This is a major bummer, and also a wakeup call to Virginia Democrats that we can't get complacent after our amazing victories of 2006, 2007 and 2008.Republican John Cook narrowly defeated Democrat Ilryong Moon in the race to fill an open seat on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, according to unofficial returns counted today.The bottom line is that we should have won this race, but Republicans apparently were more energized than we were. That's gotta stop. Now.
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Cook's victory in Democratic-leaning Fairfax could be an important symbolic boost to Virginia Republicans heading into the 2009 races for governor and House of Delegates...
P.S. The apparent Moon loss comes after two VERY narrow Democratic victories that shouldn't have been so narrow - Charniel Herring over Joe Murray (by 16 votes) in January and Sharon Bulova over Pat Herrity (by less than 1 percentage point) in February. So, this isn't just an isolated incident.
UPDATE: Three points from FCDC Chair Scott Surovell. First, Braddock is a Republican-leaning district. Second, special elections favor Republicans, who tend to be older, wealthier (thus, more time to get involved, vote, etc. in this difficult economy), less diverse than Democrats. Third, Republicans right now are more motivated than Democrats, a situation we've got to turn around over the next few months.
