Everyone in Northern Virginia feels that fixing transportation is Virginia's priority.
Everyone knows that the Republican transportation plan took compromise only so far as the Senate Republicans and the House of Delegates Republicans disagreed. No bipartisanship involved there.
Unfortunately, not everyone in McLean and Great Falls is aware that their delegate, Vince Callahan, is part of the problem.
Since 1968, Republican Vince F. Callahan has represented the 34th district in the Virginia House of Delegates. He's never been a big source of controversy, and people back home think well of him due to his position as Chair of Appropriations.
The 34th district is by no means a Republican one, but as a resident I see first hand the effects of Callahan's long incumbency. He has hung over us so long like a spell that anything different would be abnormal.
Well, maybe something different would be welcome. Fortunately there's a woman willing to wake McLean up from its long spell and tell us the truth: Callahan is powerful but he does not deliver, he does not innovate, and he cannot represent our best interests as a Republican in the House of Delegates. Her name is Margi Vanderhye and I draw attention to a recent editorial in the McLean Connection:
I have come to fully support Mrs. Vanderhye for a variety of reasons (many of which can be found right here on RK in her Q and A sessions). This article just further illustrates the need for bipartisan innovators in Richmond. I want to see a Democratic-controlled House of Delegates, but if anyone wants to argue on the side of pure partisanship, I ask they look no further than what Gilmore did to Virginia with an allied Legislature and what Warner did for Virginia with a Legislature of the opposite party.
Mrs. Vanderhye has the experience and, really, the courage a candidate needs to run against Vince Callahan. It's not a Right-leaning district, and the race is not impossible. The district voted by no small margins for Kaine and Webb. People in the area aren't stupid, we just haven't been given a good alternative to Callahan in too long. I wouldn't support Vanderhye just because she's the Democrat running against the incumbent Republican, I think she's what McLean wants and needs.
To the 34th District: if you want Fairfax County to be stuck with a region-wide problem, if you want money to be taken from education, health care, and the environment, and if you want the kind of unlimited borrowing only the Virginia Republican Party can deliver, you've already got it.
But if you want a transportation plan that won't drive the state into bankrupcy, if you want cooperation and smart growth, if you want the kind of smart leadership that only the Virginia Democratic Party has proven it can deliver, Vanderhye for Delegate.