Chairman Stewart,
It was not the illegal immigration issue that hurt John McCain in Prince William County it WAS YOU. You were unable to set aside your differences with McCain and work for the common good of the party. You were supposed to be campaigning for McCain, instead the day before the election you’re tearing him down talking about his mistakes and what he should have done. In fact, you sounded defeated in the comments that you made on TooConservative.net. I’d suggest watching what the Democrats were doing on Monday night. They obviously energized their electorate. Guess what, that was your job to do but nothing that I’ve seen remotely suggests that you even attempted to do that.
Republicans should be asking themselves whether or not Chairman Stewart worked on behalf of the Party to elect John McCain or if his disagreement with him on the issue of ‘illegal immigration’ caused him to sabotage McCain’s campaign in Prince William. Personally, I tend to believe this argument holds some credence and apparently I’m not the only one.
From TooConservative.net, we have the following:
First,
As a PWC Republican I’ve been dismayed at your failure to show the level of support for the McCain-Palin Ticket that is so vital in PWC.
If McCain doesn’t Win PWC why shouldn’t us Republican’s in PWC not hold a Recall?
– PWConservative
And secondly,
Mr. Stewart-
I have to say I agree with PW Conservative. Although I have never met you personally, every quote I have seen from you lately in the press has been negative about our ticket i.e. McCain hasn’t focused enough on illegal immigration and it will hurt him and McCain didn’t give me a big enough role at his rally. How can you justify such tepid support? As “The Preiminent Northern Virginia Republican” (I believe this is also a self-appointed title by you), we need your full support, not your snipping and backbiting. Please take the opportunity to defend yourself if I am being unfair here.
– Huh?
Followed by Chairman Stewart’s responses:
Gus,
I believe the McCain campaign could have piggy backed on that success by more closely aligning itself with the PWC Board and our crackdown on illegal immigration. It chose not to do so. I think that was a mistake given that the local voters rewarded the Board with reelection after we imposed the crackdown. I understand that McCain has a national electorate and has decided to avoid the illegal immigration issue on a national level. This will, however, hurt him in PWC tomorrow.
– Corey Stewart
Perhaps this is the final nail in the cofin for Corey’s higher political aspirations.
This is delusional. McCain had a national campaign to run – a campaign where he hoped to appeal to Latino voters as well as white bread suburbanites.
It’s a further delusion on Stewart’s part that a majority of PWC’s electorate supported his stance on immigration. Even the people at the large BOCS meeting who spoke against his policy outnumbered his supporters. There is no evidence that his win was based on his immigration stance – no evidence provided in the voter satisfaction poll, which could be interpreted in more than one way, and no evidence in continued public support by large numbers of citizens. Many people voted for him merely because of the “R” next to his name.
Señor Greg also bashed McCain early on. He never supported him. Since he is the handler of Señor Stewart, the 2 go hand in hand.
This election was all about Señor Stewart. Just look at the remarks he has made. ME ME ME ME ME
Great post Alanna! Corey, as usual, believes he is smarter than everyone else, and yet, he was clearly out manuevered on April 29th. I had such high hopes for Corey, and even still, it saddens me, on some level, to hear his disconnect with reality. JOhn McCain has served in the Senate for almost thirty years, won a presidential nomination in spite of refusing to give in to the immigration hate rhetoric and Corey thinks he “knows” how to win an election better?! Wow, that is truly arrogant.
This must be very painful for Corey Stewart and Greg Leteicq. I’d add in another stooge for our trio: John Stirrup, who was shown on national TV screaming with maniacal fervor at the GOP convention. They wanted McCain to win, but their inner demons got in the way.
At one point, they were devoted to Republican rule above all else. This is not something to brag about, considering they had the best interest of Prince William County to consider as well, but I will at least give them that: they were loyal Republicans once upon a time.
But the spring of 2007, Letiecq and Stirrup, and then finally Stewart became convinced that immigration demagoguery was the only way to save the Republican party from defeat in 2008. During the bruising battle for control of the BOCS, the passage of the “Immigration Resolution,” and the 2007 election that soon followed, they somehow became more devoted to the tactic than they were to the overall cause. In the tactic of immigration demagoguery, you see, they were indispensable. In the larger cause to elect John McCain, they were but bit players.
And by the time McCain was nominated, their personal stake in immigration demagoguery had become so fiercely wedded to their sense of self and their measure of self worth that the original goal … to help Republicans win … became lost in a sea of revisionist history, self-promotion, and self-congratulations. There are two reasons for this. Ego. And, reality.
The role of ego in the downfall of these three stooges goes without explanation, except I should add that Stewart has always been a slave to his ego, Stirrup has been more motivated by prejudice than ego, and Letiecq has shown a severe addiction to both prejudice and ego.
The reality sunk in for these three when events in 2008 cast a much different light on the electoral victory they helped bring about in 2007. They realized that their butts were on the line unless they could manipulate public opinion in a different direction. Thus began the spin war.
The collapse of our local housing market is far and away the most serious in the DC Metro region, one that has otherwise weathered the current financial storm compared to the rest of the nation. This has led to real estate tax revenue shortfalls that will force the contraction of our county government services to such a drastic degree that we may lose the opportunity to bring in new investment and new home owners, and further delay the economic recovery we need to right the ship.
Furthermore, it has been revealed that the “Immigration Resolution” policy has been disastrously ineffective. The county crime rate is no longer dropping (as it had been for the past several years before the three stooges came to this county) even as unreported crimes have likely skyrocketed. That Stewart, Letiecq, and Stirrup have decided to lie about this does not make up for the fact that many of the undocumented immigrants our county policy have turned over to ICE have returned within a few months to PWC. The fact that they can blame ICE for this fact does not disguise the reality that ICE has no capacity and little interest in people who have committed civil violations but are not a threat to society.
And, to top it off, studies have shown that only 1.6 percent of the law infractions committed by PWC residents involve undocumented immigrants, which puts the lie to the claims of “lawlessness” that were overinflated in the “whereas” portion of the “Immigration Resolution.” This number, 1.6 percent, begs the question: was it really worth $11,000,000 of tax payer money to focus on such a small fraction of the crime committed in our community? Were there not better allocations for our limited resources in order to keep our children and our elderly safe from harm?
These three tragic figures have lost sight of any sense of loyalty to the Republican party … let alone to this county and this nation … in order to cover their own asses. The fact that they may have helped Barack Obama and Gerry Connolly win over Prince William County voters is ironic, and for Republicans, infuriatingly so. But in the grand scheme, this is nothing compared to the damage they have done to this county, its public safety, its reputation, and its ability to govern effectively in the foreseeable future.
WHWN said:
That Stewart, Letiecq, and Stirrup have decided to lie about this does not make up for the fact that many of the undocumented immigrants our county policy have turned over to ICE have returned within a few months to PWC.
I would wager that MOST of the “illegals” detained are back. And even though they are here, they commit 1.6% of the crime in PWC as WHWN reminded us. I was just in immigration court this week with my brother in law who was detained in a raid back in the April. This was his first court date and he does not go back for another 6 months (one year after the raid) and I will be glad to report back that when he goes back it will probably be at least another 6 months before he has to go back again and POSSIBLY at that time will be ordered to self deport. And when he gets that order, he will have at least 4 months to leave after that based on what I saw go down with other people in the courtroom. So by my calculations, if he does have to leave, it will be almost 2 years after he was originally detained. I might also add that not even half of the people that were in the deportation proceedings I witnessed were from Latin America. The whole spectrum ranged from Africans to Asian’s to Eastern Europeans. Of the at least 20 cases I saw, only two were told to self deport within the next 4 months. The rest had their cases continued with a minimum of six months before their next date and for many, their next date is not until the 4th quarter of 2009! Don’t listen to Mr. Stewart when he says all the people detained in PWC are being deported. Not happening any time soon. That is just a blatant lie. He doesn’t have any idea what he is talking about.
Wow, WHWN! Excellent mini history lesson of PWC the past year and a half and its relationship to national events. I am very impressed.
WHWN-
Where are you getting the $11 million figure? I can only assume that figure includes the costs of 287g at the jail (about 8 million over five years). As has been pointed out ad nauseum around here, 287g at the jail is NOT part of the “resolution.” Moreover, the majority of people on this blog (Moon-Howler and Elena come to mind) claim to support the program at the jail. So, when you say, “was it really worth $11 million dollars,” you are being misleading.
As far as I can tell, the “costs” of the resolution are the staff time it took to do the service analysis plus the cost to pay the salary of the Criminal Alien Unit (287g police officers). The former figure is unknowable, the latter is about 4 million over five years (again, this is to pay for police officers to keep the community safe). I know emotions run high around here, but throwing numbers out like that is not helpful to the civil discourse that should be occuring here. Let’s focus on the facts.
I believe that $11 million figure was one thrown out by the county. And if it includes the ADC amounts, then food, you are correct. However, in defense of whwn, it was real difficult there for a while to keep up with the finances involved with the resolution. I couldn’t tell you the cost without doing a FOIA on the county and that would be an additional expense which I would not do.
There are obvious costs and hidden costs. Speaking of the FOIA instrument, I wonder just how much those darn things cost the county when you factor in salaries and time away from people doing their real, daily jobs.
And Food for Thought, you are quite correct….I do support the 287(g) at the jail. After the explanation by Lucky Duck, I also do not call for the dissolution of the criminal alien unit in the police dept either. It has already been paid for and those officers can do a job others cannot do.
MH-
I certainly wasn’t trying to put WHWN on the defensive–I think his/her overall points are interesting…I just wanted to put out the numbers issue. And good point on the FOIAs.
It seems to me that the population of hate-based voters that came out for Corey Stewart in ’07 (20 percent of registered voters showed up) were probably ALSO making their voices heard this past Tuesday (when 75 percent showed up). So Stewart’s claim that McCain lost because he was not hate-based on immigration issues does not hold water. The hate-based voters that came out for Stewart in ’07 probably came out against Obama in ’08.
So McCain was smart not to go with hate-based immigration rhetoric. He already had the 10 percent of the population that votes based on hate due to the accident of his opponent’s skin color.
That same 10 percent, Stewart’s base in PWC, had some impact at the county level because turn out is typically low for local elections. It makes me wonder what would have happened if someone like Corey Riley had taken a firm stand against hate-based politics, and called it for what it was. Perhaps the full PWC electorate would have rejected Stewart just as we have embraced Obama.
Just a thought.
Great post WHWN!
I am not clear on how many millions were spent on the Mr. Duecaster’s Resolution, but it damaged our local economy, the value of our homes, and the ability of our police force to do its job. With this in mind, the Resolution wasn’t worth it no matter how much it cost. If someone had PAID us 11 million dollars, it STILL would not have been worth it.
Fair enough, ShellyB. But we should all stick to the facts. It’s a lot more compelling to say, “we spent $11 million and have nothing to show for it” than to say, “there have been “costs”–decreased home values, damage to the local economy etc.” The former is quantifiable and compelling. Even resolution supporters might say, “wow, $11 million is a lot.” The latter, on the other hand, is speculative. There is still merit in such arguments, perhaps, but they are less effective than citing a specific, verifiable amount. I’m just trying to be, as Faux News would put it, “fair and balanced.”
Ha! Well “fair and balanced” doesn’t really mean fair and balanced now days.
Alanna, thanks for always speaking your mind. It really must be strange for you to be in the same party with people like Corey Stewart. Do you think the political opportunism that he and Stirrup showed on the immigration issue is similar to the “socialist,” “terrorist,” and “he has a Palestinian friend!” tactic McCain employed? Both tactics exploit resentment, hate, ignorance, and fear, am I right?
Don’t take this the wrong way Alanna because I adore you, you know that. But can you comment on the hate-based campaigning that Palin/McCain resorted to in the eleventh hour, and tell us how or if it reminded you of PWC circa 2007? Did it make you question your vote?
Do you think there might have been some independents and Republican moderates in PWC who were open to McCain until his campaign started to resemble that of hate-based opportunists like Corey Stewart?
Twinad,
Thank you for sharing this observation. I have tried over and over to tell people if they think “illegals” being detained by ICE are being deported they are nuts and those who are deported are back in 6 months or sooner.
WHWN-
Good Post!
Those that try to put terror in other’s minds and hearts are terrorists!
You are all missing the obvious point: if McCain had won it would have been the last nail in the coffin for Corey Stewart’s extremist brand of Republicanism. With McCain’s defeat, the party extremists are all doing what Stewart is doing, slamming McCain and saying my philosophy would have worked.
I’m sure Corey Stewart was not the only politician onn the far right secretly hoping McCain would lose. If he’d won, Stewart’s career would have ended. As it is, he has a fighting chance to become a leader in the state and even the national party.
Palin/Stewart ’08.
Palin/Stewart ’08. OMG, that got me a good laugh! Thanks, JustinT!
Justin,
You make interesting points, but what about this scenario. Enough moderate R’s and Independents voted for Obama, isn’t it HIS strategy that should be emulated? It seems like Palin, with her hate tactics, although appealing to the base, TOTALLY turned off the average voter.
If the electorate is about evenly split between Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, and the Republican Party is further split between moderates, conservatives, and rightwing nuts, then chosing Corey Stewart-type Republicans will guarantee the further decline of the Republican Party. Its only hope is to move toward the middle. Greg L’s analysis that it didn’t move far enough right is a move that will guarantee failure – which I think is something that the wingnuts don’t worry about. They just want a wingnut litmus test regardless of how it plays with the genaral population.
Censored, Rush Limbarf had the same take as Gospel Greg: “we need to move to the right!”
And yeah I agree with you Elena, but Corey Stewart will never immulate Obama. Unity is not in that man’s playbook. He can thrive only where there is bitterness and hatred. Corey Stewart wants the party to move more to the right so he will be the top dog. Nevermind that the party will shrink to a small regional extremist group as moderates bolt for the Democrats.
Corey Stewart is like a high schooler who likes to hang with middle school kids. He may look like a loser to some, but in his insulated club house he is looked up to as a leader.
Has anyone heard of this organization or know anything about it? I just ran into it.
Are they still trying to bring cases against the county?
http://www.stoppwc.org
Pinko, that group was the plantiff who filed suit against the Resolution in late 2007 and it was dismissed from Federal Court in Alexandria as they were not able to produce a specific person who had been “harmed” by the Resolution nor had any person(s) within their suit that possessed “legal standing” to contest the Resolution.
The Republican party is in chaos. The need to purge and redefine the party is at hand. If you remember history, after Reagan trounced Mondale (49 States to 1), the Democratic party was in much the same position. They regrouped through efforts of the DCC and provided guidance, financial support and logistics to viable candidates in the Democratic party. This produced the only two term Democratic President in decades, Bill Clinton. Their party moved to the center and attracted more voters. They became viable once again.
Today’s Republican party will have to do much the same. Just like the Democrats in the mid/late 80’s that went to far to the left (Mondale), the Republican party has, for the most part, gone to the rigid right, turning off moderates who make up the majority of voters in both parties. If the Republicans maintain or swing further to the right, they will be in the minority for years to come. To hear the phrase “get back to our base or roots”, is turning to that small but vocal segment of the party. One in which they cannot win a Statewide or National election.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the complaint that “I didn’t leave the Republican party, it left me” recently.
Yeah, I knew that but I was wondering if they were still active.
I didn’t know the name of their website was “stoppwc.org” Interesting.
Stop PWC. Great. That’s the feeling I had when Bush and Cheney were running amok and the whole world hated the United States. I was thinking. Don’t hate us. Hate Bush and Cheney! Thank God that era is over now.
Lucky Duck, I felt like the Republican party left me back in the mid 80’s–about the time the moral majority (which was neither) hi-jacked the party. I think the MM which became generically known as the religious right needs to just form their own party rather than latching on to major political parties.
Moon-howler,
The MM needs to quit playing church and be independent in their own faith( many people GO to CHURCH and think that makes them moral and protected 😉 just MY faithful opinion 🙂
Churches are more than welcome to tell their parishoners what is moral and what is not. They may define proper behavior for their church members. They may NOT define proper moral behavior for me unless I attend that church.
Churches need to stay out of politics and policy making.
It was actually MORE than 75 percent voter turn out in PWC this year:
https://www.voterinfo.sbe.virginia.gov/election/DATA/2008/07261AFC-9ED3-410F-B07D-84D014AB2C6B/Unofficial/00_153_s.shtml
And, the anti-Corey Stewart, Gerry Connolly, won in PWC by almost 10 points!
Does anyone remember the exact numbers for voter turn out in 2007?
405 – STONEWALL
(District 10)
Last Reported: Nov 4 2008 9:14PM EST
Barack Obama and Joe Biden 997 52.86%
John McCain and Sarah Palin 862 45.70%
If I’m not mistaken, Stonewall district is the birthplace of Help Save Manassas. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Whoa. The VBOE website has the final vote total up for PWC. I’ve been waiting on all those absentee ballots to be counted. Holy cow! With 100% of the precincts reporting, the absentee ballots pushed up Obama’s winning percentage from what was an already impressive 52% to 57%! Yes, that’s right. Barack Obama beat John McCain, in PWC, 57% to 41%! I can’t even begin to express how mind-boggling that is. If you check out the vote by precinct, and scroll down to the Absentee totals, you’ll see they were pretty much all Obama. I’m guessing that all the in-person Absentee ballots cast are reflected in the Absentee totals, because there are some 20K.
Guess Barack knew what he was doing when he decided to hold that Election Eve rally at the fairgrounds.
https://www.voterinfo.sbe.virginia.gov/election/DATA/2008/07261AFC-9ED3-410F-B07D-84D014AB2C6B/Unofficial/00_153_S.Shtml
The Democratic party is now a force to be reckoned with in PWC. I’m imagining unbelievably competitive candidates and races for the BOCS next time around.
And the Republican party lies in shambles. Corey, Greg and John have nobody to blame but themselves. And HSM.
Casual Observer,
Ah, but I think they will try to blame others all the same. Sigh…
NotGregLetiecq-
You are spot on. There’ll be no correcting your “birth place” comment. I think what happened in the county last year with local R’s played a major role in turning PW blue for the Presidential election.
(insert song hereO
Nah nah nah nah….nah nah nah nah…..Hey Stew-art…..Goooood bye!
The different year elections can be found at the state board of elections site, NGL.
Casual, the democratic party in Prince William County will NEVER be a force to be reckoned with unless they change their stripes. They enjoy devouring each other too much. They are basically disorganized and will not return phone calls or answer email. There are a few good folks out there but there are too few of them. In-fighting has run off most people. Probaably the person who has done the most to hold the party together is Mrs. Ernestine Jenkins.
I would like to see the impossible: the demographics for those precincts that voted blue. Definitely some analysis needs to be done. It appears, casual glance of course, that minorities and newer communities went blue.
ngl, if you go to the home site for sboe, you can choose the year you want.
Casual, thanks for pointing that out! 16 point victory for Obama in Prince William?!?! Excuse me but doesn’t that mean PWC put an “anchor baby” and two “anchor baby’s” babies in the White House?!
I guess Robert L. Duecaster isn’t as representative of this county as John Letiecq Stirrup would like to think.
M-H can you post the turn out numbers for 2007? I am on slow brain plus slow computer today.
Moon-howler, although this doesn’t help with voting precincts, this site quickly gives demographics by zipcode. Just plug in the zip you want.
http://www.zipskinny.com/index.php?zip=20110
So in a nutshell, Greg Letiecq helped Turn PWC Blue more than Elena Schlossberg, more than Frank Principi, and more than any supposed Obama operatives?
I guess Help Save Manassas did live up to its name. It actually did “help save Manass”.
Thanks, Casual Observer! My area went for Obama at 67%. That is so awesome! There were so many McCain/Palin signs in our ‘hood I thought we were doomed! And 77% of our precinct’s voters turned out…that is incredible!
James Carvelle described the failure of the Republicans in part due to their rigidity. I think he was on the mark.
What is sad to me is that one reason McCain lost is because so many viewed him as part of this rigid base and they don’t even like him.
Mr Stewart is so predictable – if its not about him its dismissed. Honestly, where is his Mother!