By now you may know that neither Don nor Kim were successful in their races for public office. Kim did best, gaining nearly 5,000 votes, or about 3,000 less than she would have needed to win. Don did poorly, getting only 4.5% of the vote (2,300 votes) in a three-way contest that was de-cided by 700 votes, with the winner getting 25,000.
Kim ran a great race, especially for a first time candidate, and despite indifference from the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star who pretended this was not an election year. Don got great press coverage in the media competitive Winchester market but virtually no coverage in his home county, Fauquier, nor in Loudoun County where one of the two newspapers is under the same ownership as the Fauquier papers.
What emerged from this experience appears to be that grassroots campaigning was done and worked very well for Kim, and next time will unseat Bobby Orrock. Don's effort appeared to show that a bitter partisan contest (about which 60% of registered voters could care less) forces otherwise thoughtful people to fear that exercising reason in their vote by choosing an independ-ent candidate will cost their party the chance to gain or retain power. And Don's candor and de-fense of abortion rights, opposition to more liberal gun laws and tolerant position on immigration may well have offended the knee-jerk crowd. At least one person who called about abortion hung up promptly after being told that Don supported choice.
Was it worthwhile?
Of course it was. It is a duty to participate whenever and however you can. It is a duty to offer the electorate choice, particularly when you are opposed to the views or actions of an incum-bent. And it is a duty to promote the ideas you believe in deeply. We have done our duty.
I do not speak for Kim when I say this but I am sorry not to have done better but only because it means that a significant number of people who believed in these ideas did not have as their champion an advocate strong enough to deliver a victory.
At least not yet, or this time.
Don Marro