It’s not quite at the “fiddling while Rome burns” point, but it has definitely crossed the threshold of “shooting ourselves in the foot and wondering why we’re limping.”
Here’s the good news. Rep. Scott Rigell pulled in an amazing 61% of the vote in Virginia Beach. Rigell’s previous high water mark was 55%, but his afterburners hit a speed no one knew he had this year. 61%!
His opponent ran such a lackluster campaign I can barely remember her name. Good resume, but in this flailing economy, her TV ads about a “war on women” fell with a thud.
That should mean good things for other Republicans on the ballot, right?
Sort of.
Gillespie managed to eek a 51% majority in Virginia Beach, a 10,000 vote drop from Rigell. Sarvis is part of that, but that’s still a full 8,000 votes that went to Mark Warner and not Democrat Suzanne Patrick. And it’s hard to find a voting record in Congress more conservative than Rigell’s. Rigell clearly drew Democratic voters, but they weren’t willing to go any further.
And it really stings when Gillespie’s gap with Warner was 16,000 votes statewide.
On the undercard in Virginia Beach was some pretty messy contrasts. Democrat-endorsed Ben Davenport was the top vote getter in the City Council at-large race (two seats available), followed by conservative Republican incumbent John Moss in a battle of single-shot voting despite voters having the option of voting for two candidates. That left incumbent Republican Brad Martin behind in third. Indeed, most would say Moss is the more conservative of the two, but here’s where the cracks in the VB foundation start to show.
Democrats played it simple. They endorsed Davenport and had a single sample ballot with him on it. If you’re a Democrat, you vote once. It worked. Warner’s and Davenport’s vote counts are nearly identical.
Moss’s supporters weren’t interested in voting for the two Republicans. When early reports surfaced that election officials were telling voters they must vote for two candidates in that race, Moss supporters rightly objected and asked that correct information be relayed. But it does show the passion that they wanted Moss voters to stop at just Moss.
The big shift came as the Democrats and the Virginia Beach Education Association turned the School Board into a springboard for future candidates for the House of Delegates. The “more pay, less days” crowd at the teachers’ union got their slate pretty much elected.
Incumbent Dottie Holtz, who frequently encourages people to drink more on her Facebook page, calling Republicans “Repugs”, was the top at-large votegetter.
Democrat Carolyn Rye, who said at a forum that the number one need in Virginia Beach education is for the union to have “meet and confer” status with the Superintendent, won as well.
Sharon Felton won. Kim “I can’t be bribed but VBEA will tell me whom to support for Chairman” Melnyk won.
Republican Carolyn Weems dodged the wave by again proving she’s unbeatable for School Board. And Republican Ashley McLeod regained a school board seat among a split crowd of Conservative independents and other Republicans dividing votes.
How does a city that votes 61% for a Republican congressman in a real competition turn over the undercard to so many Democrats?
Well, a cursory look at these polling precincts shows that sample ballot mania is running wild in Virginia Beach. The Republican Party had a sample ballot with just US Senate and Congress. The Second District had a sample ballot of Rigell’s endorsements. The Republican Professionals Network had a sample ballot of its endorsements. Politico Gary Byler had a sample ballot via email. The Tea Party had a sample ballot. The Virginia Beach Taxpayer Alliance had its list. Two school board members paired up and had their literature. A mixture of candidates had a collection of Republicans authorized by themselves, leaving some other Republicans off.
The Democrats and the VBEA were pretty much it as far as citywide liberal sample ballots.
If I’m a Republican voter and I get 4 or 5 Republican-leaning sample ballots endorsing different people, I’d be confused as heck.
I love the Chesapeake Republican Party’s method of endorsing local candidates. They invite applicants and announce their endorsements well before the filing deadline. If you are not endorsed, you are still free to run, but you do so knowing that the Republican Party will not support you. Virginia Beach’s way of staying out just encourages every little enclave to jump in and fill the void, and after people have already filed and publicly committed to run. The other method that’s been used – passing out a ballot of candidates who are VBRP members, helps no one either, especially when 3 Republicans are listed for the same seat.
The problem is not the sample ballots. The problem is having multiple Republicans running for the same seat, enabling a Democrat to sneak out a win. The problem is having multiple conservative organizations fighting each other to the point of death over who deserves to be a Republican.
The slating fiasco of last year and the convention controversies in the Second District. Groups with “Republican” in their name endorsing candidates and bragging that it was because they wrote them a membership check.
A lot of good conservatives lost to liberals in Virginia Beach because Republicans campaigned against each other for most of the year.
And if the talk this week is any indication, Virginia Beach in 2015 is lining up to be a bunch of Republicans primarying Republicans for the House of Delegates and State Senate. Except this time, Terry McAuliffe’s wallet has a bunch of elected School Board members ready to swoop in after the primaries and pick at whoever survives.
And we will only have ourselves to blame.
Disclaimer – I was consultant to a good many of these fine Republicans. Some won. Some lost. But all of them deserved a united party behind them.
