear what the problem is.

The PWC Dem. Committee is split. It cannot sustain itself or candidates. The DPVA can help but no organization can fix a broken committee until the Dems in Prince William decide they want to unify.

Ben, thanks for all the phone banking you did on this race. I'm just sorry it didnt pay off.

Oh...you didn't do any phone banking...well you must have gone door to do-oh, I guess you didnt do that either.

Before you try to rip the Democratic Party apart because Leslie told you that were special maybe you ought to actually work for candidates.

Just a thought.

Amy Reger won PWC for Tim Kaine, you do an excellent job of preaching to the choir and sowing dissent.

Congrats.

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

And yet, Riley, the precincts in eastern PWC are voting bluer and bluer, especially a few of the ones down there in your neck of the woods in Dale City....

Five years ago if you had told me that a Democratic nominee against George Allen would beat him in Michele McQuigg's district, I'd have laughed.

Not anymore.

Bide your time until the PWCDC DOES get its act together. I promise you it's coming. It does have to come from within (like for example democratic governments in middle eastern countries maybe?). But that won't stop lots of us from sending in reinforcements from Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, and anywhere else nearby where we can help inspire and pull people together to work for electing Dems for the betterment of PWC. So, let it shrink for now, it will be reborn.

You should like that phraseology!

Beliefs like Doug's are part of the current problem. Doug, you're too busy being a cheerleader and you're not facing reality. Yes, PWC is TRENDING toward bluer. But it is NOT blue. To win, the dems must run a moderate democrat, not the liberals you've been running. Just because those liberal candidates will eventually win 15 or 20 years from now does not mean that the practice of running them now has any bearing whatsoever on their eventual wins in Gainesville 20 years from now. RIGHT NOW, the Occoquan district is very slightly right of center. If the democrats want to win, they have to run a passionate candidate who is not more than ever-so-slightly left of center. That may have been Dion's policies, but it wasn't his persona. Gay guy living with another gay guy screams "raging liberal". Bruce Roemmelt against Bob Marshall is a BAD, BAD choice. Look, Marhsall is way, way to the right on the spectrum and he keeps winning. You're not going to defeat him with some guy who is six miles left of center. All of this is not to say that Dion and Roemmelt aren't great guys and aren't passionate candidates. But they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. And wishing otherwise won't make it so.

The party can either keep cheerleading the wrong candidates and lose elections or they can face reality and run a candidate that is more closely a mirror image of what the voters desire and win them.

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

OK Anon, you're entitled to your opinion, but in mine you've got it backwards.

[AndreaC]

Just checking in to assure that NLS is still a haven of intelligent, civil discourse. Ben trashes a person he has never met, who has had WEEKS (even MONTHS) to beat all the local incumbents with DOZENS (tens of tens) of dollars, and the rude wack jobs come out of the wordwork to pile on. Nothing to see here. Move on.

So Doug, your solution is to continue to run very liberal candidates because eventually they will win -- even if it takes 10 or 20 years. The liberal candidates won't win until the population shifts. THAT is a slow process.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Keep on cheerleadin', keep on losin'.

Everyone is here AndreaC. Unless you can get off your ass and cross the river to help candidates in this great Commonwealth, keep your nose in Maryland.

[AndreaC]

Wow. Good one. All the posters are talking about how witty you are.

You should be more worried about why Tom Davis is so busy meddling in DC on baseball-does VA even have a baseball team? Oh, and he was in St Michaels, MD with Dick Cheney at the RNC Winter meeting last week, trying to figure out how to raise money for the NRC. Don't kid yourself; he spends less time in VA than I do.

[cvllelaw]

If you're going to blame Amy Reger for defeats in PW, I'll give her the credit for three victories in Charlottesville. It makes as much sense.

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

Dude, you are just thick. I never said a damn thing about running liberal or conservative or thick candidates. I have talked about what needs to happen on the ground and in committees to build the party infrastructure to support party nominee's no matter what their disposition politically.

You clearly don't understand the challenges we face, nor that the tired old labels of "liberal" and "conservative" just don't work anymore.

Get over yourself, and see the whole picture instead of your ancient view from 20 years ago.

Actually, Andrea C has done more to elect candidates in Virginia than 99% of the posters here. In this cycle, she canvassed, phone banked, contributed and blogged for candidates in the Commonwealth. What did you do, anonymous jackhat at 6:49?

It is no doubt fun for everybody to take pot shots at the PWCDC these days -- let's face it, we are an easy target. It is dicouraging to lose three special elections in such a short period of time, and have a small roster of elected officials who are nearing the end of their careers. Politics is, of course, a blood sport, so that a few pot shots on a blog are just part of the cost of doing business. The Harry Truman quote about heat and kitchens comes to mind. Still, a thoughtful explanation of the current political situation in PWC cannot be reduced to "blame it all on Amy Reger" or "the PWCDC runs left wingers for office."

While the number of voters in the County willing to vote Democratic is growing, there are some circumstances that make it difficult to translate that fact into local election victories for the PWCDC.

First, the strength of the Republicn party has been growing in PWC for quite some time. Perhpas some of the number crunchers could check this out, but I think the last time PWC voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate was in 1964. As so often happens in a top down political shift of a local jurisdiction, Democratic incumbents held on for quite some time in the face of this partisan realignment, but Republican candidates, as soon as that incumbent retired, or a new seat was created, won. So, here we are, in 2005, with only 5 elected Democrats holding locally elected office. (And that includes Puller and Colgan). While, as noted above, the number of Democrats is growing, it takes time to translate that shift, especially when we are not talking yet about a majority of the voters being Democratic, into local election victories.

Second, the best candidate for office is either the incumbent for that position or somebody who has been elected to a lower ranking office seeking to move up. Hence, Corey Stewart and Jackson Miller came into their races as people who the name recognition and experience that comes with already having been elected to office. Mike May was not an office holder, but he had the finncial and operational support that incuments like Tom Davis can provide, plus experience on the Planning Commission, which he got becase Sean Connauhgton appointed him. Those appointments are also a way of credentialling somebody for office. As in many things, success breeds success. (Hilda Barg is, of course, an example of the Democrats trying to get an incumbent office holder to move up. And, if Frederick were not an incumbent and such a good campaigner, and she had done some more door knocking, it might have worked).

Third, the notion that the PWCDC is running leftists for office is just not accurate. In the hot hosue atmosphere of the blog, the fact that somebody is gay or a Unitarian is prima facie evidence that they are Trotskyites, but facts don't bear this assumption out. Dion, Rishell, and Roemmelt all ran campaigns that were pretty much straight down the center -- focused on bread and butter issues of real interest to the average voter. At least on issues, they were where they needed to be to give themselves the best chance of winning. In terms of campaigns, they did all the stuff a candidate is supposed to do. In each of their races, they were the best person willing and able to step forward and subject themselves, certianly in the case of Rishell and Dion, to some pretty nasty attacks. And, contrary to the implication of some comments, the PWCDC did not surpress more electable alternatives to these candidates because of our leftists ideological fanticism.

Fourth, the resignations from the PWCDC have a lot more to do with specific concerns related to operational details of how the PWCDC should run, not some grand ideological battle for the soul of the PWCDC. In some ways, it is not surprising that our long time office holders are not always in agreement with more recent additions to the committee. Ebert, Colgan, Jenkins, and Barg are incumbents, our other candidates are challengers or running for open seats. Barg and Jenkins have been prodevelopment, just about all of our other candidates have been for controlling growth -- as have most of the Republican candidates. It is easy for incumbents to raise piles of money, it is hard for challengers to do that. So, it is not a shock that those members of the committee most closely linked with the incumbents see the world in a different way than those associated with the challengers. And, whatever one thinks about the appointment to the electoral board, it is not an ideological issue.

Fifth, the PWCDC is a volunteer organization. It is not a group of professional political hacks with no show patronage jobs who can spend all day working on politics. (Of course, the same is true for the PWCRC). That means, people are doing the best they can to help candidates win. From my own stand point, I know I have made lots of mistakes in working in campaigns. I know I could do a better job and be more effective. Still, I've done the best I can, have always been thanked by the candidates that I helped, and appreciate that just about everybody else on the committee has done that as well.

Finally, excuses don't win elections, but a disapassionate analysis of the challenges we face and what we've done right and wrong in the past might help us figure out how to do things better in the future. I'm disappointed that we won't have Vic, Matt, and Jim to help us with this in the short term -- we can always hope for the long term -- but those of us still involved will do our best to build the best Democratic party we can.

[Pete in Williamsburg]

It's been years since the DPVA had any effect, good or bad, on campaigns. So, in Virginia, the most important factor in any campaign is the candidate. Sure, I know, unworthy shills are routinely elected due to money and district make-up, but Pandak, for instance, was not a serious candidate. Pandak nearly had an anxiety attack every time she spoke to a kitchen full of friendly Dems, no telling how she did on the hotseat. But, I don't want to bash Sharon for no reason. I have only popped up to give my two cents when I hear people suggest that the DPVA is an actual player in Virginia politics.

It is quite clear that Doug in Mt. Vernon and anon at 10:12 am think that Feder, Rishell and Roemmelt are mainstream middle of the road candidates.

Bully for you.

But in the eyes of voters in PWC they are too far left of center.

Keep denying that fact and you WILL keep losing these elections. I shall congratulate you on your losses.

Build the party on the ground all you want, but if you don't have viable candidates, it's all for naught.

Let's see how this shakes out in November. I'll bet I'm right.

Signed, A PWC moderate
--who voted for Kaine, Webb, & Mark Warner and would NEVER vote for Roemmelt, Rishell & Feder

PWC Moderate:

On Roemmelt and Rishell, I'm going to have to disagree with you -- I think they ran centerist campaigns. In terms of their campaign positions,they ran pretty much in line with the Kaine/Warner position. Now, you obviously have a different preception and I'm not so confident of my judgment as to deny the possiblity you are right. As a practical matter, I don't see how Roemmelt or Rishell could have been any more moderate. Now, on the gay marriage amendent, both Bruce and Jeanntte were in the minority in opposing that. However, I don't see it as that radical a position, since it was not a position in favor of gay marriage. If you've got some specific issues that you are concerned with, please post on those concerns here, I'm willing to listen. If it is just their overall approach that isn't moderate, well, not much to be done about that. I certainly don't know about other people, but I'm trying hard to avoid being in denial about anything. At a certain point, though, a candidate actually has to believe in something besides just winning. Still, I'd like to know any ideas on where you think they aren't. moderate.

[anonymous]

I am very sad to see Matt Harrison resign. I haven't met a more intelligent, dedicated Democrat in Virginia! What a loss.