SHARON BULOVA DEFEATS PAT HERRITY

Projection 9:10 p.m.

Comments

[Doug in Mount Vernon]

WHAT!!!????

I don't believe it yet....please elaborate....did nobody vote in Foutainhead, Clifton, or Popes Head?

So much for your referendum on Gerry Connolly, Ben. You're now 0-for-4 against Gerry:

Board election 2007
Dem primary 2008
House election 2008
Board election 2009

Hertz, donut?

62% Democratic County, and the Connolly people are crowing about a win under 1,000 votes.

9:17...a win is a win. margin doesn't matter.

[LAS]

Is it for sure yet? What about absentees?

[Steveo]

Ben-
Even though I may not always agree with you on everything, I have a lot of respect for you speaking your mind on what an asshat Connolly is.

[What the]

Not so fast . . . absentees went 2 -1 for Pat

[Not Larry Sabato]

I'm hearing absentees are Pat +600.

[WHat the]

I'm hearing +1,300 . . . that plus the outstanding precincts . . .

[notlarrysabato]

Even if your 1300 is right, he is down 1600 and the rest have reported.

[?]

I'm hearing Lizard People won absentees by over 9,000.

Where are people getting these absentee numbers???

Simply put, Herrity's Springfield District, with 17,000 more registered voters than Bulova's Braddock District, didn't flock to the polls and provide the margins he needed to win.

outstanding precincts are mostly dem

[What the]

9:28 - are you kidding me?

Actually Sully dragged him down more than Springfield. But he took Mt Vernon

[Not Huey Long]

She was the best candidate "off the bench" for the Dems. Tragedy, i.e. Harrity, avoided. The stakeholders in the Tysons Corner redevelopment and the Silver Line--and in my opinion all of Fairfax Co--should be thankful for this result.

[?!?!?!]

Yeah . . . in fact . . .we should be so thankful that maybe, just maybe, we can hope for Sharon to bring us a $1.2 Billion deficit - and not just a measly $650M.

[Not John S. Mosby]

AB - Central Absentee Precinct

Last Reported: Feb 3 2009 9:27PM EST

Sharon S. Bulova 2,150 43.76%

Patrick S. Herrity 2,704 55.03%

Christopher F. DeCarlo 33 0.67%

Carey C. Campbell 19 0.38%

Write In 7 0.14%

1217 before absentees

[Martin Lomasney]

The punks who ran Bulova's campaign need a slap upside the head.

5 SDs in one house and they got no phone calls except one from McAuliffe campaign.

This effort was pathetic.

[?]

According to the pdf, there are 3822 uncounted votes with a +1217 margin for Bulova.

[Martin Lomasney]

All precincts in & Sharon wins by 1217 after the scare in Arlington.

Who's running this clown show?

[carl68]

I agree on Bulova's campaign sucking. We are a family of Ds and received no phone calls and just one mailer...from Herrity. She is just lucky we are big fans of the silver Line extension or we would not have even known there was an election.

[---]

From pdf: Absentee numbers by precinct represent the number of voters who applied for absentee ballots not the number of absentee ballots returned and counted. The total number of absentee ballots that were returned and counted is listed by candidate in the candidate columns in the countywide returns report.

[Joel Rutstein]

Bulova declared victory in an e-mail message I received a few minutes ago.

[Not John S. Mosby]

Now SBE is showing 231 out of 229 precincts reporting. Hey, I like the result, but are they counting Chicago-style or something? Maybe Alexandria is trying make amends for fucking up the special election in the 46th by kicking in some votes for Sharon?

[LAS]

I received plenty of phone calls and robo calls and e-mails in support of Bulova. I also received numerous mailings, robo calls, an absentee ballot application AND a robo-call instructing me how to use it (twice!) from Herrity. I've voted in every democratic primary--why am I on his list? Is that good campaigning or bad? You decide.

Give both candidates a break about reaching voters and mobilizing. Be realistic. A February special election in a 400-square mile county ain't easy. Both did what they could with the money and time they had. They're not Obama, Webb, Kaine or Warner.

[Not John S. Mosby]

The turnout was actually pretty decent - north of 15% or so. For a special election on a frigid February day, I would consider that high.

[Not Susan Allen]

OMG everyone using Asshat now....you know I brought that name to Virginia!

[PWConservaitve]

This is how Connolly won.
Pay attention to precincts reporting.
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/738/results2fv2.jpg

PWconservative: the 231 refers to 229 actual precincts plus 1 precinct for absentee votes plus 1 precinct for provisional ballots.

[Martin Lomasney]

Bulova had 90 days to prepare for this election and probably more since she had to know none of her fellow D supervisors would challenge her for the job last Spring when she started to hit every D event outside of Braddock.

The young people who ran this campaign were arrogant, ineffective bumblers.

Where were the grown-ups who know how to get a party's base out?

[HisRoc]

This is a very sad outcome. Bulova wins by less than 1% of all the ballots cast in a county that is reliably more than 60-40 Democratic. Despite the demographics of Fairfax County, Sharon Bulova's linkage to the corrupt Connolly political machine almost led to her defeat. If she is the trusted public official that she claimed to be, then this race would not even have been close.

This is another indication that the two-party system is dead in Fairfax County, and in most of the more populous areas of the country, thanks to the excesses of the Republican Party in recent years. While some Democrats will find comfort in this and celebrate, they need to contemplate the larger implication of this situation. No longer will popular elections choose our leaders. Party bosses in 'smoke-filled rooms' will decide who the nominee of the dominant party will be and the general election will be a sham.

If Bulova could win this election by the smallest of margins simply because she has a "D" behind her name, then there is no greater case for a new national party to replace the Republicans, just as they replaced the irrelevant Whigs 150 years ago.

Once again democracy foiled by the lizard people (candidates 3 and 4) without these clowns I believe Pat would have been within 5-7 votes

[Loudoun Insider]

Ugh. We're doomed in NoVA. Hold on to your wallets. It may be time to move, but who's going to buy the house???

[Loudoun Insider]

Great call, 12:37. Big shout out to the Lizard People! Thanks for wasting everyone's time.

[HisRoc]

12:37 AM,

Not so. One was a Green Party candidate and the other a pseudo-Libertarian. Their votes would have been evenly distributed, more or less, between Bulova and Herrity.

Has Herrity conceded?

[Not John S. Mosby]

Is Herrity conceited? Very much so, so doubtful if he'll ever actually do so.

So, the Connolly Machine - are you guys serious? Smoke-filled rooms? Get real.

[HisRoc]

Not JSM,

Yes, smoke-filled rooms. If you don't believe me, then wait and see what happens to SB 1105 in the Virginia House.
:)

Wow! I received about five telephone calls, countless mailout which gave me the extra motivation to vote.

According to the official results, Bulova got 48% of all votes cast; not even a majority. So much for her claim that Fairfax Co. voters (including me) are happy with how things are being run.

[Not John S. Mosby]

No, 103,934 total votes were cast. There were 3800 or so absentee ballot requests that did not vote in the end - probably Republicans returning the mail-in ballot requests that Herrity included in his mailers.

So, out of 103,934, Bulova got 51,965, which was two votes shy of 50% (she's at 49.9981%). Herrity had 50,759, or 48.8377%. The other two combined had 1,210 votes, or 1.1642%

Well, I guess they went for the nice old, non-college grad grandma from another generation type with no business experience or real experience in the real world... that's okay. She won. We're facing bad times and she's ill-equipped in the skills dept to handle it. I expect one term for her.