RK ARCHIVE - With constituents like these...Nick Rerras must have an eerie sensation

The race for the 6th Senate District comes down to the wire. But it is clear that some of the Rerras constituency isn't attuned to the issues. No, this photograph isn't staged. The dash toward the finish line is characterized by the contrast in the two candidates. The Northam organization in Norfolk is executing a well coordinated effort to put the finishing touches on the campaign in an effort to get out the vote. Canvassers are going door to door, reminding identified supporters that the election is only days away. The Rerras campaign is attempting to organize a last ditch voter ID effort, well behind the power curve. It appears that the Rerras campaign prefered the impersonal reliance on purchased media time rather than hitting the pavement. That could also indicate that there really is no grass roots enthusiasm for the incumbent. Of the 40 or so young Republicans that attended last Saturday's Hampton Roads pre-canvass Republican breakfast in Virginia Beach, only a handful were from Virginia; and most of those were from NOVA (expressing frustration that they could not save their own contests).

Comments

Main race I care about (AnOrangeDem - 11/1/2007 9:55:18 AM)

In my home district have two entrenched incumbents, so needed to look elsewhere for a race to draw my attention. After a blissful week of vacation at Chincoteague in September, it was an easy choice to make. The only mar to the trip was the frigtening visage of Rerras in all his campaign posters and literature. He looks like the offspring of an illicit union between Jerry Kilgore and Ralph Reed.

I have since read up on Northam and am truly impressed by the man and his candidacy, but no lie, it was the scariness of Rerras which first drew me to the race.

At a loss to figure out how he ever managed to win the Senate seat in the first place

How did Rerras get into the Senate? (Randy Klear - 11/1/2007 12:09:21 PM)

It's a cautionary tale for Democrats. Stanley Walker, the incumbent, was President pro Tempore of the State Senate and a 30 year legislative veteran. He had gotten a little too accustomed to having all that campaign money around, and was writing checks for what can only be considered personal use. Rerras uncovered that Walker was using campaign funds to pay for the lease on his car, and let the press do his campaigning for him.

To his credit, Rerras was also a hard-working retail politician. He put in the time going door to door, worked the civic leagues, did everything a challenger is supposed to do (and that Ralph Northam is doing now).

It should be noted that Rerras had run against Walker four years before, in 1995, and lost. In that race, Rerras was a bald, walrus-mustached home-schooling advocate who went by his actual first name, Demetrios. When he came back in 1999 he was using his middle name, his hair migrated from his lip to the top of his head, and his children moved into public schools, for which he suddenly became an advocate.