The Richmond baseball stadium proposal pushed by Mayor Dwight Jones, supported by Gov. Terry McAuliffe and features a cast of characters that includes a convicted felon has become the hottest issue in local politics.
Only yesterday did the issue get its first public notice from the GOP in the form of Manoli Loupassi’s letter to the city council demanding an open bidding process.
I’m told the issue is now on the statewide radar, and the GOP is beginning to stir. Heck, even some Democrats are beginning to have doubts about Jones’s idea to transform Shockoe Bottom.
But surprisingly, the stadium issue hasn’t become a factor in the 7th district congressional race between incumbent Eric Cantor and challenger David Brat. As my Washington Post writing partner Paul Goldman notes, this is a huge missed opportunity for Brat:
Richmond and the collar counties are the key to Cantor’s electoral base. They are also strongly against the Jones Shockoe No-Bid boondoggle. More and more, they view it as part of a “culture of corruption.”
Is this a fair assessment? For GOP primary purposes, it is a question that doesn’t have to be answered. The voters don’t like it big-time – in a campaign, this is enough to know.
Enter then, or could have been, Professor Brat.
Given his economics training and RMA board member perch, Professor Brat HAD THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY to explain the reason a publicly funded baseball park in Shockoe is bad public policy, premised on the “crony capitalism” in those No Bid sweetheart deals.
From day one, Brat could have called on Eric Cantor to take a position on the issue. As legendary Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neill advised in his famed book, “all politics is local,” if you understand the game.
Moreover, federal accounting and other tax credit laws help make the Jones’ boondoggle attractive to his backers, and help promote those side-deals to get those No-bid contracts.
A savvy Brat campaign could have used Jones’ Shockoe Shocker as a catalyst to force Cantor, at least in this media market, to respond to him.
So far, nothing.
And for that matter, nothing from the Cantor campaign, either.
Yes, yes…this is hardly the sort of issue one expects congressional candidates to debate. Instead, voters are treated to the usual inanities and boilerplate.
But on the stadium, it’s an issue that affects people locally. “But only a sliver of the district is even close to the proposed site, who cares?”
Because of the $11 million in state money set aside to build a slavery museum that Jones has inextricably bound to his stadium idea.
That doesn’t even rise to the level of chump change compared to the trillions sloshing around DC. But there is precedent for a non-district issue finding a niche in the race. Remember Martin Cobb? The eight year-old Richmond boy was killed trying to protect his 12 year-old sister from an assault. Cantor took to the House floor to honor him.
Free, easy publicity. The stadium offers that by the bucket full for the candidate who decides to take on the issue.
He might even get a few votes for doing so.
