Fimian puts Herrity on the defensive. Will it work?
By Alan Moore | Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 | PoliticsFor the past few months 11th district congressional candidate Keith Fimian has been hammering his primary opponent Pat Herrity on his voting record regarding taxes. At first Herrity ignored these attacks but they became too big for him not to address. The result is the focus on this race dramatically shifting from opposition to Gerry Connolly to a referendum on Pat Herrity as a county supervisor.
Case in point, here is a sampling from an email from the Fimian campaign this week:
“Pat Herrity wants us to trust him with our vote, but his own record as County Supervisor shows we can’t even be sure he’ll show up for work. Supervisor Herrity has a track record of failing to attend meetings and missing votes on issues that he says are important.
“Official government records show that Pat Herrity failed to vote over 103 times as Fairfax Supervisor. Supervisor Herrity even skipped out on 40% of meetings on the Virginia Transportation Commission; even though he says transportation is a priority. But Herrity did show up to raise over 25 taxes and fees!”
Shortly afterward the Herrity campaign sent out an email defending his record:
“Keith Fimian seems intent on making up reasons not to vote for Pat, rather than present reasons to vote for himself.
“Pat has a lifelong record of public service to our community yet Fimian is attacking Pat for being absent for votes when Fimian has been absent from our community.”
Today they sent out an email from the clerk of the court, John Frey, defending Herrity’s record:
“If you are like Sheila and me, you have been deluged with mailers from both campaigns. Many have been misleading, to say the least. Let me just say, I follow the Board of Supervisors very closely and I can assure you that Pat Herrity is the conservative leader on the Board and he has been fighting every day for the past two and half years for limited government and reduced spending. The only budget Pat voted for lowered the average tax bill, the actual amount people were paying, and cut approximately $100 million in spending. And every year, whether Pat voted for the budget or not, he put tens of millions of dollars worth of spending cuts on the table.”
All three emails could be accurately described as “combative” to say the least. However, in my opinion the Fimian campaign clearly seems in control. The purpose of such attacks is to get your opponent completely off message. As Herrity often repeats, he is the frontrunner in this race. Make no mistake, he definitely is. However, the Fimian campaign has succeeded in getting Herrity off message and forced him to play defense. Voters often interpret this as weakness (see George Allen) so it will be interesting to see if a majority of primary voters sees it that way.
Any political consultant can tell you how crucial messaging is to a campaign. Instead of talking about deficit reduction, opposition to Obamacare, and job creation – Herrity is defending his absentee record.
If Herrity loses on Tuesday then he can look back and say that he could have won if he only talked about the issues and rode his superior name identification to victory.
So will this strategy turn into votes for Fimian? We will see on Tuesday.
Tags:
Contribute for Conservatism!
Share this post
About the author
Alan Moore is a conservative activist and public relations expert in NoVA. Follow Alan on Twitter: @SecPress
Comments
9 Responses to "Fimian puts Herrity on the defensive. Will it work?"
Many, including myself, have heard Keith’s public statements…out loud (not in a cartoon thought bubble over his head) that illegal aliens should be allowed to stay here – without reservation…he just wants them to pay taxes. HUH??? People who are here illegally should just start paying taxes? Exactly which social security number would he like them to use??? (Yes, I know they can use a TIN – just making a point folks!). And what’s he going to do?Drive around with a bullhorn through a sunroof and say ‘Come out, Come out wherever you are?’?! How bizarre…not a really well crafted political position considering the current climate. But wait, here comes the flip…now he is opposed to the illegal ‘worker’ center AJ Dwoskin wants to build in Centreville? Lucy, you have some ‘splainin to do….
Fimian has sullied himself in a race which could have been respectable against a fellow Republican to get a Primary nomination – yuck.
He has lost perspective on the forest for the trees – the race is against Connolly, you numbnut!
How about Fimian’s recent public comment when asked about his opinion of the potential closure of Clifton Elementary and the watershed effects of such a decision = “I am running for FEDERAL OFFICE and, as such, this issue really has nothing to do with a Congressional candidacy” (read, ‘I don’t know what the hell you are talking about, but let me shoot myself in the foot/mouth) “…but I know there are tough decisions and you may not always like what you hear from me, but I will tell the truth and some schools may just have to close whether you like it or not” (read – I am clueless that one of the major plans under consideration is to build a brand new elementary school on the grounds of Liberty MS and stick all of you taxpayers with the bill because that is the fiscally conservative thing to do – NOT.) Good grief, we can’t afford this disconnected and disingenuous candidate.
Hey, Mr. Home Inspector = if a client’s windows are leaking, they need new roof shingles or their heat pump needs service, do you advise them to just build a brand new house? Maybe they should just hire the illegals next to library to do it – or will they be employed by Fairfax County building the new elementary school on our dime?
Keith,
It’s only a flesh wound.
http://bit.ly/cXFk8y
Fairfax GOPr, your comments suggest that you may have attended one candidate event at Clifton Elementary School that I did as well. If you had been keeping up with Keith’s message you would know that he has done his homework and sharpened his answers. That shows strength of character and willingness to improve one’s understanding of every issue. His message is clear, concise and conservative minded in every aspect. The race is against Connolly and Keith seems the better candidate to send him home. If John Frey likes Pat so well on the Board of Supervisors, I can’t figure out why he would want him to leave that seat? The risk of a Democrat replacing Pat is too real. We would be well served if we could keep Pat on the Board and have a Conservative in Washington. Let’s hope that the 11th District will turn out voters…that’s a challenge.
Herrity never really had a message. It was basically, “Vote for me. Everybody knows my name.”
Now we know he was absent from many meeting and his tax initiatives actually raised taxes on many citizens, including me. Then, we find out his counter-attacks on Fimian are misrepresentations.
Herrity is a wounded candidate who has lost way. Even if he wins the primary, his momentum is lost. I’d almost rather Connolly would beat him, so we can start over in two years. The Republicans will likely take the House and Connolly’s vote wouldn’t count anyway.
Are we ever going to post anything remotely pro-Herrity, or just since we were going to endorse Fimian, we’ll write some pro-Fimian puff pieces, and since we endorsed Fimian, we’ll just keep putting out pro-Fimian articles.
Yeesh.
[...] covering the race between Fimian and Herrity with considerable intensity. In their latest post, Fimian puts Herrity on the defensive. Will it work?. It notes that Fimian’s charges that Herrity has voted to raise taxes and that he fails to [...]
[...] covering the race between Fimian and Herrity with considerable intensity. In their latest post, Fimian puts Herrity on the defensive. Will it work?, it notes that Fimian’s charges that Herrity has voted to raise taxes and that he fails to [...]
D.J., I just figured since all of your posts on the 2nd district look like they came from the Scott Rigell press office that it was acceptable for the 11th.
But seriously, I wrote this piece how I see it. Whichever candidate you support in the 11th if you don’t see that the debate has switched to a referendum on Pat Herrity then you are blind, naive, or not familiar with the dynamics of the race.
Take a look at Herrity’s emails in the last week or two. They spend the majority of the time defending Herrity’s record and responding to claims from the Fimian camp. I stand by everything in this article as a fair assessment.
Coincidentally, I’m going to post an interview that Pat Herrity gave to me today or tomorrow. Hopefully that will be enough pro-Herrity fluff to satisfy your requirements.
I’m not questioning the validity. Just that you’re the third contributor to be writing pro-Fimian pieces.
As for the 2nd, blame the other campaigns for not utilizing new media or blogging. Rigell provides information, including exclusives for BD, while none of the others do. That and I can’t cover what I don’t know about or am not invited to.
Leave your response
The comments section is for meaningful discussion. Readers are reminded to post comments that are germane to the article and write in a common language that steers clear of personal attacks and/or vulgarities.
Please take a moment to review our comment policy.