VA Congressional District 11 GOP Primary, June 8, 2010

I don't know if you've heard much about the June 8 GOP primary for Virginia's 11th Congressional district. I haven't heard much but I've seen a few things. I got some campaign literature in the mail from Herrity that uses the term “conservative” almost as often as it uses the word “the.” Today I ran across a link to a pro-Fimian website that claims that Herrity lied when he said that he's never raised taxes and that he has in fact voted with the Democrats on the Fairfax Board of Supervisors to raise your property taxes, at http://www.herrityhikedtaxes.com/. The website there also says that Herrity voted to create a new taxing district to extend the Metro out to Dulles. The new taxing district will start taxing your home in 2013 at a rate of 20 cents per $100 of assessed value. If they assess your home at $200,000, for instance, then you'd have to pay another $400 per year so that politicians and lobbyists can take the Metro from DC to Dulles on your dime.
Here are the minutes from the Fairfax County Board showing that Herrity voted for a property tax hike from $0.92 to $1.04 per $100, or an extra $0.12 per $100. Again assuming an assessment of $200,000 you'd pay an extra $240 per year on top of the $1840 you'd already be paying, or a total of $2080. That's more than a month and a half of rent for me! http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/bosclerk/summary/2009/09-04-27.pdf
On the Herrity side they're claiming that Fimian used to say that Herrity was "a conservative's conservative" but neglect to mention that Fimian called Herrity that BEFORE Herrity voted to increase your annual real state taxes by $640 (half a month's rent to me). They also claim that Fimian has no record to run on, but of course that's always true of anyone who hasn't had a previous career in politics.
I think that the worst case for Fimian, ironically, comes from Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor's endorsement of him. Both sides are treating Cantor as though he were the conservative he claims to be, but I just calculated his National Taxpayer's Union lifetime average on spending, taxes and regulation, and it comes to a paltry 69.78 out of 100. In my book that's only a D+. John McCain, whom some conservatives in the last presidential election were saying is "as bad a Obama," actually has a lifetime record of 77.88, or a C+ in my book--a whole letter grade better than Cantor. (Obama actually has a Senate average of 9.33, what I call a K+, so far below an F that Obama couldn't even aspire to get as high as an F.) Still, Herrity has a list of endorsements from a gaggle of local GOP politicians about whom I know nothing and who could be, especially here in northern Virginia, a bunch of liberal, tax-and-spend, gun-control-freak RINOs (Republicans in Name Only).
I've noticed, furthermore, that in politics friendships often transcend or ignore political ideology in ways that ideological activists like me often find hard to understand. Back in Iowa, for instance, I knew a conservative small-town business owner who loved my political columns and voted Republican in most races, but voted for an exceptionally liberal Democrat for the local state house repeatedly because the business owner went to high school with the candidate. Even though his high school chum voted for everything the business owner hated about liberal policies, the business owner proved exceedingly reluctant to consider voting for his chum's conservative opponent. I never did ask for whom he ultimately voted, but if I had to bet real money (if I had any) I'd bet that he reverted to traditional form and voted for his liberal chum over the ideologically-compatible conservative Republican. So while an endorsement from Cantor doesn't say that Fimian's a conservative like Fimian claims, it also doesn't say that Fimian's not a conservative either, and we do know that Herrity has voted to raise taxes at least twice. I’ve always thought that politician endorsements of political candidates generally carry little water (and less information).
I'll try to keep an eye out for more information. On local races of this sort without much attention from the national media (both liberal and alternative) it's harder to get real information. Much of what I’ve read has shed more heat than light, consisting mostly of name-calling and personal attacks rather than information. Based on the little I know so far, however, Fimian seems like the more conservative candidate.