Sunday, December 09, 2007

Chap Petersen Campaigns for Phil Forgit

Chap Petersen, the newly elected state senator from Fairfax County's 34th District, has this great post up on Ox Road South about attending a GOTV rally for Phil Forgit in Fredericksburg today.

After that rally, he and Phil picked up their walking sheets and drove downtown to begin knocking on doors in the middle class neighborhoods near Mary Washington campus.

Here's some of Chap's description of the experience:

I'd gone a few blocks when my brain started to put together the street names (e.g. Sunken Lane) with the sloping topography. For all you Civil War buffs ... yes we were knocking on doors below Marye's Heights.

In other words, we were campaigning on the same patch of land that the Union Army was charging across during the battle of Fredericksburg. The battle was fought on December 13, 1862 and was a decisive defeat for the Union Army who lost over 10,000 men trying to dislodge Lee's Army from the Heights.

To add gentle irony to situation, Chap noted that by coincidence the National Park Service was commemorating the anniversary of that battle and re-enactors were staging the fight, with men in butternut and ladies in shawls and long skirts. A group of those women, staying in character, informed Chap that they could not vote for Phil Forgit because they hadn't yet gotten the vote.

A pretty humorous experience and an entertaining post. At the end, Chap reminds residence of the 1st CD to get out and vote for Forgit this coming Tuesday.

P.S., that means the ladies too because, yes, we actually do have the right to vote. Let's exercise it on Tuesday, December 11th :)

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