First test of the sales tax increase: Thumbs down [VA State Senate]

The Northern Virginia Daily Journal ^ | July 5, 2002 | editorial

[VaFederalist]

NoVa Freepers need to work hard for Cuccinelli. There is no underestimating the damage that Til Hazel, Ed Wilbourne & their buddies will do.

[DeaconBenjamin]

I'd like Ken better if he hadn't been a buddy of Dave Albo, who is anti-2nd amendment and mostly a RINO, but I think Ken is more conservative then Albo, including on guns. Ken certainly would be a huge improvement over Barry, who is not worthy of respect.

[Ligeia]

Email from the Cuccinelli campaign:

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For more information about the Cuccinelli for VA Senate campaign please go to http://www.cuccinelli.com

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All,

Please make to time this Saturday morning to attend a CRUCIAL volunteer meeting. We will be discussing our planfor the next four weeks.

Thank you all for your tireless efforts during the primary -- your work pushed us over the top to victory !!! Let's do it again for the general!

Please respond to this email notifying me of the meeting that you plan to attend.

NOTE: All district chairs ... please notify your volunteers of these meetings.

SATURDAY MORNING, July 13
Where: Fairfax County Government Center
12000 Government Center Parkway
Fairfax, VA 22035
Conference Rooms 6 and 7
When: 10am - NOON

--- Cuccinelli for VA Senate
Authorized by Cuccinelli for Senate

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[VaFederalist]

My apologies, Peter Ferrara, president of the Virginia Club for Growth is the author of this piece.

[Ligeia]

Do you live in Cuccinelli's district? You're not listed on the Virginia page, but you seem to be knowledgeable about the area.

Another email update:

For more information about the Cuccinelli for VA Senate campaign please go to:
Cuccinelli for Senate
*****************************************************************************
Please reserve Monday, July 22 on your calendars to attend a Bar-B-Que with U.S. Senator George Allen and Ken Cuccinelli, Republican Candidate for the Virginia Senate, 37th District.

To be held at the home of:

Bob and Barbara Ledoux
12825 Shadow Oak Lane
Fairfax, VA 22033
6:30 pm

Levels of sponsorship:

Commoners of the Commonwealth: $50 per person/ $75 couple
Flag Wavers: $100 (2 tickets)
Fans of Freedom: $250 (2 tickets)
Lovers of Liberty: $500 (4 tickets)
Passionate Patriots: $1,000 (6 tickets)

[definitely creative]

[DeaconBenjamin]

Do you live in Cuccinelli's district? No.

You're not listed on the Virginia page, but you seem to be knowledgeable about the area. Consider me to be an emigre. Had I ample funds, I would happily support Ken's candidacy. As it is, I can hardly finance electoral efforts in my new home.

[Ligeia]

I posted that for public consumption...I didn't mean for you to cough up the bucks :^)

[Coop]

Geez, am I out of touch! Having served as an election officer more than once, you'd think I'd have known we have elections on 6 Aug! I thought the campaign signs were annoyingly early! :-p

I've seen Cuccinelli's signs around, and he sounds like someone I could easily support. Especially if George Allen is headlining a fundraiser for him.

[Ligeia]

Hey, Coop! Are you a Flag Waver or a Passionate Patriot???

[Coop]

Unfortunately I'm an On Vacationer and Home Renovationer! New siding and new windows. Ugh! Never let it be said that we're not doing our part for the economy. :-)

[Ligeia]

The President appreciates your effort during this time of great need... :^)

I see Jay O'Brien's written a letter to the editor in support of Ken Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli is my candidate

I want to urge Journal readers to take note of the upcoming special election on Aug. 6 to fill state Sen. Warren Barry's vacant seat.

The voters of the 37th Senatorial District have a clear choice: Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican whose commonsense conservative approach to state government is refreshing.

I am supporting Ken because I believe he is the most qualified candidate to represent Fairfax County's interests in the General Assembly.

Ken's successful experiences working with at-risk children in delinquency prevention, working in family crisis intervention, creating performance-based budget programs and working in our public schools on the SOLs, along with his work on the tax issue, make him the candidate with the broadest range of relevant experience in this race.

I have known both Ken and his wife, Teiro, for many years. They both grew up here and attended Fairfax County Public Schools and numerous Virginia universities (Ken has three different degrees from the University of Virginia and George Mason University).

Ken's commitment to our schools is simply beyond question. His education priorities include getting Fairfax its fair share of state funding and directing that funding to the classrooms to boost our anemic teacher pay and to make proven textbooks available to our kids.

Ken's opponent is suddenly talking about reducing class sizes, but she has voted twice to increase class sizes. She's suddenly talking about ``conservative fiscal policies," but she has voted for three massive budget increases in a row.

Ken's liberal opponent is suddenly trying to convince everyone that she is a moderate, and is desperately trying to hide her extreme liberal record on both fiscal issues and moral issues.

Ken has been straightforward with his positions, but his opponent appears to be avoiding taking many positions at all.

As a patent attorney, Ken understands Northern Virginia's high-tech economy. Ken will work diligently to improve local schools, raise education standards, reduce traffic congestion and hold the line on taxes and spending.

He will fight for our fair share of tax dollars to make sure Fairfax County can move forward in the coming decade.

DEL. JAY O'BRIEN
40th Legislative District
Fairfax Station

[Ligeia]

Welcome to the Old Dominion! Hopefully, this thread will help answer some of your Cuccinelli questions. I don't know him and was very surprised by his primary victory. His opponent appeared to have all the big names lined up behind him. Cuccinelli's win is a tribute to the power of the grassroots conservatives in his district.

[Ligeia]

Special election pits liberal against conservative
By BILL WHEATON

There is a special election Tuesday, Aug. 6, to fill the 37th District state Senate seat vacated by Republican Warren Barry. The candidates are Democrat Catherine Belter and Republican Ken Cuccinelli (pronounced ``cooch-a-nellie").

The lines between the two candidates are clearly drawn. Belter is a fiscal and moral liberal, and Cuccinelli is a fiscal and moral conservative.

Cathy Belter is the School Board member from Springfield. Her voting record during her term indicates that she is a typical tax-and-spend Democrat, voting along with the other Democrat- and teacher union-endorsed members who are in the majority on the board.

During Belter's brief term, the school administration staff has increased 14 percent, although pupil enrollment increased only 3 1/2 percent. She also voted for a $25,000 bonus for schools Superintendent Daniel Domenech, even as test scores fell.

The Fairfax County School Board is considering whether to add ``sexual orientation" to its nondiscrimination policy and had been scheduled to vote on the measure Thursday night, but postponed it. Public opinion is running 10-to-1 against the change.

The School Board has also been advised that it does not have the authority to make the change, since ``sexual orientation" is not recognized as a category of discrimination by the commonwealth of Virginia. Arlington County sought to recognize relationships that violate Virginia's public policy and are not recognized by the commonwealth, and the state Supreme Court struck it down.

Last year, Belter voted to include ``sexual orientation" in the student resource handbook, thus supporting the homosexual agenda.

Cuccinelli is a patent and technology attorney, and also holds an engineering degree. He has been involved in Republican politics for more than 10 years and ran a very aggressive primary campaign to win the Republican nomination.

The 37th Senate District is Republican-leaning, but Cuccinelli has to be considered the underdog for two big reasons:


First, the Fairfax County Republican Party has not yet rebuilt itself after six years of membership decline under former Chairman Joe Underwood.

This past spring, I attended the Fairfax County Republican convention, which had an attendance of fewer than 200. The last county convention I had attended, six years ago, had about 1,200 in attendance.

So what are the Fairfax County Republicans doing on the Saturday before this important special election? They should be mounting a massive literature distribution and phone bank effort for Cuccinelli. Instead, they are having a picnic (which was scheduled before the special election).

The question is: What would have been the prudent course of action? Cancel the picnic, take a small financial loss, and turn out the troops in force for the election, or hold the picnic anyway and invite the candidate to leave the campaign trail to speak briefly?

Because political parties exist to debate issues and elect candidates, the prudent decision would have been the former, but the party leadership chose the latter.

The Democrats, on the other hand, are much better organized to support Belter. You won't find them at any picnic on Saturday, unless it is to promote their candidate.

The second issue that makes Cuccinelli an underdog is the massive financial support Belter is receiving from the supporters of the Northern Virginia sales tax referendum, including funds from Gov. Mark Warner, who, according to a July 4 Washington Post article, has promised to hold a fund-raiser to give her $200,000 budget a boost. He also is pictured with Belter in her campaign literature.

It appears many are seeing this election as a referendum on the referendum.

Belter, who at this writing had not responded to Cuccinelli's call to debate publicly, supports the sales tax increase, which almost everyone agrees will not solve our transportation woes.

Cuccinelli opposes the sales tax increase and has vowed to work to solve our transportation woes the right way, by fighting for Northern Virginia's fair share of revenues for transportation and education.

He believes it's unfair that Northern Virginia gets back less than half of what it send to Richmond in taxes in the form of state benefits. Fairfax County gets only 19 percent back, whereas some jurisdictions get back 250 percent.

Belter, on the other hand, appears to have no problem with this tax revenue distribution inequity.

This is a seat that the Republicans desperately need to hold. There are now 21 Republicans and 18 Democrats in the Virginia Senate. A Republican loss would put the Democrats within one seat of control, since Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine is a Democrat.

A vote for Cuccinelli is a vote for fiscal sanity and a vote against increased taxes.

---

Bill Wheaton lives in Falls Church. His column appears every other Friday. His e-mail address is bwheaton@cavtel.net.

[VaFederalist]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10916-2002Jul27.html

[Coop]

We've been inundated with Ken's opponent's campaign signs and TV commercials. The only thing she's shown me so far is that she is for raising my taxes, and she's run at least one attack ad against Cuccinelli and all mean Pubbies.

Ms. Belter has ensured that I'll be at the polls on 6 Aug - to vote for her opponent.

[Ligeia]

Thanks for the link, VaFederalist. Coop, I've seen those ads. She's running them daily on FOX News, of all places. Of course, her ads don't mention she's a Democrat. The only place I've seen Cuccinelli is on the Public Access channel. I find her ads highly deceptive, especially the one claiming Cuccinelli supports sexual harrassment. She must be getting a ton of $$ from the teachers union and the pro-abortion groups.

I know you're busy, but I bet Cuccinelli could use some help besides your vote on Election Day. ;^)

[VaFederalist]

I was out putting up signs for him on Sat, made calls on Thursday. More calling to be done this week. I'm doing everything but voting for him.(I don't live in his District)

[Coop]

Thanks much for all your hard work!

[Ligeia]

You are a fine example for us all!

Email from the Cuccinelli campaign:

You are cordially invited to attend a Get Out The Vote Rally Fundraiser for Republican State Senate candidate, Ken Cuccinelli with Attorney General Jerry Kilgore as the Special Guest of Honor.

When?

Thursday, August 1, 2002
6:30--8:30pm

Where?

Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department
4081 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030

How Much?

$25/person
$35/couple
Please bring checks to the door.
Casual Attire

RSVP to Meredith@Cuccinelli.com or call 703-766-0635

The Special Election will be held on Tuesday, August 6, 2002. Every vote is critical. Cathy Belter's campaign has gone extremely negative and is pulling out all the stops to win. The campaign needs your support and volunteer assistance. Please call Meredith at 703-766-0635 if you can spare some time this week to lit drop, phone bank, or work the polls next Tuesday.

Thanks in advance for your support.

Ken Hutcheson

[Ligeia]

There's another Special Election in Norfolk. The only information I have is:

HORSEY FOR DELEGATE

Dr. Linda Horsey is the Republican candidate for the 89th House of Delegates District. To volunteer for the Horsey campaign call (757) 625-2907.
All donations can be sent to her mailing address at
PO Box 1515,
Norfolk, Virginia 23501.