Special Election Wrap Up: Thoughts on What Wins and What Doesn't

First, congratulations to Sharon Bulova for winning and to Pat Herrity for a hard fought campaign that came so close. Now, I can tell you my secret fear was that Herrity would prevail. Special elections and low turnout favor the GOP in Fairfax. It’s how Ken Cuccinelli slipped into a district far more liberal than he is. And once he was an incumbent, he kept his seat with good constituent service and a winning personality.

I think my blogging buddy, Bwana, is right about one thing. Charnielle Herring’s very close election shocked Democrats into working harder, otherwise Pat would have won this election. As I’ve said before, Democrats were fresh from the solid victory in November. They were savoring the glow of success, focusing on holidays and then preparing for the Inauguration. Most people I knew were paying closer attention to securing Inauguration tickets than they were to campaigning for still another special election. Republicans, on the other hand, were hungry for another shot at winning something. I’ve been where they are now, and I know that when you lose, you want to go back and fight harder. Democrats just wanted to relax and bask in the warmth of victory. That made them soft.

But the truth is Republicans should not be consoling themselves because the race was so close. If they couldn’t win this one, they should be very worried. Here’s why.

This could have been the GOP’s perfect storm, the one whose wave they could ride and whose storm surge would sweep Sharon out of the running and put a Republican in charge. As VA Blogger observed, on Too Conservative:

Well, we gave it our best and we lost. For my money, I’m not sure there’s anything much the campaign could have done to make up those 1200 votes. The independent candidates (particularly DeCarlo, who targeted Republicans) didn’t cost the election. The Republican ground game was clearly superior to Sharon’s, and outworked her campaign across the County; Sharon won on by running on her party label and, as Ben said, bringing Braddock District out in force.

I think VA Blogger is right on target that Sharon won by running on the party label and delivering Braddock District. It was, after all, a special election. That means it was a base election and the key to winning was turning out your people in superior numbers to your opponent's supporters. Sharon did that. The question, though, is why did more Democrats turn out than Republicans?

Two things: Bad brand and worse message.

The Republican brand has been battered at the top level. This is just not their year. But more important, the local GOP had a bad message.

Their meme was that this race was a referendum on Gerry Connolly, whom they believe mismanaged Fairfax County. Worse, according to them, Sharon Bulova should be held responsible for the $650 million budget shortfall. In another time and place that might have worked.

But Fairfax is filled with smart voters, people who work for the federal government, defense contractors, and high tech firms. Our county is home to accountants, engineers, business people, and professionals who read newspapers, watch TV news shows besides just Fox, and surf the web. They are well read and well informed. They understand that a local municipality or county gets its revenue stream from property taxes and sales taxes. And they also realize that a housing bubble burst, there have been record mortgage foreclosures and property values have plummeted, all of which brought down the amount of tax money the county could collect. In addition, consumers aren’t consuming. People are cutting back on eating out and buying non-essential goods. So revenue from sales taxes is down too. Furthermore, they realize that Sharon Bulova could no more have predicted that than businesses like Caterpillar and Nextel could have predicted the downturn that caused them to lay off thousand of workers.

And even if they didn’t realize it, the local newspapers, in articles and editorials, pointed it out in two election cycles. Holding politicians accountable is a good thing. Blaming them for things beyond their control, not so much. It’s a failing strategy for winning elections.

Politicians and businessmen are not psychics. They don’t read tea leaves or gaze in crystal balls. Ironically, every time a Republican tried to lay the blame for budget shortfall at Bulova’s feet, it reminded people about who really caused the recession and mortgage crisis, Republicans at the federal level, and their failed policies. That’s why it rebounded on the GOP and Herrity.

In addition, Herrity tried to run on a platform of change, which had worked so well for Democrats in November. But here’s the cruelest irony for him. While voters did want change from the Bush administration and the GOP at the national level, they are happy with the way Fairfax is run. Those who came out yesterday, came to vote against Herrity’s change and for the status quo. Here’s what the Washington Post said:

From Mount Vernon to McLean, from Baileys Crossroads to Centreville, many who did brave wet roads and deserted polling places said they were motivated either to keep the Democratic brand going strong in Virginia or to give their seal of approval to Bulova's promise of continuity. Herrity's message of change, in particular his pledge to bring more scrutiny to county spending, alarmed some residents who are happy with services as they are.

"I wanted to make sure to keep the community centers open so little kids have a place to go," said Nana Osei, 20, who attends Northern Virginia Community College and said the talk there was that Bulova would do a better job protecting such services. "Like they all say, kids are the future."

Meanwhile, Herrity still remains an attractive candidate for the GOP. And each loss makes them hungrier for the next time. For now, though, they need a truly new message, at least, in Fairfax. They need to do more than simply run against the status quo. They need to articulate what they stand for instead. It takes more than a fresh face. It also takes fresh ideas and the ability to say yes to something. It turns out people actually like the programs Fairfax provides. Perhaps telling them you get what you pay for might work?

Want More Specifics on Why Sharon Bulova is Most Qualified for Fairfax Chairman

The other day I put up a post about Sharon Bulova and why I support her to be Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. A Pat Herrity supporter - and one who is well informed and a good writer - challenged me to provide more specifics about Sharon. Fair enough point. So, I tried to in my comment section. However, I just received an email from the Bulova campaign and I think it and Sharon do an even better job of defending Sharon, her accomplishments, and her ideas from the accusation that she lacks specificity.

I am printing it in its entirety because this "compare and contrast" campaign piece says it all best:

Budgets and Controlling Costs:

There are still some people who ask, "What can I say about Sharon to explain why she should be Chairman of the Board? What does she stand for?" Hopefully, the literature we have been sending out has helped to answer this question, but we only have one more week so we are asking for your help.

Tell your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and everybody else:

Sharon Bulova led Fairfax County to adopt personnel principles to ensure that the County is competitive to attract and retain excellent public employees. She has created the sensible policy that the County should not be the highest or the lowest in the region. - Her opponent says that the county is spending too much on its employees at the same time he complains that teachers salaries too low. He says we should spend more on our classrooms, but when he presented a budget as an alternative to the Budget Committee, he proposed $21 million LESS for schools.

In the last Budget crunch in the 1990s, Sharon Bulova led the effort to consolidate services and administration, and to work with private partners to get more for our money. She knows how to do this without cutting quality services. She knows that the challenge in a right budget is preserving services so that when the economy recovers, they can be rebuilt without having to start from scratch. - Her opponent thinks the way to save money is just to stop doing things like preserving affordable housing. Apparently, he doesn't know that stop-and-start is not a very efficient way to operate. The costs of rebuilding a service from scratch is always higher.

Sharon Bulova knows that the way to build a budget is to listen to the needs of all kinds of people from all parts of the County. She led the effort to hold more than a dozen "dialogues" with citizens to hear what they think is most important and what can be trimmed. She knows how to work with her colleagues to build a budget with broad support.- Her opponent drew up his own budget and presented it without consulting others. His budget got almost no support from other members of the Board.

In short, Sharon Bulova has a record of patient persistent work to get effective financial planning done. In his one year on the Board of Supervisors, her opponent has shown that he doesn't know how to get a majority of the Board to work with him for the changes we need.

Pat Herrity, likes to brag in his campaign speeches about how he knows how to say "NO."Saying "NO" is no way to govern.

So, remember that the special election is next Tuesday, February 3. Vote accordingly. Vote Yes, not for Mr. No. Vote for Sharon Bulova, a consensus builder with over 20 years of experience and accomplishment in Fairfax County

Sharon Bulova: A Candidate of Substance

The following is the classic definition of chutzpah: A defendant accused of murder is convicted, and at his sentencing throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.

Here’s a newer definition: The Republicans, who until recently were in charge of all three branches of the federal government, cause an international economic meltdown and financial crisis of epic proportions. Then, local GOP politicians point their fingers at Democratic incumbents in well run counties and towns and accuse them of causing the budget shortfalls now showing up in localities across the country. That is either real chutzpah or a shocking lack of understanding of basic economics and ignorance of the principles of good governance.

That was the tactic Keith Fimian used in his campaign against former Fairfax Chairman, Gerry Connolly. And The Chronicle called him out in this statement:

Fairfax County government has won awards for its management and Fairfax residents know that they have a very effective county government and school system and strongly support it. This has made it difficult for Fimian to find an example of governmental failure to pin on Connolly. His most recent clever solution to this problem has been to blame Connolly for the projected 2010 budget deficit of $430 million. He has been sending out regular press releases to area newspapers citing the projected deficit and blaming Connolly. All this even before the Board of Supervisors has held their first meeting to address the problem.

Blaming Connolly for the budget challenge that the county faces best illustrates Fimian’s total lack of understanding of the critical issues facing the county, state, and federal governments. It would appear that he doesn’t realize that virtually every local government in metropolitan Washington is struggling with the same issue. For example, last year Fairfax County was able to close a significant budget shortfall and maintain essential programs with only a three-cent increase in the property tax rate, which, for the average taxpayer, represented no actual increase in taxes as a result of the decrease of the average assessment. By contrast, Republican-controlled Prince William County raised their tax rate by 27 percent.

But that blunt talk has not deterred other Republicans from using the same losing line in their latest campaign attacks. Take Pat Herrity, who is reprising the unsuccessful Fimian accusation in his campaign against Sharon Bulova for the Chairman’s seat. Now, here’s what the Washington Post said about it.

It's that fiscal crisis -- a $650 million hole in a $3.4 billion fiscal 2010 budget -- that has dominated the campaign. Both candidates agree that the property tax rate must be raised and that deep cuts will still be impossible to avoid. But Mr. Herrity contends that Ms. Bulova and her Democratic colleagues increased spending recklessly in recent years and didn't do enough to gird for the current crisis.

There's some truth to this. Although the property tax rate was actually reduced as home values skyrocketed, the amount of taxes homeowners paid doubled in the past seven years. But the spending wasn't profligate -- about three-fourths of the increased revenue went to education and public safety. Some of the money also went to a reserve fund Ms. Bulova wisely created in the 1990s. It's hard to fault her for failing to foresee an unprecedented financial collapse that has left localities across the region reeling. And, if Ms. Bulova deserves some criticism for not anticipating the downturn, then she also deserves some credit for overseeing a long period of robust growth

In fact, Bulova has been a highly competent chair of the Budget Committee. She was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1987. In that time, her accomplishments include serving as chairman of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, where she has been a member since 1988. She helped bring the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) to Fairfax. Mark Warner appointed her to the Governor’s Commission on Rail Enhancement in 2004. As a member and former chair of the Northern Virginia Regional Commission and member of the Council of Government, she has been involved in finding regional solutions to quality of life and economic development issues facing Fairfax and the entire metropolitan region.

As the Washington Post endorsement also notes, Sharon is a consensus builder. She is the type of moderate, business oriented, leader who has managed, over a span of more than 20 years, to work with members of the business community, environmentalists, labor leaders, and Fairfax residents to create one of the best communities in the region in which to live.

Pat Herrity, meanwhile, is an abrasive ideologue who has been in office since 2007 and so far has a slim record of accomplishment. That’s not to say he won’t be an effective leader someday. But right now is neither the time nor the place to “shake things up.” That’s only because the problems Fairfax is facing are caused by the same economic crisis that is roiling every municipality in the nation. And the truth is Fairfax is in far better shape than most of its neighbors, regardless of the party affiliations of their leaders, because Fairfax has had good stewards.

Republicans want to claim that Sharon has not shown substance because she doesn’t have a laundry list of ideas on her website. She doesn’t need them. She has years of accomplishment. Meanwhile, Herrity has a website full of radical ideas, most of which are bad ones that have already failed elsewhere. For me there’s only one choice. And it’s a substantive one.

On Tuesday, February 3 – that’s next Tuesday – make sure you vote for Sharon Bulova if you live in Fairfax County.

Sharon Bulova: Journeyman Supervisor - Not Flash In the Pan

Well, if it's already the second day of January, you know the New Year's good cheer has already gone as flat as day old champagne. And if it's Virginia, you know we're into another hotly contested campaign, a special election, and silly season is about to begin in earnest, even though the rest of the nation gets to rest on its laurels and actually get ready for an inauguration. For them, poor innocents, politics is over. Now, they just get to celebrate the victory, or rest up for the next major contests - probably two years away. But not Virginia!

Here, silly season has already kicked off in earnest by VA Blogger at Too Conservative with a post claiming that Sharon Bulova, candidate for Chairman of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, put an ad up on Craigslist for field staff for door-to-door canvassing. VA Blogger surmises from this that Sharon doesn't have an adequate campaign staff, and that she must be hiring everything from entry level canvassers to her campaign manager from employment ads.

Not so. As I pointed out in a comment on Too Conservative, Sharon has a seasoned, competent staff and this is a non-issue. In fact, it's probably scraping the bottom of the barrel for petty nitpicking. Here's why.

In a special election, it's all about the ground game. Especially in one with a low profile like this one. And the turn around time is ridiculously short. The election will be held on February 3. That gives both sides only a month to reach voters, who are largely burned out and uninterested. Heck, even activists are tired after the intense 2008 campaign season.

The other problem is that both Herrity and Bulova have low name recogntion. In Sharon's case that's because she hasn't had a seriously contested race to compete in. She's a pro business, moderate, centrist Democrat, who is in step with her district. The GOP never had an interest in challenging her before. The upside of that was that she was able to focus on working hard for Fairfax County and she was spared from focusing on all the campaign hoopla. But the downside is that because she was a journeyman worker bee rather than a charismatic flash in the pan politician, she has quietly contributed to the success of Fairfax County, which has consistently been named the best managed county in the country by pro-business groups like the Chamber of Commerce.

Of course, VA Blogger, and no doubt he's only repeating what the Republicans hope will be their best talking point, is trying to pin the county's $650 million deficit on the Democratic management of Fairfax. But that argument failed back when the Keith Fimian camp first tried it out on Gerry Connolly, and it won't work now. Here's what The Chronicle said back then.

Blaming Connolly for the budget challenge that the county faces best illustrates Fimian’s total lack of understanding of the critical issues facing the county, state and federal governments. It would appear that he doesn’t realize that virtually every local government in metropolitan Washington is struggling with the same issue. For example, last year Fairfax County was able to close a significant budget shortfall and maintain essential programs with only a three-cent increase in the property tax rate, which, for the average taxpayer, represented no actual increase in taxes as a result of the decrease of the average assessment. By contrast, Republican-controlled Prince William County raised their tax rate by 27 percent.

What the newspaper said then is equally true now. And it is a lasting testament to not just VA Blogger but to the refusal of the Republican Party, including Herrity himself, to acknowledge facts.

The truth is Fairfax County has not been mismanaged by anybody. But this country experienced a financial meltdown that began with an unregulated mortgage industry, a series of foreclosures, and exotic mortgage based derivative investment instruments that had an international domino effect that brought economies crashing down across the globe. This was a failure at the top of the Republican administration in Washington, DC that made the financial and business world collapse like a house of cards, not just in Fairfax or in the U.S. but across the world. Just as Gerry Connolly couldn't be blamed for that, neither can Sharon Bulova. But if Republicans want to stick with that argument, ok. The more they do, the more I'll point out that with eight years of an incompetent Bush administration, seven years of a Republican dominated Congress and a conservative, anti-regulatory philosophy that dates back decades, this is their recession. Their failure. They own it. And they are not going to be able to slither out of it and blame anybody else for it. Period. End of story!

Meanwhile, all the GOP has is Pat Herrity's family name, a recycled charge about mismanagent of Fairfax that didn't work the first time around, and a silly accusation about Craigslist. It's not much to base a campaign on. But when you have an inexperienced candidate with not many accomplishments, you give it the best shot you can.