Mason Votes

Author: Cay Smith

Bolling Will Not Attend GMU Debate

UPDATED Thursday, Sept. 24. 3:17 p.m.

By Mason Votes Director Christian Smith

For the lieutenant gubernatorial candidates, Sunday was eventful for the usually relatively quiet campaigns (compared to their gubernatorial candidate counterparts). Jody Wagner (D) posted a press release on Sunday to her website stating that Bill Bolling (R) “threatened” not to attend the upcoming debate scheduled for this Thursday at George Mason University.

“It became painfully clear to us that the Wagner campaign was more interested in debating about debates than actually holding a debate,” wrote the Bolling campaign in a dueling press release that was subsequently published to their website.

Wagner then retorted with another online statement, “Bill has decided not to show up and I hope he reconsiders. I still plan on attending the event to show my commitment to the voters in Prince William and across the state.”

Matt Wells, Bolling’s campaign manager, wrote, “Unfortunately, the Wagner campaign has refused to discuss the rules of this debate in good faith, as is evidenced by their recent press release; and has now issued a factually inaccurate and misleading statement in an effort to try and score some cheap political points in advance of the debate. Given these developments, it is clear that the debate cannot move forward as scheduled on September 24th and we have advised the debate organizers of that fact.”

A little before 11 p.m. Sunday night, Wagner wrote, “My opponent is going to be a “no show” for the Prince William 100 debate–disappointing, but not surprising,” on her twitter page.

Monday morning, the organizers of the debate made the final call to cancel it. Its success had hinged on what is called a no-use agreement. Bolling had evidently asked for such an agreement which, according to their press release, would stipulate that neither campaign would be “allowed to use portions of the audio or video of the debate for political purposes.” Wagner’s campaign responded saying that, “Despite our opposition to the last minute rule change, we offered what we hoped would be a compromise that suggested the same terms of previous down-ballot debates this year. ”

The event was sponsored by Mason, Prince William Committee of 100, Prince William Regional Chamber of Commerce, Prince William County-Greater Manassas Chamber of Commerce and Northern Virginia Community College.

Deeds and McDonnell Duel in Fairfax

Deeds and McDonnell Duel in Fairfax

By Mason Votes Director Christian Smith

Virginia gubernatorial candidates Bob McDonnell (R) and Creigh Deeds (D) debated transportation, taxes, gay adoption rights and social issues this morning in McLean, Va. Throughout the debate, McDonnell tried to define himself as a friend of business, women and the economy while Deeds went negative, spending a great deal of time on defining his opponent as a foe of women and a flip-flopper.

Although McDonnell has tried to move past his recent thesis debacle, Deeds pressed the issue several times, inserting it into topics that seemingly had no association to the social themes discussed in the thesis.

On the issue of health care, McDonnell admitted that he and his family had spent years without health insurance while he was attending law school. “I think we have the greatest health care system in the world… and turning that over to the federal government… is absolutely the wrong thing to do,” said McDonnell who believes the answer lies in employee based health insurance and focusing incentives on prevention based care. Deeds, on the other hand said that he supports the president’s plan and individual mandates with exemptions for small business owners.

While both candidates promised they would not raise taxes if elected, they each insisted the other would need to do so in order to fund their agendas.

An unexpected moment occurred when Deeds said, “There’s a hint of racism in some of the opposition to President Obama that is crystal clear.”

McDonnell appeared relaxed and calm, Deeds’ stance was rigid and his responses abrasive. Overall, it appeared that McDonnell won the debate but his campaign will have to wait to see if they can relay that win to the larger Virginia audience. With Deeds trailing McDonnell in the polls that task might not be too difficult.

View the below videos to hear the candidates’ post-debate spin.


Generation Y Vote

Generation Y Vote: John Bell (D), Candidate for the 13th District

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

GMU Talk Back – Sept. 16 Edition

George Mason University students tell us where they get their political news and answer which is more important: local or national politics?

Political Minute Sept. 7-11

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

McDonnell Drops F-Bomb

By Mason Votes Director Christian Smith

In a WTOP interview last Friday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell dropped the F-bomb. “I’m going to find other ways to be able to fund transportation. I’ve outlined 12 f–king funding mechanisms that are creative, that are entrepreneurial,” said McDonnell.

Taylor Thornley, press assistant for the McDonnell campaign, made the following statement to Mason Votes today, “Long and short, the audio clip comes from a friendly conversation on-air between Bob McDonnell and Mark about transportation. At one point Bob was speaking quickly and in trying to say “funding mechanism”, he stumbled and accidentally said another word. It was an unfortunate stumble over the words, and Bob McDonnell apologizes for the mistake. Anyone who spends any time around Bob knows he does not use such language. It was an accident and it is that simple. However, I do want to note [Christian] that it does say a lot about the Deeds campaign that they would spend so much time and energy aggressively pushing this absolutely trivial matter to every blog and media outlet they can think of. It’s disappointing that they have so little regard for Virginia’s voters, and the issues that they care about.”

McDonnell audio from the blog “NotLarrySabato”

Mason to Host Lt. Governor, Attorney General Debates

By Mason Votes Director Christian Smith

George Mason University has announced that it will be hosting two political debates this fall. The first will occur Sept. 24 between lieutenant gubernatorial candidates Bill Bolling and Jodi Wagner and will be followed by an Oct. 7 debate between attorney general candidates Ken Cuccinelli and Steve Shannon. The debates are being sponsored by Mason, Prince William Committee of 100, Prince William Regional Chamber of Commerce, Prince William County-Greater Manassas Chamber of Commerce and Northern Virginia Community College.

The Sept. 24 debate will be moderated by WJLA‘s Bruce DePuyt and will begin at 8 p.m. The Attorney General debate will begin at 7:30 p.m. and will be moderated by Scott Thuman, also of WJLA. Both events will be held at the Prince William Campus‘ Verizon Auditorium.

Mason’s chapters of the College Republicans and College Democrats have been invited to provide questions for the candidates.

Additional State Budget Cuts Affect Mason

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine announced on Tuesday more details of the additional budget cuts that he had previously promised.

“We did do reductions to higher [education]. The net reductions to higher [education] on average… is about a 7.7 percent reduction to higher [education] That amount is slightly over $100 million,” said Kaine during the announcement. “We do believe, based on our discussions with the higher [education] institutions that they will be able to manage to this.”

According to Dan Walsch, George Mason University press secretary, Mason will be hit with an eight percent cut which will translate to $17.5 million. “It’s significant,” said Walsch. “We will spread it out as much as we can. That doesn’t mean it will be mathematically even but we’ll try to be even handed.”

When asked if the cut would mean layoffs, Walsch said, “I don’t think so, but it probably will mean some realignment, reorganization, perhaps combining programs. In terms of out and out layoffs, I doubt it but [the cut] is significant.

Below is video of Kaine’s full budget cuts announcement.

Photo by flickr user World Resources.