OK, I'm really confused here. Gerry Connolly just sent out a mailer claiming he "opposed George Bush's war in Iraq from the beginning."
That's odd, because I searched on Lexis-Nexis and Factiva and found absolutely nothing from Connolly opposing the war. However, in searching around, what I did find was this list of cities and counties that passed resolutions against the war. Note that for Virginia, the only two jurisdictions passing such resolutions were Alexandria and Charlottesville. Yet, as you can see here from April 2003, there had been a campaign underway in Fairfax County to try to get such a resolution passed. Hmmm...Gerry Connolly was a powerful member of the Fairfax County board back then, soon to become supervisor, so what happened?
UPDATE: Ben has another interesting angle on this flier here.
UPDATE #2: Here's Connolly from the March 2003 edition of "The Democrat" ("The Newsletter of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee"). Apparently, this was the only public comment Connolly made on the war before deciding he was running for Congress.
The 2003 election cycle, however, is overshadowed by the impending war in Iraq. Northern Virginia politics will not be unaffected by such a war. Men and women in our neighborhoods have been called up to active duty. Terrorist threats and planning for heightened terror alerts preoccupy our local media coverage. For the first time since World War II anti-aircraft batteries ring the Capitol in Washington and none of us knows whether an already fragile economy might not tip back into recession with a steeply declining stock market and sharp spikes in the price of oil. The war threatens to crowd out our ability to air and debate local and state issues such as tax restructuring, school funding and transportation that so desperately need to be aired and debated this Fall.As Democrats, we know how important it is to allow a full discussion about the merits of war in the Persian Gulf region. We remember from the Vietnam era how critical it is to respect the right to dissent. We understand that while the nation needs to protect its homeland security, we cannot sacrifice our constitutional liberties in the process. Whatever our own views on the war, we share common Democratic values about our country and its role in the world. As our election season commences we will strive to remind our community of those values and carry them forward into the electoral battleground this Fall. Good luck to us all and Godspeed.
However, certainly Dana Kauffman is an honest guy. I take extreme offense to you saying Connolly is the best at anything except standing on our heads while he rakes in campaign dollars, climbs the ladder, etc.
What happened? did you go off your meds?
This is one of the most ridiculous arguments in politics -- that a candidate has to denounce the musings of someone that is not officially affiliated with the campaign in any formal way (see: Reverend Wright controversy).
I also find it frankly silly to decide which candidate to support primarily based upon which candidate's supporters are more or less obnoxious or rude, but everyone is entitled to decide whom to vote for (or not) in whatever way they see fit.
I support Leslie in this race, and have put a little money where my mouth is. But for me, as in the Presidential race, it's based primarily on the war -- which candidate is most likely to exert leverage to help us end this atrocious war. By signing on to the Responsible Plan, in my view, Leslie Byrne has proven that she is that candidate.
I will say, I used to enjoy the NLS blog, but I will not surf there (or MyDD) anymore because of the types of posts that have been written during the Presidential campaign. I always found the unnecessary personal attack and gossip rag mentality annoying, but it was balanced out by good local coverage of races. I'll miss the latter, but that's the way it goes.
I have no idea if Connolly is really ahead in this race, and I am not very plugged in to Fairfax County politics, but there are two months until the primary. I would hope people would decide to work for their candidate of choice instead of trying to destroy the other one, but that seems unlikely at this point. The primary should be used to see which candidate has better ideas to serve the interests of the citizens of CD-11 -- again, I think that person is Leslie Byrne, but it's imperative that Gerry Connolly be strictly vetted so that, in the event that he wins, his actions in office can be very clearly compared to his rhetoric from now until June.
I suspect that Ben's support for Leslie may have a negative effect among the local party folks. If so, that's an advantage for Connolly when it comes to organizing. I can't help but wonder if Ben's chickens are finally coming home to roost.
Hopefully this won't cost Leslie the nomination: I like her a lot.
I will say, I used to enjoy the NLS blog, but I will not surf there (or MyDD) anymore because of the types of posts that have been written during the Presidential campaign. I always found the unnecessary personal attack and gossip rag mentality annoying, but it was balanced out by good local coverage of races. I'll miss the latter, but that's the way it goes.
And you are excatly right - look at the personal attack on Jerry Conolly by Ben that James Martin has posted at the top of Raising Kaine. People are tired of this crap.
So if people want to not support Leslie due to her support by Ben, so be it. If candidates start losing support due to their support of or their relationship with Ben, perhaps other candidates moving forward will distance themselves from him.
He might have been against the war at that time but you certainly couldn't get a sense of that from his public statements. He seemed to simply be saying everybody is entitled to his own opinion. And he seemed to be trying to shift the attention back to local problems.
If he just wants to stay a county supervisor - even the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, it's a fair position to take because local county boards can side step national issues and be parochial. Maybe they shouldn't be, but they can be because they don't directly control national affairs any more than any other voter.
But congressmen and women do.
His statements back then honestly appear to be attempts to play it safe and offend nobody.
It's clear that Leslie was willing to take risks and stand on principle. She's a rational person who weighed the personal costs and did the right thing anyway. That's what makes her a true leader.
But I think it's important now to learn from what happened and not just attribute the disaster that has followed to the (spectacular) incompetence of the Bush regime. This endeavor, because it was built on lies and mendacity, was destined to fail no matter who was running the show. The entire neo-con doctrine needs to be forcefully repudiated and never again undertaken. Absent an immediate and present danger that can only be defused by pre-emptive military action (i.e. to prevent a nuclear first strike), the US should NEVER again invade another country unilaterally, absent an explicit UN mandate and a true, broad international coalition like the conditions before the first Gulf War. Invading a country to change its regime is illegal under international law, and we have signed treaties that proclaim that we will not do so.
I feel that I failed in my duty as a citizen back in those 'heady' days following our 'success' in Afghanistan, failed to properly question my government in its intentions and capacity to undertake this type of action. Many current progressives saw the world quite more clearly and understood much more deeply what was going on than I did then. I hold such people in the highest regard, and feel that they should be rewarded. Just as with Jim Webb (and Barack obama), this is why Leslie Byrne deserves to be elected to Congress.
But you and I know Gerry well enough to know that he never supported the war, and I have to say "unlike you", either publicly or privately. I have no idea why you and Ben have such a personal vendetta against Gerry, but that's not really my problem in this context. When I first met you, and many months afterwards, I believed you to be an honestly biased progressive who was still willing to look at and analyze opposing views reasonably objectively and counter their positions with factual/provable points. I am very saddened to read your most recent rantings not unlike Ben's too frequently irrational comments. If either of you had any "provable" evidence about charges against Gerry I am sure you would have offered that evidence long ago.
You know that I have and always will support you even when we are in strong disagreement, but not on points that are so personally charged that you drift from your core principles of fairness and objectivity. Please, please return to what I know is your true belief in fair and objective discourse.
One more point and I'll get off my soapbox (for now): I agree with your chastising Lee about his language with respect to comment about Gerry, and you certainly know that I also count him as a close friend. But in that context I believe that you should apply the same standards/rules to your own comments that you - correctly - apply to others. That is, keep your comments reasonably civil and whenever you have very negative comments please produce very specific facts to support whatever harsh and accusatory conclusions you choose to reach.
I implore all RK posters to re-direct all that energy - and anger - toward the real enemies and Turn Virginia Blue.
Closing on a more positive note: "Together We Can". We can and will take back our great Commonwealth and Country if we can work together to accomplish this one simple and essential objective.
T.C.
Beisdes, knowing the political envirement in Virginia when the war start in 2002, many local elected officials chose not to take a stand on the war, especially if they were against the war.
*Connolly supported Harris Miller (the pro-war candidate, by the way) vs. Jim Webb (the anti-war candidate), then did essentially nothing to help Webb against George Allen.
*One of Connolly's henchmen ("Thomas Paine Patriot") came on this blog and on NLS and repeatedly attacked me in ways that are unacceptable. Connolly never condemned that behavior and certainly never told the individual to stop doing it.
*Connolly opposed Charlie Hall for supervisor, which is perfectly fine. But in doing so, he accused Hall of being a closet Republican, which he knew was false, simply because Hall had met with Rep. Tom Davis.
*Speaking of Tom Davis, one of my problems with Connolly is how close he is to Tom Davis, having met with him a heck of a lot more times than Charlie Hall ever did.
*On a related note, what did Connolly do for Chap Petersen against Jeannemarie in 2007? That's right, NOTHING. And that really bothers me, as it should ALL Democrats.
*Also in 2007, Connolly had a huge warchest and a huge lead in the polls, yet he didn't spend a penny to help out in crucial races like Janet Oleszek vs. Ken Cuccinelli. Now, we're faced with the prospect of Cooch as our Attorney General. Great...
*In addition, I strongly disagree with Connolly on the Metro to Dulles project, particularly his insistence on moving ahead with the no-bid deal to Bechtel and the "aerial option" in Tysons Corner.
*I have seen no action on the "Cool Counties" initiative that I had praised Connolly for signing a year ago. What ever happened with that?
*I believe Connolly is far too close to developers and other big-money interests. In general, I don't like his style of governance.
*In this campaign, his first mailer claimed that he had opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. I asked for evidence to that effect and have received none.
I could go on and on here, but the bottom line is that in this 11th CD primary contest, I strongly support Leslie Byrne over Gerry Connolly. This one pretty much falls into the "no brainer" category for me (and for most of the netroots, by the way, which Gerry disdains).