This past Tuesday, a special election was held here in Fairfax County, Virginia. It was for Chairman of the Board of Supervisors. I slipped up and voted for the Republican.
Actually it isn't as bad as you might think. Patrick Herrity ran as a fiscal conservative, attacking Sharon Bulova, a liberal Democrat, for her mismanagement of county funds. Right now, this locality has a 650 million dollar budget shortfall. Patrick Herrity sent out mailings over the past month describing the various programs that he was seeking to cut back or eliminate entirely.
So how did he do? Well he lost of course. Fairfax County is the most liberal county in the state. However, it was a very close election. Why was it so close? I think the simple reason is because Herrity ran as a fiscal conservative, losing out to Bulova by a 1206 votes.
Will Herrity be a significant factor to the future of the Republican party? Probably not. But the Republican party, should take notes as to what happened. Even in a very liberal county such as Fairfax, fiscal conservatism will take a large amount of votes.