Exciting news out of Fairfax County, as businessman and 2009 House of Delegates candidate Jay McConville was elected over Providence District Chairman Matt Ames to become the next FCRC Chairman. As the Republican organization in the largest county in a pivotal swing state, McConville and his organization will at ground zero in this upcoming 2012 election.
Future and Past Chairmen, McConville & Bedell. Photo credit FCRC.
McConville takes over after a great three years under Anthony Bedell, who took a broke and listless organization with little passion or presence and turned it into a fundraising and volunteer force, often providing mailers and phone calls for campaigns, and packing the house with phonebankers in the evenings. Bedell built a tremendous team, including McConville as Budget Chairman and Matt Ames as Operations Chair, meaning that voters at the Saturday morning convention had a tough choice between two well-qualified candidates.
In the end, McConville prevailed as the results were made known to each of the two candidates, and Ames graciously made a motion for McConville to be elected chairman by acclamation. In return, McConville nominated Ames as First Vice-Chair. The final numbers are unknown, but reports indicate that while each candidate carried their home district, McConville won a slight edge in Springfield and Sully (the two most valuable districts thanks to the vote-weighting procedures), and his performance in Dranesville put him over the top; no doubt his early endorsement from Del. (and future Congresswoman?) Barbara Comstock helped tremendously.
Jay McConville & Matt Ames. Photo credit Phil Tran.
McConville’s campaign slogan was “through growth comes victory”, and he aims to build upon the great foundation Bedell and his team has left behind for the 2012 and 2013 elections, and beyond. After such a dynamic period of growth for the organization, there were a lot of disastrous turns FCRC could have made, from having no one step up to having poor candidates for Chairman, or having a divisive and negative campaign that turns people away, or having a diva blog disparagingly about the Chairman immediately after his election. Instead, two classy gentlemen offered their vision, the voters made their choice, and the party moves forward. Mitt Romney and George Allen should be sure glad to hear it.
(Note: I managed Jay’s 2009 campaign for Delegate and volunteered for his Chairman’s campaign.)
