I guess the Democrats felt that the strategy worked so well in the transportation debate, they decided to use it again against Fairfax Republicans who voted against child care funding.
Virginia Democrats said they had launched a campaign of automated phone calls to voters in Fairfax targeting GOP delegates who voted against the budget amendments.
The calls, sponsored by the Joint Democratic Caucus, are “educational for the constituents, to let them know how their delegate voted” during the worst stalemate in the legislature’s history, said Matt Mansell, director of the House Democratic Caucus. “There’s been a lot of attention paid to those Northern Virginia delegates and what they have and haven’t done for their constituents.”
The recording tells voters that the delegate in question “voted against child care for 1,900 low-income children” and against funding to prevent sewage from flowing into the Chesapeake Bay, a reference to a project in Lynchburg to clean water flowing into the James River.
Help me out here. Why would the people living in Albo’s, Hugo’s, Callahan’s districts care about low-income families? To people in those districts, they’re foreigners — in many ways. Maybe O’Brien’s (especially) and Cuccinelli’s districts have some families impacted in the far eastern regions of their districts. But is this the kind of issue that would move Republicans to pressure their own? Maybe we should ask who’s getting a cut of the robo call expenditure?
OK. Maybe polluting the Chesapeake Bay will get a rise out of some moderate Fairfax Republicans, but not many are really going to get jacked up about a sewage plant in Lynchberg?
Anyone, please enlighten me.
UPDATE: I left out Rust among the targets. With the politics of the Herndon area recently, I’m not sure how well this reverberates there, either.