Post-Primary Observations

200 words.

I’m not a political expert, but here’s some of my observations about the 12th District and 24th District primaries. (I didn’t pay much attention to any other primaries.)

Joe Blackburn won in my precinct by 87 votes to 61. That means, a) Most of my neighbors are greedy social conservatives*, and b) you can’t tell who’s winning by the fingerprint smudges on the touchscreens.

Joe Blackburn had very little presence in the Virginia blogosphere and barely lost 51-49. Scott Sayre, on the other hand, basically owned the Virginia blogosphere for four solid months of campaigning, yet still lost 53-47. From that I conclude: Either the Virginia blogosphere has very little impact on elections, or Sayre’s bloggers either hurt a good candidate or fell just short of electing a bad candidate. (I hope it’s not the latter.)

As for whether or not Stosch won because of Democratic help: I can’t speak for other areas, but in the 12th, of course Democrats and Independents voted in the Republican primary, because there aren’t going to be any other candidates running in November, so this was the only chance to have a say in the elected leadership.

  • Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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