Flipping the Tenth in Virginia

Twice before I had gone far west on I-66 in Virginia to canvass for State Senator Jennifer Wexton, a democrat running against two-time republican incumbent Congresswoman Barbara Comstock in the Tenth Congressional District, a safe republican district for four decades that stretches from McLean to West Virginia, prompted by the sham Kavanaugh hearings and his bogus confirmation. Wexton is ahead in the polls, seemingly safely, due to anti-Trumpism that percolates through this educated and affluent district, especially in its furtherest east parts, but the polls have tightened, and the president's rhetoric, especially lately, has created a climate of hatred and division in the country, culminating in more than a dozen bombs being sent by an extreme Trumpite to journalists, Jews and democratic politicians, that has to be addressed by patriotic Americans, so I went down I-66 again on Saturday to knock on doors to ensure that the tenth flips and real change can begin.

I received a dedicated list of 41 doors to knock on in an large apartment complex of tall buildings encircling a central interior parking lot in Sterling, about 15 miles west of the beltway. The first thing I noticed as I walked alone into the inward facing series of long, fortress-like 4-story structures almost touching each other like a laager square, was the stairs I would be walking up on the outside of each building to reach the top floor--40. Two days later my calfs are still sore from walking up and down the equivalent of 108 flights of stairs but I knocked on every door except for those two or three designated doors in the two buildings that were clearly marked, No Solicitation.

The persons I spoke with in this complex were almost exclusively motivated to vote democratic, although some said they were undecided on the congrssional level because they did not know who Jennifer Wexton was, so I left behind with them a placard outing her positions. Some said their primary issues were education or health care, but surprisingly several said their main issue was immigration. This is an answer I heard more often when I was canvassing further west, in the predominantly republican sections of the state, in an exclusionary and fearful tone, but in this complex with many recent arrivals to the country, it was a different take on immigration, one that bespoke of welcoming those coming behind them and bringing their expertise and skills and drive to make America even greater, as the waves of preceding immigrants did.

I felt it was a 3-hour stint well done, and agreeably received, and I drove home blaring a Doors album on the CD player and happily went inside my house to turn on the news and relax. In my face again was the current state of America, a synagogue shot up in Pittsburgh, and I knew I would be heading west on the morrow again to try to make a difference in America beginning with adding a democratic seat to congress to start presenting a check on our wannabe strongman at top who is busy sowing division and discord and wrecking our country and its standing in the community of nations.