Unintended Consequences

In the aftermath of the recent convention, a few finer points of factual county history are in order.
I referred to an "A" team in a Face Book posting, and it caused a reaction from a Chapman team member. One who hasn't been here long enough to understand the reference.

Back in 2007, and 2008, the Loudoun County Republican Committee had a Mass Meeting to elect a new Chairman. That Meeting was contentious as well. But at the heart of that meeting was the fight for a direction for the Committee. In the ashes of that contest, Glen Caroline had the victory, and the different factions of the Committee came together under Glen's excellent leadership to form the most successful election team to evolve from those years. I had been one of the most vocal critics of the old leadership and even I was brought onboard and served in a Chair position in the new Committee. I had previously left the Committee and was fully prepared to go to war with them before that Mass  Meeting.

That Team masterfully assembled and rolled out an election machine that met the Obama Wave, and held it back in small measure to 6 points better positioning than our surrounding counties did. Having proved the mechanism worked, we rocked it again in 2009, when Robert McDonnell enjoyed a win in the Governor's race and we also took the Lt. Governor and Attorney General's races. Loudoun County's Team posted an amazing 61%  figure in that race. The feat was never duplicated in all of the Commonwealth.

So, when I say "the A team" , I'm referring to the elements of that team in the history of Loudoun County's rise to power in the Commonwealth. With a couple of defections, that team is the one who endorsed and pushed for readdressing the mistakes by the current Sheriff, as relayed by the Commonwealth's Attorney of Loudoun County, Jim Plowman, a fellow Constitutional Officer, I might add..

But, it get's worse. When I explained that my candidate lost by a razor's edge vote, and that I didn't have any enthusiasm for campaigning for the winner, because ...quite frankly, I (and a full crew of Noble supporters) were dragged thru the mud with lies, misinformation....and then.... personal insults.
Why on earth would I, or any members of our team even bother to pull any duty for such a campaign? And then it came. The "expectation" that we just would. It was "our duty" ,in their arrogant stance.

If Mike Chapman is HALF as smart as he's supposed to be, he'd be warming phones up right now with the folks who shaved him in a contest where 30 KNOWN votes for Noble didn't show up. The race could have been the exact opposite result. If that had been the case, I can guarantee that we'd have been calling their team to personally put any animosity to bed ASAP....and get to smoothing things out before they smolder too long.

As has happened in Loudoun before, there are politically astute people, and there are horribly misguided folks who just couldn't be bothered with the ramifications of what comes on the tail of winning with distortions and lies, and personal attacks on a sitting REPUBLICAN Commonwealth's Attorney and the team that just happened to be dissatisfied with a fact-filled record of the past three years, and a line by line examination of a budget. We brought facts and documentation. They brought innuendo and oft-repeated misinformation.

In the aftermath, and some cooling off, some of the bitterness will never shake off. There are unintended consequences of saying things you cannot take back. But a little humility and a few sugar cubes thrown in while seeking this excellent team's assistant might do wonders.  ...And that phone still isn't ringing.

Update: In yet another display of complete and fulfilling arrogance, the campaign team has made another bad choice. There were only two roads set before them: Pour the charm on, even if they had to fake it, and bring on people who've done the brunt of the grassroots elections in the County.....
OR..... go into the second round of insults and argumentative diatribe guaranteed to drive the wedge in further.

I don't have to move an inch. If they were smart, they'd figure out that they need me and those like me. A couple of slaps on the back, cold beer and selling points is the order right now, not speeches about how I'm supposed to drop what I'm doing and come running to support someone because the Party tells me to....or that it's expected.