In 2008, Obama carried Virginia, the first time a Democrat had done so since LBJ. This time he personally came out to campaign for Tom Perriello. Perriello has now gone down to defeat. The VA-9 has gone to the GOP and the Republican leads by 10 points in the VA-2. In my district, a Democratic bastion of late, Rep. Gerry Connolly is trailing narrowly. It is hard to say that all this is not a repudiation of the president’s agenda. As for his coattails, they seem to be negative ones.
Topic: Gerry Connolly
The VA-11
My district is a competitive one this year. Rep. Gerry Connolly has embraced the Obama agenda and faces a self-financed businessman, Keith Fimian. The precinct where I voted at a non-peak time had a line more akin to a presidential year. In our state, electioneering is permitted in the parking lot, but not inside the voting area. (My son was urged to put on a sweatshirt over his partisan T-shirt.)
On the way in, voters passed in the parking lot booths for each of the candidates. A gentleman in a maroon sweater snarled at the Connolly volunteer, “You’ve cheated our country.” He tells me his wife was once a liberal Democrat and is now a Tea Partier. He is most upset that lawmakers don’t read the bills they are voting on. “If they get a $5,000 bill, they’d read it. But health care they don’t read.” A small and unscientific sample, to be sure, but the “throw the bums out” mood is prevalent.
Flotsam and Jetsam
Stu Rothenberg doesn’t think much of the Dems’ Chamber of Commerce gambit: “This is what we call the political version of ‘jumping the shark’ — a desperate-looking charge that a campaign or a party hopes could be a game-changer. It’s pretty early for Democrats to jump the shark, and you have to wonder whether this is really the best shot they have in their arsenal. Yes, it might get some folks agitated, but not many. And it reeks of desperation.”
Voters don’t think much of it either: “Election Day is just two weeks away, and Republican candidates hold a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, October 17, 2010. … Even more worrisome for Democrats, however, is the finding that among the voters who are most closely following the midterm elections Republicans hold a 55% to 36% lead.”
CNN voters don’t think much of the Parker-Spitzer show, and Vic Matus thinks even less of Spitzer’s likening himself to Icarus: “Putz. He doesn’t even know the quotation. …It ends, ‘… they first make mad.’ As in insane. Which is precisely the case with Spitzer. … Sorry. I knew Icarus—Icarus was a friend of mine. Eliot Spitzer is no Icarus.”
Charles Lane doesn’t think much of Democrats’ excessive dependence on public-employee unions. “But in an era of increasing discontent over taxes, government spending and the perks of government employees, these are not necessarily the allies you want to have. A party that depends on the public employees to get elected will have trouble reaching out to the wider electorate — i.e., the people who pay the taxes that support public employee salaries and pensions. In politics, you never want to find yourself beholden to a minority whose core interests often clash with the interests of voters.”
Josh Rogin doesn’t think much of Jon Stewart’s claim that Sen. Tom Coburn is holding up aid to Haiti. “The problem is that Coburn’s hold is not responsible for delaying the $1.15 billion Congress already appropriated in late July to help Haiti. … Even the State Department acknowledges that Coburn is not responsible for the delay in this tranche of funds for Haiti.”
ABC doesn’t think much of Dems’ chances of holding the House majority: “In the House, many key House races have seen some tightening, but it’s not enough to make Democrats feel all that much better. Democrats have 63 seats in serious danger compared to just four for Republicans.”
Anyone who lives in the VA-11 (like me!) doesn’t think much of Marc Ambinder’s spin that Rep. Gerry Connolly “knows this district inside and out.” If he did, he would have maintained a moderate voting record like his predecessor Tom Davis, instead of rubber-stamping the Obama agenda and putting his seat at risk.
The liberal JTA doesn’t think much of Howard Berman’s claim that Mark Kirk didn’t have anything to do with the Iran-sanctions bill: “Kirk gets this one, I think, on points — as the Sun Times notes, Berman thanked [co-sponsor Rep. Rob] Andrews for his work, a hint that the bill he and Kirk shaped played a role in the final bill. So did AIPAC when the bill passed. And, the sanctions are pretty much identical.”
The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee doesn’t think much of its party’s chances in at least five races. A fundraising appeal, Ben Smith explains, “seems to concede what many on both sides now see as nearly done: Five open GOP-held seats, in Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, New Hampshire, Florida, and Kansas, have slipped pretty near out of reach.”
The Voters Won’t Notice?
The Hill, in two separate reports, details the efforts by Democrats to run from their party. First, pretend you are neither a Democrat nor an incumbent:
With voters in an anti-incumbent mood and a national headwind against their party, some freshman Democrats are touting themselves as unaffiliated outsiders — and it may help them win reelection.
Running against Washington isn’t easy when you’ve got an office on Capitol Hill. But Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.) has effectively positioned herself as a challenger in her race against Republican Mike Kelly.
So far, it’s not working — Kelly leads in the polls.
Then the candidates from the mystery party who have occupied a job of unknown origin try to flee from the Democratic agenda:
House Democrats in tough races are running away from their party’s legislative record as they face an electorate that’s skeptical of what the party has accomplished over the past two years and rates Congress at historic lows.
A Gallup tracking poll from the end of September shows that only 18 percent of voters approve of the job Congress is doing while landmark legislation like healthcare reform and the stimulus remains unpopular.
My Democratic congressman person running for office, who has been in office somewhere, is a case in point:
“It’s not everyone’s cup of tea,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), who is a Republican target this fall. “Moderates and Blue Dogs in our caucus have grown increasingly antsy about that agenda and whether it was or is overly ambitious.”
Connolly voted in favor of healthcare reform, the stimulus and Wall Street reform, but over the past two months the Virginia Democrat has emerged as one of the loudest Democratic voices urging the leadership to extend the George W. Bush tax cuts, even for the wealthiest Americans.
He also voted against adjourning without a vote on the Bush tax cuts. But Connolly’s elective-eve conversion isn’t carrying the day. Here, too, the challenger, Keith Fimian, is leading, running tough ads pinning Connolly down on his record.
It is rather silly to suppose that the most engaged voters — those who turn out for a midterm election — can’t figure out who the incumbent Democrats are and can’t recall what the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda has been for the past two years. It does suggest, however, that any survivors from the mystery party will be wary of once again putting their careers on the line by following the White House’s lead.
Trouble in VA-11
My congressman in the Virginia 11th district, Gerry Connolly, is having a tough time with the White House. TPM reports:
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) told TPM pointedly he wants at least a temporary extension, saying that he’s on the same page as former OMB director Peter Orszag. He said it “could do some harm” if the tax rates go up when the tax cuts expire as scheduled.
I told Connolly that the White House cited his support for extending the cuts temporarily as a wrinkle in their big plans. “They said that? I sure don’t want to complicate anything for anybody,” he told me.
He added, “A strong majority of the caucus is of the point of view to keep them for $250,000 and under, and they will stay there. Ours is the minority view, even though we’re gaining some.”
Connolly is in a jam. He’s blindly followed Obama on his leftward quest, eschewing the middle-of-the-road and pro-business line that kept Republican Tom Davis in office for 14 years. Now he is struggling with his leadership and the White House, which seems to think it’s not all that important that the Democrats hang on in VA-11.
What is Connolly’s message now — “I have no influence with my far-left leaders, but my heart is in the right place?” And what’s his excuse for not fighting them on cap-and-trade, the stimulus plan, and ObamaCare? You can see why the district is in play.
Flotsam and Jetsam
Seriously? “Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she’s ‘not nervous at all’ about the possibility that Democrats could lose their House majority after the November elections. She says she feels ‘very confident about where we are’ when it comes to the election. Still, the California Democrat says her party isn’t taking anything for granted.”
Seriously? Not even Chris Matthews thinks Pelosi is right.
Seriously? Eleanor Clift sounds like she’s thrown in the towel on Speaker Pelosi as well: ”Two freshman Democrats from Virginia, Tom Perriello and Gerry Connolly, swept into office on the wave of enthusiasm generated by Barack Obama, are now struggling to stay afloat in a sea of discontent about the president. OK, that’s a bit melodramatic, but listening to these lawmakers and what they’re up against in defending their seats is to wonder where all the magic has gone, and what can be done to recapture enough stardust to hold on to the Democratic majorities that are the bulwark of the Obama presidency.”
Seriously? John Kerry wants “Obama to resume his efforts to start a dialogue with Iran. In an interview on CNN’s ‘Fareed Zakaria GPS’ show Sunday, Kerry said a good place to begin with the Iranians would be discussions about the way forward in Afghanistan and that those talks could lead to discussions on other vital topics, such as Iran’s nuclear program. … There are reasons that [the Iranians] would want a stable government there. And I think that we should — you know, diplomacy is the art of playing to everybody’s interests. And everybody has some interests with respect to this outcome.”
Seriously? (snuggling up to Lindsey Graham): “Sen. Jon Kyl, the second-ranking member of the Senate Republican leadership, voiced support Sunday for hearings on whether to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.”
Seriously? Obama says he’s not getting enough credit for saving us from “the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.” (Maybe that’s because it’s not the worst downturn since the Great Depression.)
Seriously? ABC headline: “Pelosi and Gates Differ on Expectations for July 2011 Troop Withdrawal.” Yeah, when the president isn’t definitive, everyone fills in the blanks for themselves. That worked to get Obama elected, but it makes for a poor commander in chief.
Flotsam and Jetsam
Thanks to the NAACP, Hallmark was forced to remove from the shelves space-themed cards that used the phrase “black hole.” The group’s professional grievants apparently misheard the second word. No kidding.
Thanks to Barack Obama, the Middle East is more dangerous than ever: “The Gaza flotilla incident might have been a great setback to the radical camp had the United States reacted sharply, defending Israel, condemning the jihadists on board and their sponsors in Turkey, blocking UN Security Council action, and refusing to sponsor another international inquiry that will condemn Israel. And Israel’s interests were not the only ones at stake: The blockade of Gaza is a joint Israeli-Egyptian action to weaken Hamas. But the American position reflects the Obama line: carefully balancing the interests of friend and foe, seeking to avoid offense to our enemies, or, as Churchill famously described British policy in the 1930s, ‘resolved to be irresolute.’ Middle Eastern states, including Arab regimes traditionally allied with the United States, view this pose as likely to get them all killed when enemies come knocking at the door.”
Thanks to Obama, Bobby Jindal has regained a lot of stature. He appears to be what Obama is not — competent, engaged, and proactive.
Thanks to Jon Stewart, Tim Pawlenty gets to show that he has a sense of humor.
Thanks to Leslie Gelb, we are reminded that things can always be worse: Robert Gates departs, Hillary Clinton goes to the Defense Department, and Chuck Hagel goes to the State Department. Oy.
Thanks to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, “a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 19% of voters think it would be better for the country if most incumbents in Congress were reelected this November. Sixty-five percent (65%) disagree and say it would be better if most were defeated. Sixteen percent (16%) aren’t sure.”
Thanks to Obama, “people close to the president [Harmid Karzai] say he began to lose confidence in the Americans last summer, after national elections in which independent monitors determined that nearly one million ballots had been stolen on Mr. Karzai’s behalf. The rift worsened in December, when President Obama announced that he intended to begin reducing the number of American troops by the summer of 2011.” It’s no surprise, then, that “Mr. Karzai has been pressing to strike his own deal with the Taliban and the country’s archrival Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime supporter. According to a former senior Afghan official, Mr. Karzai’s maneuverings involve secret negotiations with the Taliban outside the purview of American and NATO officials.”
Thanks to Ben Bernanke, Rep. Gerry Connolly makes a fool of himself and his Republican challenger has a boffo campaign ad.
Thanks to Obama and the Democratic Congress, you’re probably not going to get to keep your health-care plan: “Over and over in the health care debate, President Barack Obama said people who like their current coverage would be able to keep it. But an early draft of an administration regulation estimates that many employers will be forced to make changes to their health plans under the new law. In just three years, a majority of workers—51 percent—will be in plans subject to new federal requirements, according to the draft.”
Thanks to Israel, there is a place in the Middle East where gays are not persecuted: “Tel Aviv embraced Israel’s GLBT community Friday as it hosted the 13th annual gay parade.Dozens of policemen and civilian police watched on as thousands marched, dancing and waving rainbow flags.”
Thanks to the economic-policy wizardry of the Obama administration: “U.S. consumers unexpectedly ratcheted back spending on everything from cars to clothing in May, adding to concerns that a volatile stock market and high unemployment are increasingly weighing down the economic recovery. The Commerce Department reported Friday that sales at retail establishments — including department stores, gas stations and restaurants — fell 1.2% in May from the previous month. The decline, driven by sharp drops in autos and building materials, was the first and largest since September 2009, when sales fell 2.2%.”
The Virginia 11th
As I noted yesterday, Gerry Connolly, the freshman representative from Virginia’s 11th, is one of a handful of vulnerable Democrats in the state. In the Republican primary, which was thought to be competitive, businessman Keith Fimian faced off against Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity, whose father was a legendary and beloved figure in the county.
This was not the year to run an establishment insider. Fimian cruised to a huge double-digit win. Herrity said Fimian was too conservative, a losing argument in an off-year primary when the most devoted Republicans turn out to vote. Fimian accused Herrity of raising taxes, and that seemed to gain traction. Lesson: run as an outsider, adamantly opposed to tax increases.
Fimian and Connolly will stage a rematch of the 2008 contest. Then Connolly won by 11 points, with Obama carrying the district by 15 points. But this time around, Obama isn’t on the ballot to drive turnout and is a drag on his party, not a boost. Connolly will try to separate himself from the Washington spend-a-thon, but his record speaks for itself. Republicans smell a pickup. We’ll see how smart a race Fimian runs. He at least has the experience of beating one insider who was vulnerable on the tax issue.
Maybe Democrats Haven’t Hit Bottom Yet
In case you had any doubt that voters are in a throw-the-bums-out mood, the Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that only 29 percent of voters are inclined to re-elect their House member, a figure lower than in 1994, when the House flipped to GOP control. With each week that passes, a rebound for Democratic incumbents seems more remote. Indeed, as Obama gets hammered on everything from his shady job offers to Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff to the BP spill, languishing job growth, and expansion of the debt, there is good reason to predict that the political climate will get worse for Democrats.
This does not mean that individual candidates can’t swim against the tide. If Republican challengers are too wacky for the electorate (e.g., Rand Paul) or run lousy races, they are entirely capable of blowing their chances. And conversely, the few Democrats who are able to show that they voted against Obama on the most unpopular legislation might save themselves.
What Democrats aren’t going to get away with is an abrupt change of face that attempts to fudge their record. A case in point is Gerry Connolly, my representative in the 11th Virginia congressional district. Although he has no primary challengers, he is running automated calls telling voters that he stood up to Obama on excess spending. Uh, not remotely. He voted for ObamaCare, for cap-and-trade, and for the stimulus bill. Voters aren’t as gullible as Connolly imagines, so he better hope that voters who are going to get socked with a bevy of new taxes as a result of legislation he helped pass are in a forgiving mood.
Rubber-Stamping Obama’s Agenda Can Be Hazardous to Democrats
This report on the prospects for Republicans’ gains in the House in suburban districts features my home district, the 11th in northern Virginia. Represented for years by moderate Republican Tom Davis, Gerry Connolly now occupies the seat. He’s brimming with confidence — sort of:
Rep. Gerry Connolly, a liberal Democrat who won the seat by a wide margin in 2008, agrees—up to a point. “Seeing it go Republican again would be big,” he said, before adding, “I don’t expect that to happen.”
But unlike his immediate predecessor, who hewed a moderate line and often confounded the conservative base, Connolly has been a rubber stamp for Nancy Pelosi and the Obama agenda. And his constituents are none too pleased. At a health-care town hall, they vented their frustration:
He touted the hundreds of millions he had won for his district to expand its congested highways and intersections. He defended the president’s stimulus package, noting that $77 million was going to help build a rail line to Dulles Airport, which lies partly in Fairfax County.
He then gave a detailed defense of the health bill. “I voted for it and am proud to have voted for it,” he said.
What followed was a barrage of negative comments and questions on health care. Did he really read the whole bill? Why is my doctor now telling me that he’ll check my pacemaker only four times a year instead of monthly? What in the Constitution gives you the power to demand people pay for health insurance?
Mr. Connolly cut off questioning after 20 minutes, saying he has to get home to his wife. A knot of constituents gathered to shake his hand and to invite him to various events. One asked about his daughter, who’s now in college.
Outside, he waved off the hostility. “Yeah, they were critical in there,” he said. “But I’ve known these folks for years. You saw how they were asking about my daughter. I’ll win this precinct.”
Perhaps. Or maybe the voter was being polite. The two Republicans vying to oppose Connolly have figured out his weak spot: he’s gone far left in a moderate district. (“‘He’s been acting as Nancy Pelosi’s personal lieutenant,’ Mr. [Pat] Herrity said to a chorus of boos, speaking one morning to several hundred party faithful in the gym of West Springfield High School. ‘I call him Gerry Pelosi.’”) Keith Fimian is focusing on the deficit that the Democrats have piled up, accusing them of “preparing for the next generation a life of servitude and mediocrity.”
It is noteworthy that Obama crushed John McCain in 2008 in Fairfax County, winning by more than 20 points. But it is a different story now. Bob McDonnell won the county in the 2009 gubernatorial race. It seems that the voters have gotten a good look at Obamaism and don’t like what they see. Connolly — like Obama — took a risk that voters had moved left and would welcome a huge expansion of federal power and shrug off the taxes to pay for it. We’ll find out in November if that was a smart bet.
Flotsam and Jetsam
Obama could use an “intervention,” says Noemie Emery. “Denial is a river that runs through the White House, where the denizens are in the grip of two major delusions: One, that the country really wants really expensive big government, and two, that Obama is ‘sort of like God.’ Since early last spring, they’ve been waging a fight with the reality principle, convincing themselves (and fewer and fewer in the larger political universe) that in the very next speech, Obama will recapture that old campaign magic. If people don’t like what they’re doing, the way to regain and to hold their affection was to give them much more of the same.”
Obama could use a change of topic. ObamaCare is killing him: “The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 22% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President.”
Nancy Pelosi could use some votes. “Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s task of securing 216 votes for passage is only getting more difficult. Several members who voted against the legislation when it was first before the House in Nov. told Hotline OnCall [Tuesday] they would vote against the measure again, trimming the number of Dems who might be persuaded to make up the difference.”
The Democrats could use some esprit de corps (or a marriage counselor): “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to stop assigning deadlines to Congress for finishing the health care reform bill. In a House-Senate leadership meeting on health care Tuesday, she essentially told Emanuel to ‘cool it,’ according to one Hill Democratic aide — an account confirmed by a second aide.”
We could all use less Glenn Beck and Eric Massa.
We could use more forthrightness about our feeble Iran policy. AIPAC steps up to the plate with a rare public letter expressing “outrage at the U.S. government’s continuing relationship with dozens of companies doing business with Iran. These ongoing financial dealings undermine longstanding American efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.” Great. Now where’s the letter on the Obama administration’s pathetic effort to wriggle out of its promise to impose crippling sanctions?
The Democrats could use a break from the bad news in Virginia (which Bob McDonnell swept in a landslide in November): “Fairfax County businessman Keith Fimian, who unsuccessfully ran against former County Board chairman Gerry Connolly for the congressional seat of retiring Republican congressman Tom Davis, has just released a poll giving him a five-point lead over Connolly, the president of the Democrats’ 2008 freshman class. … Pollsters found voters in a strong ‘very anti-incumbent’ mood, with two-thirds (65 percent) saying they believe Washington is on the wrong track. And they’re blaming Congress in general — and Connolly in particular — for the mess.”
Democrats could use more enthusiasm, says Jonathan Chait: “Democrats face an enormous problem here. The electorate that shows up in November could be far more Republican than the electorate as a whole. In these circumstances, it seems like the party’s number one imperative has to be shoring up the base and giving its voters a reason to go to the polls in November.” His solution: pass ObamaCare! Which, of course, will only fire up conservatives even more.
Charlie Crist could use an exit plan. “Former House Speaker Marco Rubio’s stunning early lead in Florida’s Republican U.S. Senate race was confirmed today by an Insider Advantage/Florida Times-Union poll that shows him leading Gov. Charlie Crist by 34 points among likely voters in August’s primary.”
Maybe He Should Get Down to Work
A growing number of Democrats are openly fretting about Obama. You can’t blame them, considering that he led the party on a yearlong, fruitless quest for health care, and they are now staring at a potential wave election. Moreover, it’s hard to see what he thinks the presidency is all about. He gives speeches and goes on TV, but what else?
He’s not connecting with voters, even his own party concedes. One of the at-risk Democratic Virginia congressmen, Gerry Connolly, complains the president should “go out and talk to the unemployed. Go out and talk to small businesses.” He says that Obama is ”‘too much the cerebral, cool, detached’ president and that he needs to weigh in forcefully to break the logjam over health-care reform and other issues. ‘He needs to recalibrate what the proper balance is moving forward.’”
But he really doesn’t do the whole legislative drafting thing:
White House spokesman Bill Burton said Obama will not delve into the minutiae of writing a health-care bill. “He’s not a legislative technician,” Burton said. “He’s not going to get into the nitty-gritty of what the best way forward is at this point.”
So what does he do? He campaigns and speechifies, of course. He gives the State of the Union and talks about fiscal responsibility, but his minions draft a monstrous tax-and-spend blueprint that not even Democrats can defend. He tells lawmakers to “punch through” on health care but simply recycles the same talking points. He has outsourced anti-terrorism policy to Eric Holder. What’s missing in all this is a conscientious attention to governance, a well-thought set of policies that could engender bipartisan support, and a willingness to talk directly to voters without laying blame for all his travails on others. Yes, the presidency is hard, as he said of the Middle East. But it doesn’t get easier by ignoring many of the job’s key tasks.
Tax Hikes Not Popular in Virginia?
The Wall Street Journal editors scrounge up two Democrats who actually favor leaving the Bush tax cuts in place. Interestingly, one is northern Virginia freshman Congressman Gerry Connolly, one of the four vulnerable Democratic House members targeted by Republicans in the wake of Robert McDonnell’s huge victory in the gubernatorial race and win in Connolly’s own Fairfax County. Connolly, who has voted down the line with Nancy Pelosi and Obama on the budget, ObamaCare, and cap-and-trade, now realizes the economy is fragile. “I think there is a certain logic to leaving well-enough alone for now, given the fragility of the economic recovery … it’s a question of prudent judgment and timing.”
That suggests Connolly is feeling the heat. He sees two viable Republican challengers and knows his district is decidedly more moderate than Massachusetts. He’s spent the year adhering closely to the ultra-liberal agenda without regard to the impact on his suburban constituents. Connolly may not find many allies on his side of the aisle, but it’s revealing that he now feels compelled to stake out an anti-tax-hike position. He’s unlikely to prevail in his caucus. He then can try to explain in November why divided government is such a bad thing and how he has served the interests of voters in his district. It will be an interesting race to watch and may become one more example of the toll Obamaism has taken on his party.
Northern Virginia Up for Grabs
Virginia continues to surprise Democrats and the elite media. This week a special election was held to fill the state Senate seat in Fairfax County vacated by conservative Republican Ken Cuccinelli, who was elected as the state attorney general. The Democrat won but by only a few hundred votes. Lee Hockstader of the Washington Post — not known to make excuses for the GOP — explained that the Democrat was a “well respected, two-term member of the House of Delegates who is universally acknowledged as one of the state’s leading experts on juvenile justice, incarceration and rehabilitation,” while the Republican “served a single term on the Fairfax School Board before being unceremoniously turned out of office.” The result should give Democrats pause:
This is a no-brainer. [Democrat Dave] Marsden should’ve cleaned up. Instead, he won by scarcely 1 percent of the 23,600 votes cast. His margin of victory came from a 2-1 edge among the state’s 1,200 absentee voters, a constituency GOP officials somehow overlooked. All 40 seats in the state Senate will be up for grabs next November. Be afraid, Virginia Democrats, be very afraid.
But before we get to another round of state races, we have this year’s congressional contests. Gerry Connolly, a first-term congressman in the 11th district and former Fairfax County supervisor who replaced longtime and very popular Tom Davis, should be “very afraid” as well. Two Republicans — Fairfax county supervisor Pat Herrity and businessman Keith Fimian (who lost to Connolly in 2008 by a 54 to 43 percent margin, considerably ahead of John McCain, who lost to Obama by a 60 to 39 percent margin in the county) — are vying to challenge him.
Since coming to the Hill, Connolly has eschewed the model of his predecessor, a moderate, pro-business Republican who remained popular in his district even when Republican fortunes flagged. Instead, Connolly has voted down the line with Nancy Pelosi and Obama on the left-wing agenda. His votes on cap-and-trade and especially ObamaCare (which will hit his constituents with a bevy of new taxes) will certainly be under attack. Connolly has reason to be nervous: Bob McDonnell shocked Virginia politicos, who had come to see Fairfax as drifting further and further into the Blue, by carrying the county 51 to 49 percent, running against the very Obama agenda items Connolly has supported.
In a year in which Massachusetts is competitive, northern Virginia certainly will be — especially if Republicans can make the case that incumbent Democrats have lost faith with their more moderate voters.
