Not Larry Sabato

Was RPV Involved in Tate Charges?

Major story about to break about RPV's involvement in the charges against Mark Tate...

I want to say one thing in advance.  Under normal circumstances I always protect my sources.  However I will not sit by while someone is charged with felonies and not reveal information that is critical to their defense.  In this case that outweighs my source and their confidentiality.

UPDATE:  Story is up.  More to come soon.

UPDATE #2- Here is the timeline of what happened with Tate:

Feb. 5th-  Vogel Supporter writes letter to SBE complaining about Tate's filings

Feb. 23th-  SBE responds with a letter saying all complaints need to be sent to local prosecutor

March-  Loudoun Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Plowman subpoenas Tate's bank records.  Plowman then hands the investigation over to Matt Britton a "Independent" prosecutor.  However, Plowman and Britton were well known friends when they practiced in Fairfax County at the same time.

Early April- Jill Holtzman Vogel is heard telling people that "Tate doesn't have the money in the bank that his report says it does".  This is before anyone knows Tate is under investigation- yet his bank records had already been taken by Plowman.  Did Plowman leak one candidate's financial report that he obtained during a criminal investigation to their opponent????

Late April-  Supporters of Vogel attempt to leak to reporters that Tate is under investigation and give May 22nd as the date that Tate will be indicted.  It appears they all assumed this wasn't true because how would Vogel supporters know an indictment was coming- and no stories were written.

May 1st- Having failed to get local media interested, VCAP Posts on its blog (under the "Jill Vogel" category) that Mark Tate is under "intense criminal investigation".

May 2nd-  Shaun Kenney (RPV Communications Director) leaks to me that Ed Gillespie, Ken Cuccinelli, and Mike Farris all have asked Mark Tate to drop out if his indicted.  He also gives me the date of May 22nd when Tate will be indicted.   I put the update to this post up (no names crossed out at the time- see below for why).

May 2nd (2 hours later)-   Mark Tate calls me and confirms that Ed Gillespie (RPV Chairman) has called him and asked him to drop out if he is indicted, but he knows nothing of any potential indictment other than what he has read on the internet.  Tate also tells me that Ken Cuccinelli and Mike Farris did not call him.

May 2nd (1 hour later)-  I reach my Senator, Ken Cuccinelli, who confirms that he did not call Mark Tate.  He said he was "staying out of this primary totally".

May 2nd (Soon After)-  Update #2 goes up on this post and Cuccinelli and Farris' names are crossed out on Update #1.  I didn't know how to reach Farris, but since Tate told the truth on Gillespie and Cuccinelli, I took his word for Farris as well.

May 2nd, 7:39 p.m.- Shaun, not knowing I had already talked to the Cooch, sent me this email:  "A little birdie says that if Ken is asked point blank if he advised Tate to back out, he’ll confirm". 

May 2nd (Not Sure what time)-   Matt Wells (RPV Political Director) calls Rick Gorka (Tate Campaign Manager) and offers him a "soft landing" if he will leave the Tate campaign.

May 3rd (Office Hours)-  I call Shaun Kenney back in response to his email and tell him I already talked to the Cooch and that he made no such call.

May 3rd-  A document that RPV claims has nothing to do with Mark Tate is drafted.  It is "procedures if a candidate is indicted".  Details of that are in Leesburg Today article.

May 21st-  Mark Tate receives a call from a friend in the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office telling him to be at the courthouse the next morning.

May 22nd-  Mark Tate indicted on eleven felony counts.

Soon After-  RPV claims their new policy has nothing to do with Tate and was drafted before he became an issue.  However it is in a Microsoft Word Document which shows a "created" time-stamp of May 3rd.

Week of May 23rd-May 29th-  I confer with local reporters and tell them what I know and where I know it from in order to allow Mark Tate to defend himself from these anonymous attacks.

May 30th (Afternoon)-  Local media contacts Shaun Kenney and he denies speaking to me since the "anti-semitic flyer" and "macaca" last year.  He especially denies talking to me on May 2nd.

May 30th (Evening)-  I forward emails showing he was lying about that contact.

May 31st-  Kenney's story changed when reporter calls him back.

May 31st-  Article comes out around 5 p.m. with numerous quotes showing differences in Kenney's story between the yesterday and today. 

June 2nd-  Ed Gillespie led Kangaroo Court scheduled to meet and decide what to do about Tate indictment per the policy drafted AFTER he knew Tate was going to be indicted.

YOU MAY NOT SPEAK

On Monday, the Board of Supervisors is discussing the Rail to Tysons (and Dulles) issue.  I just called to sign up to testify and was told that it was a staff presentation ONLY, and citizens were not allowed to speak.

I'm livid.  This is a 100 year project.  When do we get public input? Remember- it was this Board that made the aerial option the "Preferred Local Option" when the project began.  When do citizens get a chance to stand up and demand they STOP this option before the 100 year debacle of elevated rail through Tysons gets underway. 

UNACCEPTABLE.  OPEN THE HEARING TO CITIZENS NOW.

UPDATE:  Raising Kaine has more.

Scientology Lobbyist Ousts Campaign Manager

David H. Miller might be the sleaziest candidate of 2007.

This weekend at Viva Vienna, the former national lobbyist for the Scientologists, who claims to have no Scientology ties otherwise was seen campaigning IN the Scientology booth this weekend.   Talk about taking a weakness and turning it into a... bigger weakness.

Since then he has ousted his campaign manager Ginny Peters. Ginny is also Chair of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee.  Now, I have little respect for Peters who is known to be incompetent, lazy and has signed libelous and false letters under her signature from the FCDC which could leave the committee in serious legal jeopardy.  However, I'm going to put that aside for a minute because Miller should have known all that when he hired her.

But more interesting is how Miller used Ginny and threw her out.  He kept her on as his campaign manager past the filing deadline for other Democratic candidates while she ran around the county bragging of the job he had offered her and saying no one else should run against him for the nomination.  Now that he is the nominee, he ousts her before June.  Guess Ginny won't be in the Courthouse everyday after all.   

David Miller.  Worst Candidate of 2007.

Great Laugh

Visit Speaker Bill Howell's website by clicking here, and listen to his welcome message.  Who is that?

UPDATE:  It appears the Speaker has another website, and this was just a test site.  The real one is here.  Too bad.  :)

Judy Feder Files for 2008

Judy Feder has just filed for rematch with Frank Wolf.  Analysis coming after the primaries on June 12th.  I do want to say one thing now though. 

One important note for now.  In 2002 Wolf got 72%, in 2004 he got 64%, and in 2006 he got 57%.  There are lots of reasons for this trend, but it makes 2008 look interesting, especially against an opponent who already has some name recognition.

Bloggers Conference

We are working on getting financing for the conference lined up this week.  The conference is July 13-15 in Newport News. 

Here are the sponsorship levels:

$100-  Conference Sponsor- Name in Program
$250-  Conference Benefactor- Name in Program and announced at dinner.  (Maybe even a speaking slot if you have something interesting to say!)

Also, there are opportunities to sponsor the specific events.  There will only be one sponsor of each event.

$400-  Sponsor of Friday Night Welcome Reception at Marriott.
$600-  Sponsor of Saturday Breakfast at CNU
$600-  Sponsor of Saturday Lunch at CNU

Because there is only one sponsorship slot available per event above, this will be first come, first served.  Email me if interested.  I'm announcing this now at the same time for everyone to be as fair as possible.

Finally, we have the Saturday night dazzling dinner to end the conference.  Dinner sponsorships are $500, but are not exclusive.

Finally one last thing I should point out.  None of the money raised goes to anything political.  The conference costs exceed $10,000, and we are hoping to keep registration to $25 per blogger attending.  Should we run a surplus (yeah, right), it will go to next year's conference.

Cash for Grass?

By Not Harry F. Byrd:

Today's Washington Post reports that VDOT has been forced to cut back on mowing due to budget constraints.  Because of this and some early spring rains, many medians and sidewalk grass strips in Fairfax County now resemble hayfields with grass as much as four feet tall.

However, the Washington Post failed to point out that this is where the rubber meets the road in life under Republican rule - the budget shortfall is due to shrinking gas tax revenues and increasing road maintenance and construction costs which are rapidly starving the Transportation Trust Fund.  Vote Republican, the grass doesn't get mowed!

Given that our current Republican leadership refuses to raise gas taxes or place a sales tax on gasoline sales, I would like to propose that the next General Assembly explore requiring VDOT to fund transportation improvements by simply allowing the grass to grow until it is four feet tall when it can be harvested, baled and sold downstate as cattle feed.  The grass does seem to grow pretty well in those medians.  Perhaps this measure could help to solve our $108 billion transportation crunch?

Does anyone know who needs $108 billion worth of grass over the next 20 years?

TATE FILES MOTION TO DISMISS

More here. 

FAISAL GILL IN VIOLATION OF LAW

On his latest mail piece, Faisal Gill claims to be a lobbyist.  Only problem- he has FAILED to register as a lobbyist with Virginia or the United States Government.

This is one of the worst crimes a lobbyist can commit and it involves major fines.

BVBL has more.

UPDATE:  Faisal actually has a lobbying website while not being registered!  UNBELIEVABLE. 

Even worse is that his partner is Asim Ghafoor- who said this "Before the 2000 Presidential election, in another political debate sponsored by radioislam.com, Ghafoor said, "we are here not just to be nice to people, not to say great things about people but to bring truth and justice and Islamic ways to this country. . . . you should rule by Islam otherwise you're a Kafir "

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From his partner, it sounds like Faisal has been a lobbyist for Sharia Law- and unregistered on top of that.   If BVBL is correct, and Faisal has been unregistered- the FBI needs to look into this immediately.

Democrats Against Wilder?

From the WaPo this morning on the Linda Smyth-Charlie Hall primary:

"The issue infuriates Hall, who said that he has voted Democrat his whole life and that Connolly "has spent a hell of a lot more time in Tom Davis' company in the last six months than I have." His campaign produced records showing that Smyth voted in Republican primaries in 1988, 1989 and 1996.

"Meanwhile the other side is questioning my fitness as a Democrat," he said. "It seems like an odd tack to take. Anybody looking at my fundraising would see that if I had a congressman behind me, I'd be in a different boat." Smyth enjoys a commanding edge, $77,856 to Hall's $3,685, according to the latest reports.

Smyth said she has "no recollection" about 1988 and 1989 but confirmed that she voted for U.S. Sen. John Warner (R) in his 1996 primary."

This isn't the first time this has become an issue in Fairfax County this year.  George Barker also voted in the 1989 Republican Primary.

What was the 1989 Republican Primary?  It was the election to pick a Republican nominee to challenge Doug Wilder for Governor.

So what did Linda Smyth and George Barker have against Doug Wilder?