Ready R-Naught: This Virus Isn't Stupid

HOW DO YOU HAVE A MILLION DEAD AMERICANS THAT IS NOT AN ISSUE IN A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN?

In a story published in the Washington Post on April 24, 2022, about a debate that apparently occurred at some unspecified time in March, by a reporter who covers Virginia but did not know the city that Delegate Alfonso Lopez the Hispanic Democrat from Arlington, represents, the headline read: "Don Beyer's First Primary Challenger Asks Him to Pass the Torch." Beyer's challenger? A daughter of Indian and Latino immigrants who wants to be the first woman of color to represent one of the most diverse, and definitely the most reliable Democrat Party District in Virginia, and Beyer had an easy answer to the request to pass the torch: the Gonzaga High School and Williams College alumnus who inherited his Daddy's auto dealership has far more experience and more connections and plans to serve for at least 20 years--a response that did not even find a puzzled look from the audience of progressives.

Beyer, who felt so confident after claiming over 75% of the vote in his last race against the VA8GOP nominee Jeff Jordan, he joined the Congressional Free Thought Caucus, the "atheist club in Congress", and appeared in an interview with the Secular Coalition of America to boast of his pride that his four kids rejected God, church and religion, decided to show up late for the affair held at Makeda, an Ethiopian restaurant, where Victoria Virasingh told the crowd that she was "running because I know the future ahead of us is brighter when we bring diverse voices, diverse experiences, a lived experience, to the halls of Congress", but she failed to convince Lopez, or even any of the Ethiopians who had attended the event, and perhaps because she admits that she has not even one complaint about his leadership in Congress, not even complaining about his excuse for tardiness--casting proxy votes for other members, a recent campaign produced by his campaign to deflect the fact that he has the worst roll call vote in Congress, despite living the closest to the Hill.

Now, expected to easily defeat his primary challenger in June, Beyer now faces another challenge from a woman candidate, Karla Lipsman, an immigrant from the Ukraine, a trending issue in the news, which will probably find Beyer simply agreeing with whatever the President does, which performs well in NOVA focus groups, and the Towson economics major, with an engineer graduate degree from Johns Hopkins, says: "I am the only candidate who has over a decade experience in Northern Virginia’s defense and national security community, holding key senior level positions and obtaining the highest security clearances. Our biggest threats are Russia, China, and North Korea. I speak Russian and can have conversations in multiple languages. Our security is far too important to wait on a ‘learning curve.’ I can attend a security briefing, analyze the information, and make an informed decision on DAY ONE to protect our communities and our country!"

VA8GOP is convinced, or at least telling donors, that is a winning message in VA8, the top gaining Democrat Party district in 2016, bounding from D+15 to D+21, but which will probably find the former U.S. Ambassador simply repeating his "40 years of business experience" sales pitch about being the "only one who has the resume", the same campaign he ran in 2014 that forced Lopez out of the race.