Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Reality Check: I think we can safely take a break from predicting who will win the presidential election for the time being -- nothing that happens now will have any effect.

I say that as a very frustrated voter in Arlington, Virginia. You see, U.S. Rep. Jim Moran won the Democratic primary against Andrew Rosenberg. Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC, is a Democratic stronghold, and it is nearly impossible for a Republican to win here. So Moran is virtually guaranteed re-election to his seat in the House of Representatives.

That's despite his belief that the "Jewish community" is to blame for the war in Iraq, his acceptance of a questionable loan from a bank that was the subject of legislation pending in Congress, and his penchant for getting into fist fights -- even on the House floor.

Rosenberg seemed like a nice little Democrat who would share the same party principles that Moran holds without providing any of the controversy. My vote for Rosenberg was the first ever cast in a Democratic or Republican primary. I thought this time it was more important to vote for the right guy than to avoid any perceived party affiliations.

Apparently I was one of the few who felt that way.

So if fisticuffs and anti-Semitic comments from a couple years ago don't keep you from getting re-elected, then the death of a former Republican president several months before Election Day will have absolutely no impact on anything. The problem with Rosenberg is that people weren't voting for him, we were voting against Moran. And apparently that attitude rarely wins.