It’s time for the Washington Post’s regular oil change of Virginia beat reporters. Since I began blogging we’ve seen Tim Craig, Anita Kumar, Rosalind Helderman, Laura Vozzella, and, now, we welcome Jenna Portnoy to capital square.
Update: Laura Vozzella remains on the beat…so, this is a good thing for Virginia politicos that the Post is sending more firepower to cover state issues.
Portnoy comes to the Post from Newark’s Star-Ledger, where she covered Chris Christie as a beat reporter for New Jersey state politics. Hopefully, she’ll bring the same zeal of scrutiny she had in Trenton of a larger-than-life Republican governor to Richmond where we have a Democratic governor with an ultra-sized ego.
Here’s a sample of Portnoy’s work:
SOMERS POINT — Gov. Chris Christie ended a campaign stop in Somers Point on Saturday with an argument with a public school teacher who showed up to protest his education policies.
Melissa Tomlinson, a teacher at Buena Regional Middle School, said she asked the governor, “Why are you portraying our schools as failure factories?” He responded, “What do you want? I’m tired of you people,” according to Tomlinson. They had a brief argument over public school funding before she said, “He told me to do my job and turned around and got on the bus.”
Christie’s spokeswoman, Maria Comella, disagrees with Tomlinson’s characterization of the conversation. The governor did not say that he is “tired of you people,” Comella said.
“They were having a discussion about the (education) funding levels and the governor said that no matter how much money we spend, it will never be enough for you people,” she said.
The exchange was witnessed by a crowd of Christie supporters who had just listened to him give a campaign speech inside the VFW. The Republican governor faces Democrat Barbara Buono in Tuesday’s election.
The rest of the story characterizes Christie as one who cuts funding for education and redirects money to foster corruption.
Joy.
Portnoy is a graduate of the University of Deleware and previously worked in Pennsylvania before her stint in Jersey. Follow her on Twitter.
J.R. Hoeft is the founder of BearingDrift.com.
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