There’s a piece today by the guys at Blue Virginia that I believe makes a rather loud point about why some Democrats have had misfortune befall them at their own hands.
Sometimes, you see, people like it a lot more when you stand up for what you believe in versus running away from what got you to where you are...
New polling from VA-05 shows some really good news for Dems.
A poll a while back by Survey USA showed freshman Democrat Tom Perriello of the 5th District down by a whopping 23 point margin to the G-O-Teabagger Robert Hurt.
However there are two more recent polls that show Perriello down by only one point, either 45-44 or 44-43. There is also a "Tea Party" candidate who is ostensibly remaining in the race, but I don’t believe he’s got much in the way of any chance of doing anything other than perhaps play spoiler to Hurt.
Tom Perriello voted for health care, cap-and-trade, and has generally stood up for being much more progressive than the majority of other Congresspersons from Virginia.
For his troubles, he’s been publicly threatened, to the point where his brother’s house – misidentified as his own by rabid lunatics – had a gas line cut in a deliberate act of sabotage.
But Perriello has stood up to his votes and by them. He is a member of Congress that this entire community should be able to support, because he’s proven to be a valuable ally and a person unafraid to stand up to his principles.
Enter my own district, which I have flogged more than once, and the not-really-a-Democrat Democrat, Glenn Nye who represents it.
Nye has done everything he can in this race to say that he’s not a Democrat short of saying "I’ll switch to the Republican Party if you re-elect me".
He’s thrown his base, Nancy Pelosi, the President, anyone he can think of under the bus. He runs his mouth constantly about being "Independent", and is proud to have voted against health care, and cap and trade.
He also puts out a falsehood about his ability to have voted against the Bailouts which is patently untrue because he was not a member of Congress when the actual Bailout votes happened. He may have voted on some sort of resolutions or whatever related to that, but the Bailouts happened literally before he was sworn into the new Congress in 2009.
And according to Blue Virginia via Not Larry Sabato, Glenn Nye is down to the hypocritical, Nancy Pelosi hating, teabagging Scott Rigell by 6 points.
Because Glenn Nye has lost votes like mine because he doesn’t give a flying fuck about me.
He not only votes against what I ask him to vote for, but he tells me that he’d rather vote for what he believes in. Because he’s special, or something.
If Nye doesn’t lose in November, it will be only because Kenny Golden, the ex head of the Virginia Beach GOP is running as a conservative Independent, and the right-wing vote will be split.
I saw one poll that had Golden with only 5% of the vote though, so I don’t know how much of an effect he’ll have.
Either way, the dichotomy of Virginia’s 2nd and 5th Districts should send a crystal clear message: Democrats like voting for Democrats. If you lose them, you will not gain enough Republicans to offset those losses.
Please go help Tom Perriello win. He deserve it. Glenn Nye has help from the Blue Dog friendly DCCC, so don’t give him one red cent of your money.
Tom Perriello for Congress