49th House District
At the onset of this campaign, I will admit to being very skeptical of Stephanie Clifford. She had only been involved in politics for a year, took some photos at events with her husband and suddenly wanted to represent the most Democratic district in Virginia in the House of Delegates.
On the other side was Alfonso Lopez, someone who I have known for almost a decade, a former YD President who went on to work for Tim Kaine in his DC liaison office. From resume and involvement you might think this would be an easy choice.
But instead as this campaign has gone on, Stephanie has continued to improve as a candidate while Alfonso has raised serious questions about his ethics, honesty, temperament and policies that make him an unacceptable choice.
Alfonso (who has brought in Kaine for an event today) has only secured the endorsement of two Delegates and one (outgoing) Senator in Northern Virginia. Does this strike anyone as a little strange coming from a guy who was "a member of the Kaine cabinet" running against a political neophyte?
Alfonso claims to be a "progressive champion". Yet when he worked for Kaine, he went from event to event defending Kaine's repeal of the estate tax, Kaine's undermining of a tunnel in Tysons Corner, Kaine's support of the death penalty and Kaine's abuser fee scheme. Alfonso even failed to speak up at the end of Kaine's term when he was denying people restoration of voting rights based on traffic tickets.
Meanwhile, on the dishonest front- if you attended any of the debates you would hear Alfonso tell a compelling story of himself after law school. As the story goes, Alfonso decided against taking a high paid legal job, because he wanted to work in the Clinton administration for environmental regulations. But when I searched the records of every state, Alfonso has never passed the bar in any of them. Rumors are he failed it six times, but there are no records of people that failed the bar kept. Big picture point though- if he never passed the bar, he never had a chance at the high paid legal work- so claiming that he bypassed a job he wasn't ever eligible for is misleading at best.
On Tuesday I stood up at an event for Stephanie Clifford and endorsed her. At that event, I pointed out some of this ridiculousness from Alfonso- but said that alone wasn't enough to compel me to get involved. What really got me interested was looking at this district- one of the poorest and most needing of a hand up in Northern Virginia.
Having someone in Richmond who the Republicans will just point and laugh at from this district means they won't have an effective voice for the programs they need. I believe Alfonso's election will cause real harm to people that need help because he won't be able to be an effective advocate for them and get things done. In Richmond the Republicans will mock Alfonso when he stands up for "progressive issues" that he fought against when he worked for Kaine. That makes him unacceptable.
If Stephanie Clifford hadn't improved as a candidate from the start of this I would have just stayed quiet and neutral. But she's really made major strides in this campaign. I see future potential in her, and more importantly- I see someone who can effective advocate for the people who need her in the 49th district. That's why she has my support in this primary.