Or, “Learning to Love our Establishment RINO Overlords.”[read_more]
Just kidding! Relax. First, this isn’t an endorsement (despite the click-bait headline). Instead, it’s a comment on what we should be as a Republican Party.
My friend Brian Schoeneman is running for the GOP nomination to become the next Fairfax County supervisor from the Sully District. A lot of ink has been spilled lately in strident opposition to that candidacy, and in reaction to that opposition. Much of that ink (metaphorically speaking) has come from the pens of my colleagues here at The Bull Elephant.
Many say Brian has a very high opinion of himself and isn’t afraid to show it. They would be right. 😉 But I have found him to be genuine, intelligent, and charitable, and think he is a sincere and good person who wants to serve.
Regardless of your opinion of him, it is hard to deny his uncanny knack for getting under the skin of his opponents, and for inspiring heated rhetoric. This is a talent he’s honed for years as a GOP establishment iconoclast, tweaking his more conservative opponents in dozens of “flame wars,” gaining notoriety in an unsuccessful bid for a House of Delegates seat, and later with a controversial role on the Fairfax County Electoral Board during 2013 Obenshain/Herring recount. (I criticized his actions here).
The thing about Schoeneman, though, is that he’s honest about who he is and what policies he favors. He deserves respect for that, and for his willingness to serve and engage in open debate.
Once, when a reader challenged his conservative bona fides in the comment section of a blog post, Brian responded that he never claimed to be a conservative, only a center-right pragmatist. In his current race, for example, he’s voiced opposition to repeal of the business, professional, occupational license (BPOL) tax in Fairfax—an apostasy to Virginia’s anti-tax warriors.
Clearly, that’s not the way to endear oneself to hardcore conservatives. Then again, he’s not running for Chairman of the local Tea Party, either. He’s running in Fairfax County, where his brand of Republicanism unquestionably has more appeal than it does in most other parts of the Commonwealth.
And guess what? We have room for that in our Party, and room for the vigorous, honest debate that Brian Schoeneman delights in engaging. If he were dishonest and, say, claimed to be a fire-breathing conservative while running away from a record to the contrary, it would be a different story altogether.
Does that mean I agree with Schoeneman? No, not on much, but at least I know where he stands. More importantly, I know that come November, we’re both going to cast our votes for the same candidates.
And that’s what it takes to build a political party. Fight it out on honest disagreements in the nomination contest to see who best represents the Party in that time and place. Then pool our strength to win in the General. Rinse, repeat, and learn from our mistakes. (Bonus points if you can do it without any of the vitriol from various quarters that has characterized this race).
I always urge fellow Republicans to adopt the Buckley Rule and vote for the most conservative candidate who can win against the Democrats.
Brian Schoeneman is probably not the most conservative candidate, and, quite honestly, he’d likely not get my vote if I were in the district. (Sorry, Brian!) But I bet at least a decent number of Sully Republicans will decide that he’s conservative enough, and that he can win.
If he does, he’ll have my full support in November.
In the meantime, good luck to him and to his opponents, John Guevara and John Litzenberger. I can’t wait for this race to be over!
37 comments
This is a true rarity for an old cantankerous person like me I agree with almost every word written here but I still have to admit I’m puzzled on how Mr. Schoeneman sees a winning path in a VERY local election having been in the actual district only a few months. I’ve lived in the 10th District’s Clarke County for 25 years and am still referred to as a newcomer by some of the locals but I suppose Fairfax is frankly a different slice of the evolving Virginia.
You just proved the point. You’ve lived in your community for 25 years and many people still don’t know you.
That’s what campaigns are for. Any reasonable candidate with resources and the time and energy to knock on doors can compete. That’s how anyone gets elected for the first time.
LOL O’ we all know each other trust me rather its the “newcomers” vs old timers I take it you don’t know much about rural Virginia and that’s a shame it is a great but dying tradition that people could learn a lot from.
Schoeneman made a calculated risk and got lucky. Guevara is a nobody without political experience (sorry, but cub scouts and little league don’t count) and Litzenberger is a somebody without political success. Had there been another Republican in the race that had local name recognition and political success, he would be dead on arrival.
I don’t perceive it to be an issue in the general election, either. Kathy Smith will run on education, to which Schoeneman has no answer. He may be able to intellectually out-wit her, but at the end of the day she’s got the Board of Education on her resume.
It was a ‘lucky’ move when Tom Davis and Pat Herrity decided Brian should be the sacrificial lamb to Kathy Smith? I suppose you could call it that.
For those who do not keep up, and the uninformed, Schoeneman can run as both a Liberal and Conservative at the same time.
That my friend is his only path to winning tomorrow.
Will he be successful as a Republican Democrat who knows how to sky dive?
Stay tuned, we shall know the answer shortly!
Bravo, Steve. The “that’s-not-my-favorite-candidate-so-I’m-staying-home-on-election-day” crowd can cost us (has cost us) elections. At this point, I can’t imagine ANY candidate being worse than what passes for a democrat these days. Please everybody, commit to fully supporting your Republican candidates.
So I was asleep. ASLEEP at 5:15AM and I see the post. So today Bull Elephant was my alarm clock. Its nice to see Bull Elephant not be so angry about Brian running. 🙂
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What a wonderfully thoughtful and insightful post, a refreshing perspective relative to the uninformed blather that gets peddled around here. I think your assessment is spot on.
While Brian might not be typified as a conservative extremist (who self identify as “activists”), he is unequivocally a conservative. And one whose position is unabashedly (often to his detriment) well known. There is a lot to be said for this, particularly when considering the weak stature and tenor of his opponents.
I fear what the election vs. Kathy Smith will look like. She brings to the table a level of nastiness that “running a clean campaign” won’t offset. That said I’d rather have Brian in a position to compete than the impotent Litzenberger or incompetent Guevara.
“Activists” is a code word for conservative extremists?
TL;DR
Get real. I’ve known Kathy for decades and she has never, ever, been as nasty as you and Spiker. Never.
She is unlikely to use half of the smears you’ve used. For instance, she’s not going to attack Brian’s family for sending their four year old to pre-school. That takes a level of indecency only you have shown capable of.
Kathy vs Brian would be a welcome change of pace from the poisonous discourse that you, Jeanine Martin, are overwhelmingly responsible for.
Please stop pretending that everyone across the commonwealth doesn’t know that you’ve lived in the gutter this entire race.
I’ve only–ONLY–ever said negative things about YOU. And I’ve only–ONLY–said them after you’ve lied and smeared Brian, Herrity, and others.
You’ve earned every single thing I and others have said about you, because you are a terrible human being. Please don’t think for a second that you are in any way decent or nice. Not after this debacle.
I appreciate the fact that The Bull Elephant has posted both sides of the story. Sometimes that doesn’t happen and it leaves me wondering. Regardless of who I agree with, I like getting a balenced perspective.
One of those flaws is that he despises the grassroots. Anyone who aligns himself with the Mainstreet Partnership is not a friend of conservatives.
Thanks Steve, I appreciate it. Whatever my flaws, and there are always folks lining up to tell them to me, I have tried to be consistent and honest, and that’s how intend to govern.
And, for the record, I don’t oppose rolling back BPOL. We just have to find a way to pay for it. In Fairfax that means finding $150 million in cuts, and that’s hard to do. If we can find them, I’d support it.
How many BILLIONS are in Fairfax County’s budget? I bet you could find a $150 to cut. Sounds like you’re not keen on making cuts in the budget. That’s a shame. Many Republicans expect a Republican representative to cut the budget and cut their taxes. Loudoun County Republicans on the BOS have cut taxes every year that they have been in office. I would love to see Fairfax do the same but it doesn’t sound like you are in favor of that.
The budget the Board will approve on Tuesday is around $3.85 billion. Over half of that goes to the schools, about 52%. Finding $150 million in cuts is not easy. John has proposed we get rid of BPOL, so I will leave it to him to explain where he would cut in order to get rid of it.
I would prefer that we reduce the residential property tax rate so that taxes aren’t going up on homeowners and renters, and that would require about $90 million in cuts. I’ve identified the ones I would make, which include getting rid of redundant departments like the a Office of Consumer Affairs and ending the pre-social security benefit we provide early retirees, among other things.
I want to cut taxes, but to cut taxes we have to offset the lost revenue with spending cuts, and that means making tough decisions, and we can’t afford to lose our AAA bond rating. Fairfax isn’t Loudoun and we have different challenges here you guys don’t have to deal with. Be thankful for that.
TL;DR
You probably should read it, as it’s a reasonable retort to your hackneyed all-knowing commentary.
Doing the arithmetic, it sounds like eliminating BPOL would need to be accompanied by an 8% decrease in spending. I don’t know any counties that could take that on.
You have no standing to suggest that someone should pay attention after your extremely disrespectful response to an honest and reasonable post by Chris Beer. You could have kept your mouth shut, or simply ignored the post, but you made a point of indicating you did not care at all when people took things too far.
Jason Kenney and Stephen Spiker have standing on this issue, but you do not.
If you have a shred of decency you will go back and read what you ignored and apologize.
http://masonconservative.typepad.com/the_mason_conservative/2015/04/its-time-for-the-adults-to-stand-up.html
“Jason Kenney and Stephen Spiker have standing on this issue, but you do not.”
Hah, The Bull Elephant has a self-appointed parliamentarian. This really is amateur hour.
“You have no standing to suggest that someone should pay attention after
your extremely disrespectful response to an honest and reasonable post
by Chris Beer. You could have kept your mouth shut, or simply ignored
the post, but you made a point of indicating you did not care at all
when people took things too far.”
Beer wrote a treatise when a paragraph could have sufficed. It was a poignant piece, but a bit too much rhetoric for my consumption. I stopped reading when he accused Schoeneman of shenanigans, a point that is not only baseless but trite. Reading it over now, I see him indulging the “lobbyist money” theory, which further substantiates my outright dismissal of the piece (and frankly nobody buys into the union money theory).
“If you have a shred of decency you will go back and read what you ignored and apologize”
Are you new to the Internet?
Brian’s supporters are such nasty, ugly, foul mouth people. It’s a shame to think that people will think them representatives of Republicans.
Surely you, of all people, ‘get it’.
Jeanine, c’mon. You try to hit Brian on taxes, he gives a great response on how he’d cut them for Fairfax residents, and your best response is “Too long, didn’t read”?
It was a joke. I was mimicking someone else. Brian will get it.
What a perfect encapsulation of your substantive contributions to “reporting” on this race.
Yes, cutting spending 3% is hard for a Democrat, but impossible for a Liberal, Howell type Republican like Brian Schoeneman.
“The thing about Schoeneman, though, is that he’s honest about who he is and what policies he favors.”
If Schoeneman is honest about who he is, why is his Discus user activety kept private? Isn’t he afraid that just who he is mite get out if people can read his previous posts and comments?
Electing Schoeneman is the same as electing Bearing Drift to the BOS. Schoeneman has said he supports those who support him. That would include HB 2313 Howell and the largest tax increase in Virgina history. And how much Union money supports Schoeneman? So, according to his own words, he will support the Union because they support him.You could see this for yourself if Schorneman would open his user activety? Why are you hiding Brian?
Brian Schoeneman is a Liberal, big spending, tax and spend Republican. Worse than a Democrat.
He does not want the truth to be heard in BD, so he has those who speak the truth banned, afraid the truth mite get out.
Don’t be fooled tomorrow. Vote for one of the other 2 candidate’s.
Unless of course you want Fairfax to look like BD and Washington. Then the choice is clear, vote for the big spending parachutist.
Wrong, wrong, WRONG. You don’t have to “pay” for spending cuts. Its the SPENDING that has to be justified. Its maddening to see the way that “republicans” have adopted the progressive language of “paying for cuts”, essentially deciding that current spending levels are the “correct” or “settled” levels that must be maintained. This is entirely wrong-headed.
The spending is already justified. This isn’t the federal government where we are spending more than we take in. We have revenue projections based on existing tax rates and if we change those rates, it has an impact on what we can spend. If we want to lower taxes we have to decrease spending, and since we know how much revenue the tax generates, we can estimate how much we need to cut to balance things out.
That’s how you build a responsible budget. We aren’t starting from scratch.
I’d bet good money that the BPOL tax for example, was instituted because government needed more money, NOT because the BPOL tax was considered the fair or ethical thing to do. The examination of the government funding equation is apparently ALWAYS on the side of “what do we need to do to continue to raise revenues”, neglecting the spending side to mere afterthought.
But we do know how people love their “services” that absolutely must persist, so I acknowledge and appreciate that the conversation is hard.
Thanks, Steve. I appreciate it. Whatever my flaws, and I know there are folks lining up to remind me of them, I have tried my best to be consistent and honest. That’s how I intend to govern.
And, for the record, I’m not against repealing BPOL. If we do repeal it, we’ve got to pay for that. In Fairfax, that means finding $150 million in cuts, and that’s not easy to do. If we could find the cuts, I’d support it.
Mighty classy of you to write that Steve..
Steve’s a class guy. It’s a very good post.
agreed. and Schoeneman is making good points. what is the world coming to?