As Fairfax County Goes...

Pat Herrity's loss on Tuesday for a position of which most Americans have never heard -- Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County, Virginia -- is an unfortunate setback for Republicans and a sharp illustration of the problems the GOP faces coming back in the suburbs, especially in the Old Dominion. Don't underestimate the bellwether importance of Fairfax County.  With a population of slighlty over 1,000,000 (about 1/7 of Virginia as a whole), a 2004 median household income of $83,000, and county output larger than the GDPs of many nations, it's the high-tech and defense contracting center of Virginia (at one point, over half the world's Internet traffic ran through the county every day).  It's the corporate headquarters of ExxonMobil and thousands of high-tech entrepreneurs. It's the sort of place Republicans ought to be winning. Yet for a special election for the head of county government, Republicans couldn't win on what started out as a snow day with only 16 percent turnout.  (The "snow day" reference may mean little to Northerners, but as President Obama has discovered, DC-area residents are the country's biggest snow wimps.  Remember when snow was supposed to be good for Republicans?) What happened? In the 1980s and 1990s, Republicans in many parts of the country ran on an argument that tax dollars are the voters' money and that voters should ask "why are you not returning my money to me?"  In places like Northern Virginia however, the debate has shifted:  now, the question voters ask is "why have you not taken my high taxes and used them to provide things I want, such as good roads and schools?" Transportation, in particular, is a huge issue in Northern Virginia.  Commutes, both into DC and around the region are among the worst in the country, fueled by high growth, lots of residential building, and not enough pavement.  Governor Mark Warner won election in 2001 in part on a promise to widen Interstate 66 between Washington and the Beltway (it never happened, but that's another story). Republicans were seen, with some justice, to block progress for six years of popular Democratic governors.  And they lost in 2001, 2005, 2006, 2008, and now again in early 2009.  It's time to ask whether Virginia Republicans are in danger of placing themselves on transportation in the same position as Margaret Thatcher's Tories did on the British National Health Service:  they may say all the right words, but voters simply won't believe them.  Herrity talked about transportation, but were the voters listening?  Many simply believe that deep in the heart of a Virginia Republican lies a tax-cutter, not a road-builder. Sure, the Washington Post is still basking in a warm Obama glow, but it's tough to disagree with its conclusion that Fairfax County voters kind of like their increased spending, maybe want some more (and definitely a rail line to Dulles Airport, now to be funded by the Feds), and that "Herrity's message of change, in particular his pledge to bring more scrutiny to county spending, alarmed some residents who are happy with services as they are." Herrity may be, and probably is, right in saying that "Fairfax County is facing a fiscal train wreck."  Yet Jeremiads haven't been popular since, well, Jeremiah.  It may well be a rough couple of years for the county, budget-wise, particularly as median existing single-family home prices declined 13.1 percent from January to November 2008 (though to $539,000, a figure of which most counties can only dream).  But not many people really care about the county budget, and if they think about it, they'd probably rather have a D than an R, someone who seems to favor government services rather than a conservative, in charge of the budget process. This is the second special election in two weeks (the other was a state House race in Alexandria/Fairfax) that Republicans lost by margins of less than 2% (the state House race was lost by 17 votes).  People are tired of politics right now, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that the GOP's ground game efforts fell short in Fairfax, which at one time was a base of Republican strength in Virginia.  Turnout on Tuesday was reported to be lowest in the urban areas that have fueled Democratic victories in Fairfax in statewide elections.  Fairfax County elects its supervisors by districts; there are currently only two Republicans on the Board. That's what we're dealing with.  Republicans can say what we want about the stimulus, but when over $700 million in transportation money shows up in Virginia, the voters will be happy -- and on current showing, are likely to thank the Democrats. We need some new thinking on transportation, in this commonwealth at least.  The late Paul Weyrich -- hardly a tax-raiser -- wrote about the Republicans' apparent obstinacy on transportation in 2006.  He had a point.  Better ideas, anyone?