Drew Richardson Initial Thoughts

Note: These are my initial thoughts on Drew Richardson. My thoughts on Sam Rasoul are in the post directly before this post.

Besides being an undecided active Dem I haven't really looked into the candidates more deeply than the average voter yet, but these are my thoughts as where I stand now and what the "word on the street" is. As I start researching the candidates, their campaigns, facebooking their staffers for embarrasing pictures from that night at the Frat party they can't really remember and so on my undecidedness may change but I don't foresee that happening until a few days before my County Caucus.

Keep in mind that I'll certainly praise and probably offend both candidates and their uncles on this blog but don't take it as outright support or a race altering endorsement unless it has the words "I support" in the post title.

Pros: According to his bio he not only was a Special Agent at the FBI but the man was the inspiration for Nicholas Cage's role in "the Rock". How F'ing cool is that! Okay, that's a slight exageration on my part, but he did consult Cage which is still pretty awesome. Having a guy who put in 25 years at the FBI's chemical and biological anti-terrorist lab would probably be a good person to have around the capital building in case crazies start mailing in anthrax again or W re-asks "do you know what the F*CK you can do with an aluminum tube??!!??". Of course the correct answer would be "well, not enrich uranium with these particular not-to-spec aluminum tubes".

Cons: Sorry, who are you again? Sam has a one year head start on Drew and has already locked up some key votes in what is sure to be a low turnout caucus. Drew has the better resume, but he may have gotten too late a start. Drew also doesn't have a political history. Granted he was under the Hatch Act while at the FBI (for some reason if you carry a gun and a badge they don't let you campaign) but it's been a few years since he's retired and could probably have started earlier.

He also seems to be a conservative Democrat. A pretty middle of the road Creigh kinda guy, not some crazy Zel Miller Democrat which would help in the general but may hurt in the activist dominated caucuses against Sam "Liberal Champion" Rasoul.

81Blue's "thoughts" Drew had professional staff on the day he announced almost two months ago. He has hired Adam Sharp, a native of the Valley, who also has some electoral experience in these parts. Adam ran Bruce Roemmelt's campaign last year and was heading up the Karen Schultz campaign until the Senate Caucus took over and replaced him with a team of Washington consultants that pretty much screwed the pooch on that one.

One interesting tidbit. I've been hearing a lot recently that the state leadership of the Virginia Young Democrats are not too pleased with Sam, in fact they may actually personally dislike the guy and want him to lose. This is in spite of the fact that Sam is 26 and will be a VAYD for another 9 years!! Adam is a former member of the state VAYD committee and their former blogger. Now that may just be a coincidence, but an experienced former leadership YD with extensive blogger connections doesn't seem like an accident to me...someone get the popcorn I got dibs on the front row.