On February 11th, Mark Ellmore sent an email to supporters stating he “will end weeks of speculation and announce his candidacy for Virginia’s 8th District congressional seat”. Less than 3 weeks later, the rumor mill is buzzing that he has dropped out of the race. His website has gone blank and the ArlingtonGOP site states he has withdrawn. Last week when I saw him at the ACRC meeting, he kept trying to explain the 10th Amendment to me, to which I could only respond, “I’m glad you’re finally reading the Constitution.”
Normally I don’t blog about campaigns but Ellmore and myself have a feisty and unpleasant past. We spent the entire election day back in June 2008 yelling at each other due to an intentionally false mailer sent by his campaign in the 11th hour to discredit thousands of volunteer hours and dollars spent to win the election by 700 votes. Perhaps even more telling of his character was his ability to blame his 16 year old campaign manager for mailer sent.
In the end, Ellmore turned out to be his own worst enemy. He never did himself any favors with the description he wrote himself for his motivational book. I suspect that in addition to his perpetual fundraising woes, how he ran his 2008 general campaign upset many party insiders who had endorsed him and they were not willing to associate their names with him again.
Given there are several other candidates to pick from this cycle, I will give my breakdown of the 8th district in a separate posting soon.
