Next Time, Bring the House

In Virginia’s 4th District, the votes for Obama, Kaine, and Ward were respectively 21,2091, 21,6638, 14,9798, and the votes for Romney, Allen, Forbes were respectively 22,9422, 22,3837, 19,9032, according to calculations I made based on numbers from the Virginia Board of Elections .

The counts for presidential votes were very close to the counts for senatorial votes. The count for each house candidate was much lower, but incumbent Randy Forbes received about 87 percent of the Romney vote, while Ella Ward received closer to 71 percent of the Obama votes*. It seems like a lot of Virginia’s 4th district voters who voted for Obama also voted for Tim Kaine, but failed to vote for Ella Ward.

I make two conclusions. First, this election wasn’t just about race. Second, getting the word out about house races is extremely important. I’m certain that people who voted for Obama and Kaine but not Ward didn’t know who Ella Ward was. Randy Forbes significantly outspent Ella Ward because of his big money supporters, and he had the power of incumbency.

Perhaps I’m in no position to second guess the president’s or Tim Kaine’s successful campaigns, but while volunteering for OFA, I handed out a lot of literature about Obama and Kaine, and nothing about Obama, Kaine, and Ward together. It was a prevailing myth among OFA coordinators that people who vote for Obama will vote down the line, and that it wasn’t worth the effort to tailor the call scripts and the literature for each congressional district. Volunteers were instructed to put in a good word for Dr. Ward, but it wasn’t in writing.

It’s understandably more difficult to find a photo of each house candidate and more expensive to place a photo on the literature that includes photos of Obama, Biden, and Tim Kaine. But we handed out literature customized with information about voting locations. That literature should also have included information about Ella Ward, even without a photo.

I don’t how much Obama-Kaine-[Other Congressional Candidate] literature was distributed throughout the state, and since Obama and Kaine both lost the 4th, it’s possible that house candidates in more hopeful districts received more support from OFA and TK4VA than Ella Ward did. But I do know that the House of Representatives didn’t change very much this time, and I think a little bit of ink would have gone a long way to giving the president a Congress he can work with.

*Quick update (at Nov 9th 19:00): The Virginia Board of Elections just updated their website with absentee ballots. Ella Ward took Suffolk! She was behind when I checked the numbers just yesterday. It seems now that Ella Ward got 77 percent of the Obama votes, and Randy Forbes got 106 percent of the Romney votes.

Vote

I had the pleasure of drafting Ella Ward’s final campaign email message (not counting a note about an election night party which we sent later). After a few changes, it went out as follows:

This has been a contentious campaign season for politicians at all levels, but President Barack Obama has endured the most outrageous accusations, dishonest attacks, and distorted rumors directed towards him than any other candidate that I can remember.

If the president is defeated next week, the United States will return to the economic policies that started the recession from which we’re recovering, social policies which would codify bigotry and discrimination into national law, environmental policies which would destroy our beautiful and bountiful natural resources, and national security policies which kept America engaged in seemingly endless wars while our number one enemy escaped retribution.

But even when we re-elect President Obama, he will need the support in Congress to prevent the kind of gridlock, distraction, and damage that his opposition has given us over the past four years. Randy Forbes has been one of the most obstructionist Republicans in Congress during his tenure. Randy Forbes is committed to defeating legislation that would allow the president to succeed, even if doing so brings discrimination and economic hardship to his constituency.

I will support the President as he works to keep America safe, beautiful, equitable, and moving forward. I will fairly represent the people of the 4th Congressional District in Virginia, not just the wealthiest and the most influential residents.

Opponents to the President and supporters such as Tim Kaine and me have been feverishly motivating their base to get to the polls this November. They have used fear-mongering about socialism, gun grabbing, terrorism, and economic collapse to scare their supporters to the polls.

We need you to counter the effects of the distortions and lies and vote for Barack Obama, Tim Kaine and me, Ella Ward, on November 6th – and get your friends and neighbors to do so as well. A win for Barack Obama, Tim Kaine, and me will be a win for truth, a win for fairness, a win for Virginia, and a win for America.

And, if you can help out at the polls handing out sample ballots, please call our office and volunteer.

Thank you, sincerely, for all you’ve done and will do to keep America moving forward.

Ella Ward

Mitt Romney, who once said

“The people of America recognize that the slowdown in jobs that occurred during the early years of the Bush administration were the result of a perfect storm. And an effort by one candidate to somehow say ‘Oh, this recession and the slowdown in jobs was the result of somehow this president magically being elected,’ people in America just dismiss that as being poppycock. And they recognize it as that.”

is now saying just that, despite Obama’s expert navigation through a perfect storm including the incredibly steep and sudden loss of jobs that he had to deal with when he took office, the financial disaster in Europe which continues today as the European Economic Union fails to solve its problems with right-wing austerity measures, and the most obstructionist Congress in recent history. This obstructionist Congress even blames the president for their own actions, including the sequestration which Paul Ryan encouraged and the downgrade of the U.S. bond rating which resulted from a Republican-led near government shutdown.

It’s time now to vote. There are more people in America who want Obama in office than who want Romney in office, but Republicans are considered to be more reliable voters. They are more likely than Democrats to be financially secure, to own homes and to have lived at the same address for decades. It’s easier for them to take a few hours off of work, to find a baby sitter, and to drive to the polls. They are more familiar with their polling locations and are more likely to know people who will be working at those locations. And they are fired up with mean, dishonest rhetoric about socialism, gun control, accusations that Obama is a Muslim (and it shouldn’t matter even if he was a Muslim because Constitution makes it clear that it shouldn’t matter, but it matters to the bigots who won’t vote for him because they think he is), lies about the economy, and about health care. And now they are fired up because of an eerily timed vicious attack on our embassy, one of very few during this administration compared to previous administrations, but one about which mean and crazy speculations are popping up faster than can be put down before Tuesday. They’re even blaming Obama for the results of Hurricane Sandy, a storm likely caused by climate change which Republicans want to ignore, which FEMA, an agency Romney wants to defund is handling as quickly as possible.

It might rain on Tuesday. You might be tired after a long day at work. You might have to drag the kids with you. You might have to walk. But if you do, you will be part of the most important election in decades. In this election we will see if slanderous attacks and crazy accusations are more important to voter turnout than the will of the majority of Americans. I’m betting on the majority but it’s no sure thing as the polls show a dead heat in the final days of this race. Don’t let this race pass you by. Be part of it. Vote.

A New FB User Asks Questions of Ella Ward

Last night, a Samantha, a new Facebook user appeared and immediately posted two pointed comments on the Ella Ward for Congress page. She has a large, eclectic group of likes for such a new user, and a beautiful profile picture, for which she credits a friend with a professional camera. Yet she seems to have no friends and no internet presence for such an attractive young lady with friends who have professional cameras.

The mysterious, friendless beauty had two things to say. First, she took issue with the grammar in some of the campaign’s posts.

Who runs your posts? You have horrible grammar and punctuation
on several posts. Yet you support education and want us to invest
in you? Doesn’t add up to me.

Second, she asked about Dr. Ward’s view on sequestration, and said that Randy Forbes has been clear about his views.

The comment about grammar contains at least three grammatical errors, but it can still be answered. Dr. Ward’s campaign team is a group of dedicated volunteers, and is not a staff of polished professionals. The campaign’s earliest posts were, indeed, filled with errors, but the cause of that problem has been fixed. I don’t believe there are any recent mistakes worthy of any fuss, but if there are, they reflect the roughness of Ella Ward’s grass-roots campaign team, and not any deficiency on the part of Dr. Ward herself. I ask those who vote on grammar not to hold it against her. Dr. Ward supports funding for public education and wants to improve early educational programs and job training programs. That fact is unchanged by any amount of poorly written Facebook posts.

The mysterious user hasn’t posted anything about Randy Forbes’s grammar, despite gems like:

Just arrived at the Romney 2012 rally in Chesapeake. Lamar is with Governor Romney and does a great job!

but since Randy Forbes doesn’t support public education, I suppose his writing is in keeping with his views.

Randy Forbes is one of the few Republicans who manages to stay on message about defense cuts. Unlike Americans for Tax Reform and Cross Roads GPS, who have been calling me several times a day, and other Republican politicians, Congressman Forbes remembers to mix his Keynesian hypocrisy with alarmist warnings about losses of defense capability. But the warnings can’t hide the fact that Forbes and other Republicans know that government spending does create jobs. If the sequestration results in nothing more than the closing of unnecessary commands, like JFCOM, and the reduction of the manufacture of unwanted assets, like the M1 tank, than it will result in no loss of military capabilities. We may actually be safer if the military is forced to make decisions based on defense necessities without being distracted by the requirement to distribute tax dollars to influential state politicians and defense companies. But the sequester will result in the loss of military jobs. Fortunately, those jobs can be replaced by government spending in other areas, such as transportation, scientific research, and of course, education. The problem with such spending is it gives too much advantage to the disadvantaged. With public transportation, poor in a city can compete for more jobs. With universal broadband, poor in the country have greater access to information. It’s counterproductive for Mr. Forbes and his peers to support such forms of spending. It’s better for them that we build tanks.

If Congressman Forbes is concerned about military capabilities, it isn’t his biggest concern. Congressman Forbes voted against sequestration but was just as unwilling to compromise on tax cuts for the wealthy as those Republicans who voted for it. He may have been clear about where he stood, but clearly, he has higher priorities.

I sent a friend request to the new user. I await her response.

It is Randy Forbes, Not Ella Ward, who Refuses to Debate

Since we’re all talking about debates now, I should mention that the Virginian Pilot ran an article which correctly reported that Ella Ward didn’t want to debate Randy Forbes in July because she didn’t have a campaign manager at the time. What the article failed to report is that the Daily Press set up a debate for October, and Randy Forbes declined to participate.

From Rebecca Troyer, Daily Press, to Melinda Gainer, Ella Ward’s Campaign Manager:

Rep. Forbes has declined to debate, so we will NOT be conducting a 4th District debate on Oct. 8

Mr. Forbes’s feelings might have been hurt by the failure of a campaign manager that Ella Ward didn’t have to respond to his overtures to debate on his timeline. But instead of punishing Dr. Ward for what he took as a snub, he has decided to punish the citizens of the fourth district by denying them a chance to hear two appropriately prepared candidates in a fair debate initiated by a third party.

Randy Forbes also refused to debate his previous opponent, Dr. Wynne Legrow, in 2010.

The Pilot’s failure to mention Randy Forbes’s refusal to debate in October is very misleading after reporting that Ella Ward’s declined to debate in the early days of her campaign. The people of the fourth district should know that it is Mr. Forbes, not Ella Ward, who refuses to face his opponent on even terms in front of his constituency.

A Busy Couple of Days For Me

This week started with some family struggles concerning my son. I won’t go into details but he missed a couple of days of work and we’ve been fighting about him living in the house as a bum. It involves a girl, and it’s still ongoing.

Some time around Monday, I picked up some poison ivy – a pretty bad case all over both arms. That’s also still ongoing.

On Wednesday, there was a reception for Ella Ward, and I awkwardly refused to shake anyone’s hand for fear of giving away what was rightfully mine.

Thursday, still with itchy arms, I drove my daughter 650 miles to the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine. We stopped in Massachusetts overnight and arrived Friday morning. When I was able, I did some website updates for Virginia CURE and worked on the invite for a fundraising event for Ella Ward, (which will be rescheduled to September so if you click on the link and it still says “August 27th”, wait for the new date).

I stayed with my daughter for a few hours of check-in and unpacking and then, in part because of the aforementioned problems with my son, rather than staying another night I turned around and drove all the way back, and got home in time to make sure he went to work this morning.

Then I took a three hour nap.

This afternoon, at 2:00, I have a get together with the Suffolk Democratic Committee to host at the OFA office on Main Street. You’re all invited, contributions are requested. Following the get together will be an OFA Open house, and if I’m still standing I’ll say a few words about phone banking and data entry.

Ella Ward Emphasises Jobs & Education (They Go Together), Women’s Rights, and Supporting our Military and Veterans

Dr. Ella Ward spoke in a crowded restaurant at her pancake breakfast this Saturday, and emphasized three reasons why “You need to pick Ella Ward for Congress”.

1) Jobs and Education – “They go together”. Dr. Ward believes that supporting education and allowing educators to teach critical thinking skills, rather than cutting education funding and vilifying teachers, is an integral part of the strategy to bring jobs to America.

2) Woman’s Rights. Ella Ward wants to ensure that equal work is rewarded with equal pay, and believes that women should be able make their own decisions about their own bodies.

3) Protecting the Military and Veterans. “When they come home we have to make sure they are equipped with what they need to transition to civilian life.”

A common aspect of the second and third items is the Affordable Care Act, which covers vital services for women and enhances coverage our nations veterans, while not taking away coverage that veterans already have.

The breakfast was held at the Gourmet Breakfast Place on Old George Washington Highway in Chesapeake. Ella graciously thanked her host and her campaign volunteers for what turned out to be a successful and upbeat event.

Ella Ward’s Pancake Breakfast in Chesapeake

Congressional Candidate Ella Ward is hosting an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast on Saturday, August 4, at the Gourmet Breakfast Place on 838 Old George Washington Hwy. N. in Chesapeake.

The cost of admission is $10.00, and admission can be purchased online with ActBlue.

This will be a great opportunity to meet Dr. Ward and her supporters, and to help her get to Washington and properly represent the citizens of Virginia’s 4th District in the United States Congress.

Please see the flyer for more information.

Saturday, August 4th, 2012
8:00am – 10:00am
The Gourmet Breakfast Place
838 Old George Washington Hwy. N., Suite 100, Chesapeake, Virginia 23323.