The Virginia 7th is a pretty interesting Congressional district. It’s also a great example of how one small thing can set a chain reaction of events in play.
The VA 7th is currently represented by David Brat, an extreme tea partier who beat Eric Cantor by coming at him from the right. Coming out of the blue and coming very aggressively. Even the Republican Party thought he was obnoxious, but he won, he beat Cantor in the primary with 55.5% of the vote.
Let me go back and explain how this came about. In 2012 Eric Cantor had opposition from a Democrat. A guy named Wayne Powell ran against him. He ran a great campaign with no help from the Democratic Party but he had an incredible campaign manager — Mudcat Saunders. Mudcat is like James Carville on steroids.
Wayne Powell won 40% of the vote. That was a wake up call for the Majority Leader! He realized that he had credible opposition from the Democrats so he softened a bit. He was less overtly racist and became more cordial to President Obama. He was trying to be seen as reasonable in case he had to face a strong Democrat in an election. (We can thank Wayne Powell and Mudcat for that.)
Well, that backfired because it pissed the Tea Party racists off and they ran David Brat against Canter and he won coming against him from an extreme conservative position. Not such a bad thing though because he is so far right that a Democrat may be able to beat him. (We can thank Mudcat and Wayne Powell for that too.)
There is a great Democratic candidate running against him. Just announced. You won’t find it on Ballotpedia yet, but it’s up on 90for90 because she supports voter registration. Eileen Bedell is running for Congress in VA’s 7th and boy is she a contender.
For starters, she graduated high school at the age of 16. She’s been an attorney for over 20 years and in her practice she focuses on individuals and small businesses, helping protect their interests which she wants to do for the whole district as well. She seems to do it pretty well too.
If David Brat wants to come on strong in his usual style, I think he may have met his match. Remember that name Eileen Bedell. I’ll be writing more on her later.
Tracy B Ann — everything I write, including, but not limited to, my name, belongs solely to me.