That headline might be a little over the top, but this is a pretty entertaining story.
For those of you who have never been to Clifton- it isn't much like other parts of Northern Virginia. To get to the town of Clifton you have to drive for about 5 miles on a winding road with a narrow one lane going each way. This area was never developed because it lies west of 123 and borders on the Occoquan River that separates Fairfax and Prince William. Years ago, Fairfax required any developments here to have at least 5 acres per home, in order to ensure less development around the Occoquan, which supplies the drinking water to most of Fairfax.
The political impact of that has been to create very high priced properties (5 acres in Fairfax County- think about that). Of course that has turned Clifton and Fairfax Station into absolute GOP strongholds in Northern Virginia. When that Delegate seat opened up in 1991, Jay O'Brien easily grabbed it by crushing George Barker- then crushed him again in a 1993 rematch. By the end of the decade, Jay was regularly beating each Democrat who ran against him in the House District by a 2-1margin. Republicans noticed his electoral strength, and drew a Senate seat for him in the 2001 redistricting that would come open in the 2003 Senate elections. When the incumbent resigned a year early, Jay grabbed the seat in a 2002 special election by a 58-42 margin, and then was re-elected to a four year term 57-43 in 2003. Jay was an electoral badass who had made it 16 years without ever having a race within 10 points. These winning margins are one of the reasons Jay mistakingly felt electorally comfortable enough to vote against Mark Warner's state saving budget in 2004- which was the beginning of the end of his political career.
In the next election Jay met 2007 and the anti-Bush wave that crushed Northern Virginia. Despite a weak Democratic candidate in Barker- who was back after a 14 year electoral and dental hiatus- Democrats targeted this district for takeover after it had been carried heavily by Jim Webb in 2006. Once he was caught in the first close race of his career, it became obvious that Jay didn't quite know what to do in this type of election. The final results edged to the Democrats 19,892-19,131- which was the decisive race in the Dems winning a 21-19 Senate majority.
So it wasn't much of a surprise when Jay began telling people he would run again in 2011- all the way back in 2008 after he realized the free summer Wolftrap tickets were only for current legislators. No one knows for sure what the district will look like after the next redistricting, but its fair to say that Jay would have begun the campaign as the narrow favorite if the lines were unchanged. So it was no surprise when major Republicans- including Bob McDonnell had already endorsed Jay's comeback bid.
Contesting Jay for the nomination was Scott Martin. Scott is an assistant dean at George Mason- and is best known for his run for the Fairfax School Board in 2003. Despite running in Springfield District- the most Republican in the county- Scott became one of only two Republican candidates in the history of the district to fail to win election since its creation in 1951. I remember seeing Scott campaign at some back to school nights- creepy is the only word I can use to describe his interactions with voters. Scott's loss in 03 shared the ballot with O'Brien's win- here's how pathetic Scott's numbers were in the overlapping precincts:
Clifton Jay O'Brien wins 964-387 Scott Martin wins 648-573
Fairfax Station Jay
O'Brien wins 825-405
Scott Martin wins 574-549
Woodyard Jay
O'Brien wins 527-262
Scott Martin loses 345-395 Irving Jay
O'Brien wins 545-389
Scott Martin loses 370-525 Silverbrook Jay
O'Brien wins 621-327
Scott Martin loses 413-484
West Springfield Jay
O'Brien wins 433-359
Scott Martin loses 276-480 Fountainhead Jay
O'Brien wins 791-350
Scott Martin wins 563-522
Newgate Jay
O'Brien wins 933-367
Scott Martin loses 574-649 With everything going for him, Jay made a huge mistake last week. At the Davis General Store in Clifton which had Martin material on the table- he purchased a newspaper and stuffed the Martin lit into the paper so it would no longer be available to be seen. The "shoplifting" was caught on tape- and Martin supporters began spreading rumors of "pressing charges".
I heard about this Monday, and interviewed both Jay and the store owner. Jay basically said the flyers were on the counter for people to take- so he took them. The store owner told me that it was all captured on video- and that this literature had disappeared twice before- and she was going back to the old tapes to see if that was Jay also.
I asked the owner of the Davis General Store if she would provide me with the video tapes- and I already had music picked out for the Youtube I was going to give you all this week. But McDonnell PAC Director Phil Cox, who managed the Governor's race last year for McDonnell intervened and began a private push to force Jay to withdraw to avoid any embarrassment for the Governor of endorsing someone caught stealing campaign flyers on tape.
So Republicans are going to replace an almost perfect twenty year electoral history for a creepy loser like Scott Martin whose own electoral performance was the worst of any GOP candidate in that area in history- over some free campaign flyers being removed from a counter? Does this sound absurd to anyone else?
This isn't the first major mistake Cox has made in Fairfax this year. During the Steve Hunt-Dave Marsden special election, Cox demanded that any money the Governor provided Hunt be spent on turning out the "McDonnell list" and not the "Cuccinelli list"- even though the special election was in Cuccinelli's old Senate District! The result of this decision was soft GOP turnout- and an upset victory for the Democrats. Then in the special election for Marsden's house seat, Cox made the call that Kerry Bolognese wasn't going to win over Eileen Filler-Corn, and allowed her to outspend Bolognese almost 2-1. Again, Cox was wrong in his electoral guidance as Filler-Corn won by only 41 votes- almost certainly a win for the GOP if they had matched the Democrats dollar for dollar.
Retired Col. Dick Black, who said he served in the Pentagon during
the creation of DADT in 1993, said that essentially, allowing
homosexuals to serve openly would create an environment where straight
soldiers wouldn't report attacks for fear of being told they "asked for
it."
"We faced this when we started tightening up on rape," Black said.
"Women were intimidated about coming forward -- they'd be called sluts
or you know they hung out in bars or whatever."
When it comes to homosexual assaults, if the perpetrator is allowed
to serve openly, it will be the straight men who find themselves facing
embarrassing questions about what they were wearing the night they were
attacked, Black said.
"I think we're going to see the opposite direction when it comes to
homosexual assaults," he said. "You've got typically a one-on-one
situation and there would be tremendous political pressure placed on the
victims to remain silent. It will be very similar to the situation we
had with women 50 years ago when they were reluctant to come forward and
report rape because they would be mislabeled."
I'm curious what you all think about this. The comments on the Post site are mostly negative. I don't see anything here that really bothers me on first glance...
