As we’ve reported previously, 5th District Republican Rep. Robert Hurt has announced he won’t seek re-election. So far, three conservatives have stepped forward, including Bedford County real estate developer Jim McKelvey, Virginia Sen. Tom Garrett (R-Buckingham), and Michael Del Rosso, a corporate executive from Charlottesville.
Also are in the race are two little known candidates, occasional Democrat Joe Whited and young Lynchburg-native Andrew Griffin.
Background on the Race
Garrett was the first out of the gate to announce and begin campaigning for the office, and appears to have taken an early lead in endorsements from conservatives of all stripes. McKelvey, who is familiar to many residents of the district from past runs for office, has been mounting a respectable effort as well. Del Rosso is a newcomer to electoral politics, but has been showing decent signs of strength in certain quarters of the district.
The 5th District Republican Committee has chosen a convention as the means of nominating a successor to Hurt. This is important in a crowded race, as in a convention the nominee must be chosen by a majority of the delegates, not just a plurality. (In a convention, depending on the rules, one or more of the candidates with the lowest vote totals drops off the ballot after the first round.) This means that the eventual nominee will be a candidate most voters can agree on, instead of just the candidate who has a plurality of as small as perhaps 25%, as in a primary.
It’s also important because the dynamics of a convention tend to cut down on a lot of the negative campaigning that often characterizes a primary race. When all that a primary candidate needs to do to win is get a single vote more than the next guy in a one-round election, there is a lot of incentive to sling mud to depress the other guy’s votes. BUT, in a convention, the incentives are different.
If there are more than two candidates for a particular race at a convention, each candidate has every incentive to be respectful and play fair. Of course, they all want to win a majority on the first ballot, but failing that, they want to be the second choice of every voter backing another candidate. If one candidate alienates the supporters of another candidate, those supporters are unlikely to vote for the offending candidate if and when their first choice drops off the ballot.
The Attacks
All of this is why its so troubling to see that some candidates in the 5th apparently have received bad advice about peddling provably negative attacks on the frontrunner, Tom Garrett.
These attacks have been making their way around via email, and more recently, directly from the mouth of a staffer for Michael Del Rosso.
So what are they saying? Here’s a summary:
1. “Tom Garrett is a political hack in bed with Eric Cantor and the rest of the Richmond establishment.”
Dave and Tom
Wow…one has to be very ignorant of politics in Virginia—or be very cynically manipulative of those who are—to repeat this gem. Tom Garrett has a long history of taking on the establishment, advancing principle over power every time. One can choose to like him or not, but it’s simply not a legitimate criticism to say Garrett is all about the establishment when he’s the guy who has been the chief tormentor of Senate leadership. While it’s true that Garrett unfortunately endorsed Cantor two years ago when he was challenged by Dave Brat, I for one trust him when: (a) he explains that he did so on the basis of Brat’s previous work with Sen. Walter Stosch (one of the historically worst “RINO” type Republicans in the Senate), which is understandable; and (b) he says, credibly, that he admits he was wrong. He maintains a good friendship with Dave Brat to this day.
It is true that Garrett has lots of friends closely tied to the GOP establishment in Richmond. But then again, so do I, and so do a lot of other grassroots-type conservatives, and nobody accuses me of being an establishment guy because of it. I suppose that’s because I’m not standing in the way of anyone’s blind ambition.
Sorry…nice try, but it’s not a black mark on someone’s character to be friendly towards the people with whom you work closely every November to get a Republican ticket elected, or in Garrett’s case, every legislative session to get good conservative legislation passed.
2. “Tom Garrett is not a real conservative.”
I could talk about a litany of conservative legislation, or leading the charge against the McAuliffe administration trying to allow non-citizens to vote, or conservative efforts against wasteful spending, or tying for the best conservative legislative scorecard in the Senate. Instead, I’ll just point out a few of the folks endorsing Tom Garrett’s run for Congress: Sen. Dick Black (R-Loudoun), a longtime stalwart hero of the conservative movement in Virginia; E.W. Jackson (a real squishy moderate that one, eh?); Mike Farris, Patrick Henry College Chancellor and head of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, just to name a few.
I don’t know about you, but if Dick Black says he’s good on conservative issues, I’m satisfied.
3. “Tom Garrett is a career politician.”
This apparently was a charge uttered by at least one staffer for Del Rosso. This staffer apparently has a hard time understanding what the word “career” means, as Garrett has been in the General Assembly for a grand total of four years. Four. Previously, his career was spent as a prosecutor where he sent child rapists to prison, among other things. Before that, he did this other thing that, as far as I can tell, the staffer’s boss has never done:
First Lieutenant Tom Garrett
4. “Tom Garrett is a carpetbagger who moved into the district to run for Congress.”
Another charge leveled by the Del Rosso camp, and a pretty laughable one. Garrett graduated high school in Louisa County, served in the Army, went to law school in Richmond, moved back to Louisa, and has represented a big chunk of the 5th District in the General Assembly since 2012. Not exactly a recent New Jersey transplant. He moved down the road to Buckingham over two years ago—when Robert Hurt was still expected to have a long career in Congress—so any charge that he moved into the district to make this run is just plain silly.
The Final Word
None of this is to say that 5th District voters should or shouldn’t support Tom Garrett, or that they should or shouldn’t support Michael Del Rosso. As far as I can tell, along with Jim McKelvey these three candidates offer conservative Republicans three viable, conservative options to represent them in Congress.
We write this only to dispel the untruths being circulated, and to caution against the exuberance some campaign staff may have about tearing down opponents. In a convention setting, such excessive enthusiasm is more likely to have the opposite of its intended effect, particularly when what’s being peddled is so obviously false.
24 comments
I was puzzled by this article leveling accusations from unnamed “staff”, unattributed to anything other than anonymous e-mails. Where did this “flying” take place? How extensive was it? At first, I attributed the article to a hack job – something increasingly familiar in national campaigns. Then I read of the comments where you stated, “no, I am not going to give more legs…because I have too much respect for them and their candidate.: And, “if I had an axed to grind, I would have called specific individuals out, but I don’t, and won’t, because I have too much respect for those people and all the good work they’ve done and continue to do”. The way this article was presented does not reflect respect. It appears to me that if you truly find “gutter politics” distasteful, and you truly respect the candidate, and by inference the staff, you would contact the candidate so that he could either counsel the staffer(s) to prevent this type of besmirching behavior or change the staff. Your failure to do so, if that is indeed the case, suggests that this was an attempt to smear a very well-qualified individual. The Bull Elephant has had a number of very good, solid postings. This was not one of them.
The Senator’s camp is not doing this whining because they are offended that politics is being practiced ; they are doing it because they are trying to be slick. Dismissing uncomfortable facts by accusing the opposition of distorting them may seem to them smart, but it is also slippery.
slippery.
The Senator’s opponents are not supposed to draw
any conclusions from the fact that he supported the
poster boy for crony politics against Dave
Brat’s historic insurgency, while insinuating that Brat
was a tool of the RINO Establishment ?
Isn’t “career politician” an accurate label for a Senator on
the lookout for the next rung up the political ladder? A senator
spoken of in December, 2015 as contemplating a run for governor, who
turns on a dime and announces his candidacy for Congress via
a conference call within hours of Robert Hurt’s
announcement that he will not be running sure
sounds like a guy trying to make
politics a career to me.
does Jim McKelvey have a website?
When you stated that this is what THEY are “saying,” are you just referring to verbal comments? I would be more concerned if these charges were on mailers, ads, or in robo calls. Impossible to control what unnamed individuals are “saying.”
I am in the 5th and 100% behind Jom McKelvey !
It it is just a shame, a real shame, that articles like this are written. This attempt to sideswipe all competition to Tom Garrett is gutter politics. It is exactly what it purports to be happening in that baseless claims are being leveled at good candidates. Problem being that all a attacked for the benefit of Tom Garrett. This is shameful!
WOW this is alarming. Looks like wholesale attacks on opposition for the sole benefit of Tom Garrett. I know nothing of the author, but from this I question his ethics. For example;
Item 1 “Tom Garrett is a political hack in bed with Eric Cantor and the rest of the Richmond establishment.”
Item 2. “Tom Garrett is not a real conservative.”
Item 3. “Tom Garrett is a career politician.”
Item 4. “Tom Garrett is a carpetbagger who moved into the district who moved into the district to run for congress.”
So if, as claimed above, all these are taken from emails, then let’s see the evidence. Or is this just a false claim consisting of fabricated statements which are Tom Garrett concerns?
Richard, please don’t take this personally. It’s not an attack on your candidate, whoever that it. It’s aimed at reigning in some unhelpful rhetoric that (a) yes, I can verify is out there; and (b) no, I am not going to give it more legs or try to embarrass the specific individuals behind it, because I have too much respect for them and their candidate.
As the campaign manager for Michael Del Rosso, I am asking you to please share your citations for the above quotes. I appreciate you trying not to embarrass the specific individuals behind it but I would like the voters of the 5th District to know. Thank you Steve.
Best,
Gray Delany
Del Rosso for Congress
Campaign Manager
I think this definitively answers the question whether anyone was implying Tom Garrett is a “carpet bagger”. Interesting that Mr. Del Rosso’s campaign manager is using a pseudonym.
I use Facebook to comment and the comment posts as Peter. I don’t know why.
Here is the context Tyler.
#1 – I’m familiar with Gray’s comment, and it was in the context of defending Pat Cardwell’s short time in residence in his district, as well as Tom Garrett’s short time in residence in his district, in that Gray was implying that it does NOT matter how long somebody has lived in a district to run. You are posting Gray’s comment out of context and then claiming it means the OPPOSITE of what he said. Whether you lack the cognitive capability to understand this or are just being deliberately mendacious, you will have to tell us. Bottom line, I don’t think anyone in Del Rosso’s campaign even cares how long Tom Garrett has lived in the district, because I sure have not heard them waste any breath on the topic.
#2 – The entire article is full of questionable, self-serving, in-artfully phrased quotes such as “Tom Garrett is a carpetbagger who moved into the district to run for Congress.” Only the author, Steve Albertson, can say where he got these quotes, and the fact that he put the statements in quotes means that somebody said those exact words. By all appearances nobody in the Del Rosso campaign, or even associated with the campaign, said any such things. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind being quoted in an article, as it’s free publicity. I’m also sure they don’t spread lies or rumors.
By all appearances this article looks like a piece of journalistic malpractice; a libelous hit piece self-serving to the Garrett campaign. You would think that Mr. Albertson, a Georgetown Law graduate, would know better. He throws a “libel hand grenade,” and when challenged to put-up-or-shut-up regarding his fabricated quotes made by parties unknown, gives the most weasel of replies, “no, I am not going to give it more legs or try to embarrass the specific individuals behind it, because I have too much respect for them and their candidate.”
You would think that Mr. Albertson would have the modicum of character necessary to apologize to Mr. Del Rosso and his Campaign. I doubt that Mr. Albertson’s employer Skadden, Arps appreciates what this does to their reputation.
By all appearances, it looks like the article “False accusations fly in 5th District Congressional race” is the only source of “false accusations” in this race.
Tyler, with all of the energy you’re putting into this, taking an out of context swipe by completely reversing Gray’s innocuous comments and libeling him in the process, what’s your involvement with all this libelous mudslinging toward Del Rosso and the Garrett Campaign?
And Tyler, while we ponder “Whether you lack the cognitive capability to understand this or are just being deliberately mendacious,” (and the jury is still out) your remark “Interesting that Mr. Del Rosso’s campaign manager is using a pseudonym,” was no doubt made to sully Mr. Delany’s integrity. Delany’s posting ID is “Peter” and his message is signed “Gray Delany” because “Gray” is his nickname and “Peter” is his legal name.
Tyler, any chance you have the modicum of character necessary to apologize to both Mr. Delany and Mr. Del Rosso, as well as to his Campaign?
“Curran” – Welcome – I see this is your first post on anything, ever. You even brought out your thesaurus and then quoted yourself in the same post – Bravo! I’m so glad you can join the conversation, which was by Gray’s request no doubt – seeing as you are old school chums and all.
I do find it very, very interesting that Gray would post two responses, delete them, and then I see a wall of text from someone who has never posted on anything, ever. Curiously, someone who isn’t even a resident of Virginia, never mind the 5th District. “You” are obviously personally and emotionally concerned by what I observed, as you have seen fit to respond not to the main post, but rather a tertiary sub-comment – something that consisted all of 28 words, which you categorize as ‘mudlinging’. Pot calling the kettle?
As to the content of my post in which I stated “Interesting that Mr. Del Rosso’s campaign manager is using a pseudonym”, as the post appeared as “Peter” but then Gray identified himself. I am sure you are aware of what a pseudonym is, or are you being simply being mendacious?
“Gray” Delany is known as “Gray” publicly in every forum, including when he introduces himself in person, his book and online persona’s, except this online profile, which is the very definition of a pseudonym. If fairness, Gray attempted to explain this concern, according to one of his redacted posts, by stating “I use Facebook to comment and the comment posts as Peter. I don’t know why.” I could have accepted that – technology can be tricky at times.
I have no involvement in either campaign, though unlike you (if this was in fact written by Curran, a resident of Washington, DC), I am a delegate, so I am very curious about learning more about the candidates as I choose whom to support.
That said, I have heard the comments referenced by Mr. Albertson personally from Mr. Delany. Certainly not all of them, but in a five-minute conversation he implied that Mr. Garrett is an establishment ‘guy’ tied to Eric Cantor and he wasn’t really a conservative. Not third hand, not in an email, but personally.
Mr. Delany knows he is the culpable party for the lies, slander and innuendo against Mr. Garrett, even if Mr. Albertson has been gracious enough to avoid naming him outright. But when you call in question Mr. Albertson’s character, and the many other people who have heard and seen the comments he references in his post, as I have, he should release the emails.
Additionally, for anyone to believe the preceding post was not written or directed by Gray Delany, well, one must indeed “lack the cognitive capability to understand this or are just being deliberately mendacious.” I believe the only person being mendacious is Mr. Delany. Sometimes being slick can blow up in your face – Are you aware that Disqus tracks IP addresses as well as deleted posts?
I have many friends that strongly support Mr. Del Rosso, and with good reason. I like his experience and stance on many issues. If he has one-tenth the character I believe he does, he should immediately terminate Mr. Delany and publicly distance himself from these comments.
I await an apology.
If your heart is palpitating today over this level of competing Republicans “tearing down their opponents” just wait, if President Trump is sitting in the WH next year, the great voter base flush event will begin in the Republican majority House and Senate of the professional political class and the spill over will definitely impact state parties. You can file the he/she would be a good voter choice because incumbent x,y or z said so under no longer relevant because no one will be listening. Back to the old days of the former early 20th century and bare knuckles politics. The snowflakes won’t be around long and party messaging will even be more meaningless then it is today. You can adapt to change, deny it or just be plain flattened by it but the one thing you likely can’t do is play by the old rules and expect to win. If you feel you are to good to get in the trench and grapple, you better learn to counter punch or look for a new profession. Otherwise you are going to likely end up being “Cantored” regardless of whether you supported him or not.
All’s fair in love and politics. I can’t see the grave sins committed by Del Rosso’s campaign.
You are being quiet judgmental yourself, Steve, AGAINST the Del Rosso campaign. You castigate Del Rosso’s campaign’s “lies”, “smears”, “untruths”, “plain silly”, and “provably negative attacks”. And here’s YOUR dozzies against Del Rosso’s campaign – “ignorant of politics in Virginia” and a gem, “cynically manipulative”.
You support Garrett’s campaign with your OPINIONS; and Del Rosso’s campaign does for him too.
Connie, I’m not saying anything here about Del Rosso except that he’s A GOOD CONSERVATIVE. I’m saying these attacks made on his behalf are unwise. If I had an axe to grind I would have called specific individuals out, but I don’t, and won’t because I have too much respect for those people and all the good work they’ve done and continue to do.
Another reason why we need to elect qualified women to the Va General Assembly
And Congress.
Good piece Mr. Albertson. I saw McKelvey, Garrett, and Del Rosso a few weeks ago down in Franklin County. All gave a good accounting. When I left that night I mentioned to my wife that anyone of the three I would be happy with.
It would be ashame if an over eager staffer ala Ted Cruz’s man would short circuit Del Rosso, who has alot to say.
what is your problem with Whited?
He donated to Democrat sleazeball John Edwards for President. And to the West Virginia Democratic Committee. And to ActBlue. Other than his confusion about what party he belongs to, I’ve got no problem with him at all.
we all make mistakes. many of us have donated to RPV.
That’s the spirit! Let’s all do what we can to disparage our own state organization.