Brandon Bell is getting desperate. I understand that. Election Day is just over one week away and so far his insurgent, independent candidacy has gained no noticeable traction–even with the assistance of Roanoke Times. I expected more of him than this, however.
Over the weekend, my family received this flier from the Bell campaign. On the surface, it’s standard fare–questioning Ralph Smith’s residency. Sen. Smith’s residency is what induced Brandon Bell to run for this seat in the first place and it has been the his go-to issue throughout the race. This one, however, is different.
Twice on the same page, the Bell campaign refers to Sen. Smith as a “millionaire”: “millionaire Ralph Smith” or “millionaire Senator Ralph Smith.” On one level, I understand his point: Ralph Smith is too wealthy to want to live in a tiny little house. I get it.
On another level, though, this sounds oddly…familiar. Is this Brandon Bell’s way of appealing to liberals and Democrats in the 19th Senate District? In the heavily Republican 19th, does Brandon Bell really expect to win by echoing the class-warfare lines repeated ad nauseum by President Obama and the Occupy Wall Street crowd?
In her column last Friday, Peggy Noonan articulated what many of us have thought about the “Eat the Rich” mentality emanating from The White House and Zuccotti Park:
Where is the president in all this? He doesn’t seem to be as worried about his country’s continuance as his own. He’s out campaigning and talking of our problems, but he seems oddly oblivious to or detached from America’s deeper fears. And so he feels free to exploit divisions. It’s all the rich versus the rest, and there are a lot more of the latter.
Occupy Wall Street makes an economic critique that echoes the president’s, though more bluntly: the rich are bad, down with the elites. It’s all ad hoc, more poetry slam than platform. Too bad it’s not serious in its substance.
Is Brandon Bell really content to “exploit divisions” and eschew substance in an effort to win an election? Apparently, he is and that is fine with Sen. Dick Saslaw.
In his efforts to cling to his party’s slim majority in the Senate, Sen. Saslaw has decided that the 19th District seat is winnable for Democrats (by way of wayward Republican Brandon Bell), making a six-figure donation to the Bell campaign. I guess now we at least understand why Brandon Bell sounds like President Obama and the Washington Democrats.
I once liked and respected Brandon Bell as a maverick within my party; I didn’t agree with most positions that he took, but I did respect how he seemed to put his constituents ahead of his party. I expected more of Brandon Bell than a foray into class-warfare. 19th Senate District voters deserve more, too.
