Northern VA has long been the central hub for commerce and public policy due to its proximity to Washington DC and the federal government. I like to tell people, “we are where the action is”, when they ask why I stayed in NOVA.
My family immigrated to to America from Egypt when I was only 40 days old. We first lived in Alexandria in 1980, before my father later retired from the Egyptian government to open his own business in 1983. Back then, you could buy a simple yet spacious single family home in Vienna for about $125,000, and that’s what we did.
I live and breathe Northern Virginia. I went to high school here before going on to George Mason University, and have worked here ever since. NOVA is my home, and as the years have gone on, I’ve seen the changing demographics of this region firsthand. Northern Virginia was never a place where people from the outside moved in. My family and I considered ourselves natives as we easily assimilated into American life.
Flash forward to the fall of 2008, where every politician’s favorite word was twisting in the air – “change”. The whispers of change were especially apparent in Virginia, specifically Northern Virginia.
Gone were the days where Republicans raked in the dough winning in election after election. The 11th Congressional District of Virginia was about to fall. The new prince, Gerry Connolly, was puckering up for his close up. Little did we Virginians know that this was the beginning of a dreadful 15 years of Democratic rule in NOVA but here we are. The party was over. That election was the beginning of the GOP’s downfall in Northern Virginia, and the party hasn’t recovered since. In fact, it got worse.
Frank Wolf retired – bye bye 10th District. Then state election after state election, the losses came. There were wins here and there, and the Democrats didn’t always control both chambers in Virginia, but their stranglehold on the region was becoming apparent.
I think we can all agree on the events I’ve just mentioned here. I’m not about to leave NOVA because being a resident in this area for my entire life, I have no idea what the Republican Party has been doing for the past 15 years. And I speak for other people as well, we have no idea what their strategy is moving forward.
But I can tell what their strategy has been up until now: Nothing.
Ever since 2008, the GOP has left my region for dead. I’ve talked to enough activists and party leaders to know that what the GOP is doing in NOVA is akin giving up, because that’s exactly what they did.
I’m not a party insider, but I do understand the dynamics of not putting resources into something you have no shot at winning. But the problem here is we’re not even trying to win, but waiting for Reagan-like figures to magically pop up then ride off of their coattails. Then say “see, that’s OUT candidate. We made them.” Kind of like a kid taking credit for the “A” in the group project when they never showed up to do the work.
That’s what the Republican Party is doing in Northern Virginia. Minimal effort (if any) in the hopes of stumbling onto a few lightening in a bottle candidates.
They put minimal effort in candidate development and have lagged behind the Democrats in GOTV efforts, especially in early voting. And when they do put some effort into candidates and lose, it’s ALWAYS the candidates’ fault.
And the most rotten apple in NOVA, Gerry Connolly, puts fear into their hearts. They don’t want to go near him and are waiting for his retirement. Great way to jazz up the base.
I respect the people in the GOP who fight night and day to try and turn this thing around, but I have little to no patience any longer to sit by and agree that their strategy is working. “The demographics in Northern Virginia have changed” excuse is not valid, and it never should have been valid.
You can’t wait out people like Connolly to retire and you can’t pull back on resources in NOVA any longer. It’s time to soften the target and enact a 5-year strategy to turn Northern Virginia back in the red column.
It will require investment in candidate development and GOTV efforts. I appreciate Governor Youngkin’s efforts this past election in promoting early voting, but he can’t be the only one promoting this. It will require the RNC to focus its efforts on NOVA and helping Virginia GOP.
And for candidates running for office in NOVA, I have a simple message for you: don’t be afraid of a blue region. Swing voters want you to stare down the devil in blue areas and take on the Democrats. The more candidates go to their corner and only campaign to their base, the worse things get. They must campaign everywhere with no fear and stand up for conservative principles and values. They are American principles and values.
This region is critical to the Republican Party. To sit back and let the Democrats destroy it while we sit on our hands waiting things out has proven to be disastrous. We can’t let the last 15 years happen in the next 5. If we do that, the GOP can kiss this region goodbye for good.
10 comments
This incoherent thread is proof Biden will be re-elected by united Democrats against fractured Republicans.
Voters elected the same school board. No, not the same people. The same left-wing ideology wrecking our schools. Why?
WTF??
And again I ask: WTF was that “Republican response to the State of the Union speech”?
Katie Britt, who is posturing as a cash-strapped middle-class mom who stays up nights worrying about inflation, is actually a lawyer and former CEO, married to a lobbyist who is a former NFL player.
Was that comedy routine generated by AI?
WTF was it with the breathy, little-girl cheerleader voice?
She was speaking from a kitchen that 98% of the population cannot afford.
10% of the public loved it, the other 90% were laughing their asses off.
That cleavage with a cross hanging in it?
The GOP needs to find the consultant who told them that this dimwit should deliver their response and shoot the fool. I thought it was a commercial for some sort of kitchen product or a nifty trick to drop 20 pounds in 2 days. When I realized who/what it was I burst out laughing.
That speech should be included in a skit on SNL this week. The phrase “Stepford Wife” came to mind.
Now we know what a cross between amateur community theatre and porn looks like. Why is she smiling and laughing while talking about the southern border?
Love that they decided parking her in the kitchen (where women belong!) for this speech was a fantastic idea. Also love that she was telling women in America that Republicans have their back—from her high end designer kitchen. $800 faucet in the background.
I generally don’t say anything negative about what people choose to name their kids — but — her kids are named Bennett and Ridgeway — this is not a joke.
How stupid does a political party have to be to assign this SOTU response to a bible banger from Alabama?
Alabama’s median life expectancy is almost a decade less than that in some blue states.
She was speaking from a kitchen that 98% of the population cannot afford.
Right EC Dumbass… Remember when Nancy Pelosi showed us her fancy sub zero refrigerator full of gourmet ice cream… Nancy was a minor millionaire when she entered Congress and now well it is hard to tell how much she is worth because Congress scum don’t have to disclose that but some say 250 million… And don’t tell me about her f..king husband… they made money from insider trading…
The Democrat party has absolutely NO connection to the working class anymore. It is a collection of boomer shitheads like you and soccer mommies with their pathetic pansy husbands along with the monolithic black vote.
It is funded by hedge funds and oligarchs etc..
And not that the Repukes are any better… but people like you are just plain stupid…
Governor Dumbkin made a 20-minute long whiny, pitiful, basically stupid speech about the death of his attempt to raid the state treasury on behalf of one of his multi-billionaire friends.
Gov. Red Vest was born on third base, thinks he hit a triple. There’s a reason Carlyle fired him . . . he’s dumb.
Thank god for Democratic control on the General Assembly, now we know we will survive until he’s out of office. In other good news, Miyares and Sears will disappear from view after December 2025. Talk about three empty suits.
The author makes a valid point. In Virginia except for the Governor, we see little sign of GOP leadership. Paraphrasing W. Edwards Deming, a renowned productivity professor; All the problems and weaknesses of an organization are rooted at the top – the leader. “…It is always the leader…” Always the leader, a CEO, a Ship’s Captain, or a political party will set the course and prescribe the initiatives to be successful. Successful leaders develop “followership,’ and create policies, and opportunities for people to be successful. The GOP in Virginia, and especially in NVA, is in dire need of a leader who can be successful.
Good analysis, Mena. The Governors PAC, House & Senate caucus avoided NoVa this fall, except backing a few races they thought they could win which were led by bad candidates (notably, Juan Paul Segura and Bill Woolff). But here’s the problem you need to take back to the growing community of Arabs and Muslims — get involved more! My take on NoVa after being a losing candidate for State senate in Fairfax County is this — Republicans can count on white people to vote for them,which is about 35 to 40 percent of the vote, but wont be able to get a majority without Latino and Asian voters. “Asian” is a huge category, as is “Latino.” The problem as I see it is that these various ethnic groups are just not very engaged in the civic life of the community, and thus, are not involved with the Republican Party, nor the Democrats to any great extent. Take Hindu and Sikh voters. They are by and large liberal voters, but are business owners and support quality education.; However, they put their money into litigation on the TJ standards and lost at the Supreme Court, instead of getting engaged in supporting GOP endorsed candidates for schoolboard–andin a serious way,raising money, going door to door and doing more than just inviting candidates to festivals. Latino voters also are disengaged. It seems to me that whites and blacks (i.e. native Americans) are more engaged in the political and civic life of their communities. As a result, the Democrats have a permanent majoirty –blacks, white liberals, and minorities, for whom they do nothing for. Democrats are very good at stoking emotion and fear to stay in power — ie. diverting the entire 2023 election to the abortion issue, which impacts so few, and deflecting from their bad policies on crime, schools, energy, and taxes. Successful models for white-non white republican “partnerships}” can be found in Miami Dade county, where Cubans and Orthodox Jews help the traditional whites obtain GOP seats, and in Orange County CA, which combined the VIetnamese and White population, you have a GOP majority –at least on the local level. Unless and until the GOP units start recruiting non white people to join their ranks,and until those groups agreeto be engaged, we just wont stand a chance not just in Nova, but other suburban areas. Just my2 cents
What the rest of Virginia needs to do is to secede and join West Va. There is no way in hell that Nova will be anything but NYC , Coastal California/Oregon/Washington. It is chock full of government workers and contractors who are enriched by the federal government in a way that is heinous. Salaries in 6 figures for bullshit jobs… if you go sixty miles away to Central Va… that money doesn’t flow there… well except that now you have federal gumment and contractors “working” from home. And it costs too much to live in the Emerald City there…
God look at Tysons Corner… a city built on the federal government spending billions of dollars…
So no… a party that pretends to want to limit the federal government… Corporate Repukes like Youngkin are not going to win there.
“What the rest of Virginia needs to do is to secede and join West Va. ”
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Virginia is dark blue. Most of the Republicans in office are really Crat’s in disguise. I may be moving. Tired of the constant tension downtown each January. And, the crooked media reporting via the “talking box” over and over, Biden, Trump, abortion, immigration, another shooter, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. Putin, Putin, Putin, CR, Omnibus, Oh yea, the big one, kiss my ass good bye it’s climate change! Is the government proposing that if we use TikTok, it will now be mandatory to have an email address that ends with .comie instead of .com?