Fred2Blue

A fortnightly rant, FL-S style:

This every-other-weekend “rant” is the forum I use to vent my spleen.  And really in the past 12 months, there has been a lot for me to vent about.

But not this weekend. 

Like a many of you, I am exhausted – plum tuckered out – from the Week That Was.  There’s not one bit of rant in me.

On Monday night, I got to shake hands with President-elect Obama.  That was quite a thrilling experience.  But I must say that our next president looked then like the weight of the world had already crash-landed upon his shoulders.  Earlier that day, he learned that his grandmother and last-remaining elder, Madeline Dunham a.k.a. “Toot”, had died.  And surely, by the time his plane touched down at Dulles for the quick ride to the 90,000-strong rally in Manassas, he must have known from internal polling that he was going to be our 44th commander-in-chief.

Tuesday night, I joined thousands of exhausted but exhilerated supporters attending Mark Warner’s victory party in McLean, Va.   That, too, had its thrilling moments: the wonderful conversation I had with the Commonwealth’s first lady, Ann Holton; congratulating Fairfax Board Chair Gerry Connolly on his congressional victory, hearing Gov. Kaine say that Virginia had placed Obama over-the-top, and then showing both Senator-elect Mark Warner and Gov. Tim Kaine a text message on my PDA from Stafford Chair Marc Broklawski, which read:

46.7 percent in Stafford. (Obama) won 7 or 8 precincts.

Showing the governors that text message might have been for me the most-satisfying event of the past week, perhaps of my political life; it was validation that the hard work we all did to elect Dem candidates in Stafford County and around Fred2Blue Land had finally paid off. Senator-elect Warner once said to me there was a time when Stafford was the-most unfriendly place for Democrats to venture.  That was especially the case during his 2001 gubernatorial race. 

So what a difference a few years has made:  Barack Obama’s Stafford vote-share eclipsed John Kerry’s 2004 result by a mind-blowing 27 percent.  And Senator-elect Warner…the guy who had often looked over his shoulder soonafter passing the Welcome to Stafford road sign on Route 3?  In 2008, he won Stafford and he won it big: 58 percent of the vote.  And in doing so, he became the first Democrat running for a Federal office - since Jimmy Carter in 1976 – to win Stafford. 

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the scores of volunteers (from here and out-of-town) that flooded our community, the various Dem committees around Fred2Blue Land, and in particular local chairs Amy LaMarca in the City, Marc Broklawski in Stafford, and Opal Stroup and Doug Ferguson in Spotsy.  I also want to congratulate the folks at the DNC and the DPVA that worked hard to re-paint the Commonwealth, especially Joe Montano, Don Mark, and DPVA Executive Director Levar Stoney.  And I want to particularly thank the candidates, their staff, and volunteers, locally:  Bill Day who, despite difficult circumstances, ran a great race in the Virginia 1st; Mike Henry, Rich Culbert and Courtney Dozier from Team Warner; and from the Coordinated Campaign office in Fredericksburg Keauna Gregory.

h/ts galore to Gov. Kaine, Senator-elect Warner, and DNC Chair Gov. Howard Dean who alone proved that the 50-state strategy WORKS.  Perhaps now, he’ll be remembered for that, and not the SCREAM.  Well done, Dr. Dean.  And of course, to President-elect Obama, Vice-President-elect Joe Biden, and the Obama for America campaign for having the chutzpah to campaign in…Fredericksburg! 

So, no ranting from me.  I’m taking the rest of the weekend off to savor these sweet victories for I know (we know) that plenty of hard work and sacrifice lie just ahead.