Time For VA-08 Progressives To Unite Behind Patrick Hope?

I hope you read VA-08 resident Pachacutec's very detailed rundown of the candidates running in his northern Virginia district. Although he found more than one well-qualified candidate, he came to the conclusion that Patrick Hope was the best candidate overall and the best candidate to beat the heavily financed conservative Establishment Democrat, Don Beyer. That was back in April. Today marked 3 weeks out from the election and the race has had time to develop. Polls clearly show the race shaping up to be between Patrick Hope, the progressive oriented towards working families and Don Beyer, the special interests corporate multimillionaire.

Adam Ebbin is often referred to as the third “top tier” candidate, but he polled over 24 points behind Don Beyer in his OWN legislative district in the only public polling. He may be able to get enough votes to throw the election to Beyer, but he has no chance whatsoever to beat Beyer. Demographically and geographically, were Hope to drop out, the majority of his supporters would support Beyer, whereas were Ebbin to drop out the majority of his supporters would support Hope.

In Hope’s legislative district, Hope polled 23 points ahead of Beyer. In fact, Hope is the only candidate to lead Beyer in any locality in the 8th CD. This poll was taken after Beyer had already begun his direct mail program and before Hope had sent a single piece of mail.

This past week Hope has polled ahead of Beyer in three of four straw polls, including the only free straw poll in Fairfax County where Hope finished first.

Most important, voters are searching for what distinguishes the other candidates from Beyer, and Hope has been the only candidate willing to highlight their differences. The base, of course, is that Beyer represents Establishment Democrats. In a recent debate he proclaimed himself to be a “Hillary Clinton Democrat.” In addition to Hope, Ebbin and Levine also come from the Elizabeth Warren Wing of the Democratic Party, and they need to unite behind Hope in order defeat establishment Beyer. It's why Blue America endorsed Hope. Hope has recently scored endorsements from progressive State Delegates Scott Surovell and Kaye Kory, both of whom represent areas in Fairfax County that will be critical to any path to victory for a candidate seeking to best Beyer. And when it's come to discussing issues at the public forums, it's Hope who makes certain voters see the difference between himself as a progressive and Beyer as a shill for the special interests.

On Sunday at Temple Beth El in Alexandria, Beyer refused to respond to a direct question about his own shady record. It was the third public candidates' forum in 4 days and at all three forums, Hope raised serious and substantive questions about Beyer's sleazy role in Virginia's "welfare reform" efforts when he was George Allen's partner and Lt. Governor. On Sunday he focused on an aspect of law that Beyer calls his "crowning achievement." In George Allen's official biography, author Edward Lynch wrote that "the Beyer plan proposed ending welfare benefits after one year, along with a refusal to provide welfare to any children born to participants during the benefit period."  Virginians are still burdened with Beyer's Republican, anti-family approach'' the "family cap"-- today. Although Hope asserted that his plan was "terrible policy" and "politics of a bygone era," Beyer refused to defend his "crowning achievement." Hope:

Politicians too often make deals in order to hold self-congratulatory news conferences and make claims to have solved problems. Looking back 20 years on the welfare reform compromises from 1994 we see that is exactly what happened. Subsidized childcare was promised to help young mothers on welfare return to jobs-- but Don's plan provided no permanent funding source and cuts were made as soon as the budget got tight. Today because of those cuts over 4,000 children sit on waiting lists for subsidized childcare in the localities of the 8th district today while thousands of others have sat on this list over the last 20 years. While the promises to those in need were not kept, the punitive measures in the agreement have all stayed in effect-- including banning mothers from getting additional assistance-- $60 a month-- when they have another child. That's just wrong. With entitlement reform and proposed cuts to our social safety net on the agenda for the next Congress, I believe Beyer’s record highlights a major difference between Don Beyer and myself in the way we approach issues. I ask voters to consider four simple words when making their choice for Congress: "Who do you trust?"

This is a strong blue district and whomever wins the primary in 3 weeks will be going to Congress. The PVI is D+16 and Obama crushed both McCain and Romney by better than two to one. It would be tragic to waste such a strong Democratic district on a corporate shill from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. There are enough multimillionaire fat cats in Congress already without giving a seat to Don Beyer. Patrick Hope can win this race-- unless secondary candidates who can't insist on splitting the vote and allowing the conservative to slip in. If you'd like to help Hope win in VA-08, here's the place.


UPDATE: New Dems Roll Out Five New Garbage Candidates

Although New Dem Vice Chair Allyson Schwartz lost-- and lost HUGELY-- her Pennsylvania gubernatorial run tonight, the New Dems-- basically the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- announced endorsements for 5 more crap candidates for Congress: sleazy little ex-bank lobbyist Pete Aguilar (CA), Emily Cain (ME), Kathleen Rice (NY), Manan Trivedi (PA) and, of course, Beyer.