Incumbent Republican Congresswoman Thelma Drake and Democratic challenger Glenn Nye faced off for the second time today at the Virginia Club in downtown Norfolk. (As I write this, I am converting the video I shot of the entire debate – hopefully, I will have it posted before the day is out.) The candidates were given five minutes each for an opening statement. Drake won the coin toss and elected to go first. Uncharacteristically, Drake used her time to drop a bombshell: Nye owns a home in DC and has claimed it as his personal residence.
In documents provided to members of the media (they ran out of copies – there was so much media there – I did not get a copy but have been promised an email), Drake demonstrated that Nye has owned the home since 2005 and has claimed the Homestead Deduction every year since. At the same time, Nye has been registered to vote in Norfolk, using his sister’s address, and now claims to live in Virginia Beach.
Not missing a beat, Nye in his opening statement said that he purchased the property with his brother, a member of the Armed Services. According to the Virginian Pilot, Nye and his brother rent the property, which would make it ineligible for the tax break.
The rest of the debate was pretty much a rehash of the CDBA one ten days ago. Nothing earth-shattering in terms of the candidates’ stands on the issues. The candidates answered six questions on such topics as healthcare, the economy and Iraq.
I have to say I was quite surprised by Drake bringing up the issue of residency, something she returned to in her closing statement. In fact, I found her responses to all of the questions being quite defensive, a point I mentioned to her husband, Ted, who was seated at the same table as I. I have not seen Drake in this posture before – it was almost combative. Having watched her for years, she’s usually very charming and likable. Not so today. Something must be going on.
Let me take a guess: the poll numbers don’t look too good. Like 2006, this year is another year for Democrats. By this time two years ago, not only did we have independent polls on the 2nd CD race, we had the candidates releasing internal polls. So far this year – nada. Nevertheless, I’m guessing that the race is much closer than people realize and that Nye’s bio, plus his desire for bipartisanship, is resonating with the voters in the 2nd. That’s the only reason to try to discredit him.
In any event, I hope that this race doesn’t deteriorate into a mudslinging festival.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
That’s the only reason to try to discredit him.
But it’s a valid hit: Nye is gaming the system and taking advantage of a tax break available to residents of DC, not landlords.
Is he even eligible to run in the 2nd?
Thanks for the recap Vivian.
If she’s swinging- she must be worried. You don’t negative (and personal) when numbers are good.
It sounds to me like we are seeing her “true” colors.
I hear she thinks perhaps Sarbannes-Oxley should be relaxed?!?!? Has she been under a rock for the past week??? She’s out of touch with the needs of her district and this is just another example.
Jason – I’m not commenting on whether it is valid or not, because I haven’t seen the documents. My point is that she’s not previously done anything like this. In fact, in 2006, when old charges against Kellam were brought to the fore, she was not happy about it. She wanted the race to stay on the issues.
proud – yes, she did say something about relaxing the Sarbanes-Oxley rules. I was a bit taken aback by that. That’s the last thing we need to be doing right now.
The polling thing is getting fascinating in this district–two separate independent polls say Obama is leading McCain in Norfolk, Hampton and Virginia Beach by anywhere between 10 and 15 points (Kerry lost this region by around 4 points). I’d ordinarily say that it’s BS–yes, we’re going to see a LOT of Pro-Obama African American voters coming out of Bobby Scott’s 3CD precincts, but record turnout there still wouldn’t account for a double-digit lead when you add in Virginia Beach.
And yet:
*two different polls have demonstrated it so far.
*no one really made much of an effort to question the validity of those polls
*neither of the candidates in the 2nd District race is releasing any polling numbers.
The fascinating thing about this last point: the Congressional candidates are polling the top of the ticket (Thelma’s probably also still polling the current President). So there are any number of reasons why both candidates could be sitting on internal polls–Thelma, for instance, may be sitting on a poll that shows her ahead by a few points that also says John McCain’s going to lose Virginia and the Presidency.
Fun things to speculate about here.
Vivian,
Glenn Nye has two chances of winning–slim and none!
Talk to military people, and you will see what has Thelma in such a tizzy. They are not happy about her vote on the GI bill, or unwaiverting support for Bush’s version of the Iraq war.
It seems Nye needs to get straight on the residency issue very quickly. However, when it comes down to ties to this area, Nye wins. Grew up here, went to school here, lots of family here. Nye went to school at Georgetown for awhile, maybe that is where the house came in and with a job in the Foreign Service, much like the Military, there is much time away from home.
Still, the issue is who will serve the people of the second district? Drake has voted with her party and Bush 99% of the time. I think Nye will serve us better.
We will have to see if Drake was misrepresenting the facts or not. Assuming that she is wrong, the bigger issue is that Nye must do something to make it clear that he is a better choice for independents and leaning-Republican voters to vote for him. The fact that she is part of a Republican party that has raised the National Debt by more than $1.1 Trillion (I don’t know what it is now since it is going up so fast!) in the last four years has not been mentioned. The fact that she claims to be fiscally conservative and for low taxes while dumping huge amounts of the National Debt on our children, grandchildren, and the unborn has not been mentioned. Everybody should know about these things! As one of the dullest knives in the Congressional drawer, she will not cut it for District 2! His TV ads are too weak. Remember that Kellam crashed and burned because he did not take strong positions.
It was great to meet you at the debate, Vivian. Her comments about Sarbanes-Oxley were extremely disturbing. I haven’t gone looking yet, but I certainly hope the MSM picked up on that. Yikes! More deregulation is the last thing we need.
My post is at http://raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=16143
Eh, I’d probably try to tie the economy to her ankles like an anchor and then throw it over the side. It’s a crisis caused by a bubble in the housing market compounded by a failure to responsibly regulate the financial firms selling bad mortgages. She’s an anti-regulatory real estate exec. Of all the issues in the world, you’d think this was the one Thelma would be able to understand, but she either didn’t see it coming or didn’t have the will to do something about it.
I wouldn’t think this would be a hard sell.