Tom Davis (R, VA-11) to Republicans: Guys, we're screwed.

The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than the fall of 2006 when we lost thirty seats (and our majority) and came within a couple of percentage points of losing another fifteen seats. Whether measured by polls, open seats, money, voter registration, generic ballot, Presidential popularity or issues, our party faces a steep climb to maintain our current numbers.

Edited by him, personally, on his home computer, by the looks of it -- if you look at the document metadata, the author is "JDD" (his wife, Jeannemarie Devolites-Davis, who got totally owned by Chap Petersen in the 2007 legislative elections). Perhaps questionable is his juxtaposition of the phrases "Barrack [sic] Obama," "tar baby," and "immigration" in the same paragraph. D'oh.

But hey, TJ kids, and others in most of Fairfax County! Remember to vote in the Democratic primary on June 10 to pick Davis' successor! If you haven't registered, you just missed the deadline; if you're going to be gone on the 10th, there's no time like now to request an absentee ballot or to go over to the Elections Office in the Government Center and vote in person.

I"m pulling hard for Leslie Byrne in this primary. Leslie is trustworthy, progressive, experienced, and eminently electable (she lost 2005's statewide Lt Gov election to the paleolithic archconservative Bill Bolling by mere slices of a percent -- she won VA-11 by 55% in that race). Essentially the entire Northern Virginia Democratic establishment, including Sen. Jim Webb, State Sen. Chap Petersen (who ran against her for Lt Gov), openly gay Del. Adam Ebbin, and newly-elected Del. Margi Vanderhye, has lined up in support of Leslie. Labor unions, who have a lot at stake in this race, can't declare their endorsements fast enough. She's secured endorsements from AFSCME, Emily's List, United Steelworkers, and NOW, to name just a few of her endorsers (many of whom I remember fondly from Nevada).

If you want to know more about her and her policies, I hope you'll check out a great blog chat with her from last month at Fire Dog Lake.

I know many of you are friends of the Connolly family, but the more I learn about him, the more skeptical I become. Is he really "a stealthy and reactionary puppet of war profiteers" SAIC as Howie Klein would have you believe? Maybe not. (And my parents work in defense and I have friends working for SAIC, and I'm pretty sure they're not evil.) But everyone seems to agree that he's a bit corporate and heavy-handed. Judging by his embarassing forays into Facebook-land, he doesn't really seem to understand the Internet or how to use it. I'm also astonished that he's managed to completely evade responsibility for the reckless development that's characterized Fairfax during his tenure as Board of Supervisors Chair, which just makes his sketchy land use decisions involving SAIC even worse.

So: I'm hoping you'll join me in supporting Leslie Byrne. Let's turn Fairfax a true blue on June 10.