The Gecker Gloss

A weekend news item in the RTD regarding the Democratic primary in the 10th Senate district tells us a lot of things. Not so much about the state of the race, but about spin, old animosities, and reportorial gloss.

Someone just becoming aware that a contest for the seat even existed on the Democratic side would get the sense from Michael Martz’s report that Chesterfield supervisor Dan Gecker is a just about a lock to win the June primary. We are old of Gecker’s big warchest, the almost unanimous endorsement of the Richmond city council, and allusions to the recent baseball fracas that, for a time, pitted Gecker’s developer friends against those of Richmond mayor Dwight Jones. There are questions about him, though. Tax questions, developer issues, that whole Clinton impeachment thing.

But we also get Larry Sabato, who makes a great deal out of the RVA council’s backing of Gecker:

“If you can get that many members of City Council to agree on a Mother’s Day resolution in Richmond, you’re lucky,” quipped Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Such wit, and such dizzying spin. What is unsaid is that while having the council agree you’re their guy may help in a primary, it is less than helpful in a general election.

Worse, though, is the lack of any mention at all about Gov. McAuliffe’s eye-popping endorsement of Mr. Gecker. It is a rare thing, indeed, for a sitting governor of either party to get personally involved in a contested primary. When it does happen, it’s usually a very big story. We can recall when Gov. Jim Gilmore was stalking the land, recruiting primary candidates against he RINO incumbents of his day. The RTD couldn’t get enough of it.

Granted, this is a primary, and the latitude given McAuliffe to meddle, mold and otherwise influence intramural contests is much wider than it was in Gilmore’s case. But declining to note how very unusual his public involvement is? Interesting.

Even more so when we get to this item regarding Mr. Gecker:

Republican critics also have delighted in resurrecting Gecker’s role as attorney for Willey after her husband, Edward E. Willey Jr., son of a legendary Richmond state senator, killed himself in the face of impending financial scandal.

Kathleen Willey says that on Nov. 29, 1993 — the same day that her husband took his life in King and Queen County — Clinton made improper advances to her in the White House. That pulled her into legal actions against the president for alleged improprieties with other women.

While some accounts say Gecker pushed for Clinton’s impeachment, he denied them and said Willey sought to avoid testifying against the president.

“It’s a lawyer representing a client,” he said.

The “Republican critics” Martz mentions would be our own Jason Kenney, who broke the story about Gecker’s lawyerly pursuits in the Clinton affair. This lead to a story in the Richmond Free Press (which will never be considered a Republican media outlet) that pinned Gecker to the wall on the Clinton-Willey matter.

And then there are Gecker’s Democratic opponents, both of whom have made considerable hay of Gecker’s Willey-turn. A quick glance at Blue Virginia finds the writers there criticizing the optics of a Gecker primary win because of his ties to Willey as far back as February. More recently, the site provides examples of the mailers from the McMurtrie and Francis campaigns that hit the Willey issue hard.

We get none of that in Martz’s story. But we do get a healthy dose of reportorial gloss. This is all a GOP thing, pay no real attention to it.

And as for the old animosities…that brings us back to Larry Sabato. In a discussion of the political contributions Alex McMurtrie has given to…Republicans, we read this:

Margaret McMurtrie is a devout Catholic who wanted to give money to Romney because of “his strict pro-life policy on abortion,” Goldman said. He emphasized that her husband, like U.S. Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, is a Catholic who favors leaving the choice on terminating a pregnancy to the woman.

“It will hurt McMurtrie — I don’t care how many explanations he has for it,” Sabato said.

Could McMurtire’s checks to Mitt and others hurt with a Democratic primary electorate? Of course.

What I find amusing in this exchange is that Paul Goldman — my Washington Post writing partner who is advising McMurtire — offers an explanation. Not the candidate. Paul. That’s what Sabato responds to, with some heat. Anyone who has been around Virginia politics long enough will know these two have a history punctuated with prickliness.

I don’t fault Martz for not including that — it’s tangential. But knowing a bit of the back story puts Sabato’s comment into the amusing context in which it deserves to live.

Where does this story leave us? Gecker has the machinery behind him, and that matters (or should) in a low-turnout primary. But his candidacy puts the Governor in an interesting position. As an old Clinton retainer, he is backing a man who lobbied to have Bill convicted and who actively sought a book deal for Willey, who charged that Hillary was a crook, too.

That McAuliffe can do this with a straight face is rather incredible. That the local paper of record fobs it all off as a GOP snicker-fest is rather stunning. As Jason Kenney noted:

Democrats have made it a mission to target anyone who was involved in the impeachment of President Clinton, most recently with their very eager and wasted assault on Barbara Comstock during her eventually victorious campaign for Congress in Virginia’s 10th District (see Democrats Use Political Bait and Switch to Smear Comstock).

An enterprising reporter could write reams of good copy on that angle. Maybe one will over the summer.

But at least Martz’s story gave us a brief over view of Gecker’s tax court problems. At one time, Style Weekly was rumored to be looking into the matter. Perhaps they still are. And here’s hoping the story does more than just give us Gecker’s gloss on it.

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