Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Endorsement Statistics, 2004-2015

Posted November 6, 2015, 5:06 p.m.

As I close out the 2015 election season (and begin tentatively looking toward 2016), I realize that I neglected to complete my bi-annual statistical review of my past endorsements. Yes, it’s probably as boring as it sounds . . . I’m just that kind of nerd.

I have always considered myself to be a political independent. I certainly tilt toward the Republican side of the spectrum, with a healthy dose of ‘small-l’ libertarianism thrown in, but I rarely endorse or vote for a straight party-line ticket. I always try to make a serious, dispassionate evaluation of every candidate and issue before me, and then endorse and cast my own ballot for the ones that I believe are the best available options.

I keep a running spreadsheet where I track all of my annual endorsements and the outcomes of each race. This allows me to look back at patterns in the party affiliation of the candidates I endorse, see how often the voters agree with my choices (and how often they don’t), and really visualize how my political beliefs go into practice at the ballot box. The last time I did this, I reviewed my endorsements from 2004 to 2012. This time, I’m including all races in-which I’ve been eligible to vote from 2004 through to the 2015 ballot I cast earlier this week.

Election 2015 Results and Live Blog (Final)

Posted November 3, 2015, 6:30 p.m.
Updated November 30, 2016, 2:19 p.m.

Ballot Races

Virginia Senate, 13th
Dick Black (R):	52.30%
Jill McCabe (D):	47.55%
Other:	0.15%

Virginia House, 87th
John Bell (D):	49.88%
Chuong Nguyen (R):	47.94%
Brian Suojanen (L):	2.09%
Other:	0.10%

Loudoun Board (Chairman)
Thomas Bellanca (I):	3.01%
Charlie King (R):	28.87%
Phyllis Randall (D):	37.56%
Scott York (I):	30.35%
Other:	0.20%

Loudoun Board (Dulles)
Anjan Chimaladinne (D):	28.43%
Matt Letourneau (R):	71.46%
Other:	0.10%

Loudoun Treasurer
Evan Macbeth (D):	31.04%
H. Roger Zurn Jr. (R):	68.80%
Other:	0.16%

Loudoun Sheriff
Brian Allman (D):	13.08%
Mike Chapman (R):	60.77%
Steve Simpson (I):	25.73%
Other:	0.42%

Loudoun Com. Attorney
Robert Ohneiser (D):	40.46%
James Plowman (R):	59.31%
Other:	0.23%

Loudoun Court Clerk
Gary Clemens (R):	58.89%
Eileen Tagg-Murdock (D):	40.91%
Other:	0.19%

Loudoun Comm. of Revenue
Bob Wertz Jr. (R):	98.62%
Other:	1.38%

Loudoun Sch. Board (At-Large)
Beth Huck:	55.01%
Stephan Knobloch:	44.63%
Other:	0.37%

Loudoun Sch. Board (Dulles)
Jeff Morse:	69.31%
Kenya Savage:	30.51%
Other:	0.18%

Loudoun S&W Conservation
John Flannery II:	33.83%
Marina Schumacher:	36.40%
L. Ali Shahriari:	9.60%
James Wylie:	19.62%
Other:	0.55%

Ballot Issues

Loudoun Safety Bonds
Yes:	79.78%
No:	20.22%

Loudoun School Bonds
Yes:	65.23%
No:	34.77%

I Voted; You Should Too

Posted November 3, 2015, 10:27 a.m.

I voted. And if you are eligible to do so, you should too.

Here in Virginia, there are many important state and local issues in contention. The entire Virginia General Assembly—both the House of Delegates and the Senate—are on the ballot. In Loudoun County, and many others, we are also selecting our local Board of Supervisors and School Board. Local counties and cities are choosing their constitutional officers, like the sheriff and the court clerk.

While much of America is focused on a presidential election that is still a year away, these state and local elections are more likely to have real, noticeable impacts on your life, and they deserve your attention.

Here on Off on a Tangent, I will be covering the results live as they come in for my local races, and will be commenting in a liveblog on any newsworthy votes in Virginia and elsewhere. Stay tuned! Coverage begins at 6:30 p.m.

Paul Ryan Elected Speaker of the House

Posted October 29, 2015, 12:18 p.m.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI 1st) has been elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Ryan was first elected to Congress in 1998 and is serving his ninth term. He also stood in 2012 as the vice presidential running-mate to former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA), the unsuccessful Republican nominee for president.

Ryan received 236 votes, a solid majority of the 432 votes cast. Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 12th), the House Minority Leader, received 184 and Representative Daniel Webster (R-FL 10th) received nine. Three representatives voted for other candidates.

The outgoing speaker is Representative John Boehner (R-OH 8th), who made a surprise announcement in September that he would be retiring from Congress at the end of this month. Boehner presided over a Republican Party in turmoil, splintered between old-guard ‘big government’ insiders and a resurgent wave of fiscal and social conservatives.

Ryan initially did not seek election as speaker, and explicitly stated that he would not be a candidate. Then, following Representative Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA 23rd) surprise withdrawal from candidacy, many party insiders began floating Ryan as a potentially unifying replacement candidate. On October 20, Ryan informed fellow Republicans that he would run, but only if three key groups of Republicans supported him, including the conservative Freedom Caucus that often butted-heads with Boehner. On October 22, following endorsements (formal or informal) from those groups, he entered the race.

It is unclear if Ryan will be more successful than Boehner in finding areas of agreement and compromise. In addition to a hard-line taken by many conservative Republicans in opposition to the old-guard, the Democratic Party has also shifted strongly toward stubborn intransigence, particularly with regard to budgeting and spending.

The speaker of the house falls immediately after the vice president in the line of presidential succession.

‘Off on a Tangent’ at Twenty

Posted October 19, 2015, 5:22 p.m.

Twenty years is a long time. Well over seven thousand days. Two-hundred and forty months. Five presidential terms. The time between the first flight of the Boeing 747 (1969) and the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989). The time between the beginning of the great depression (1929) and the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (1949). The time between the election of President Ronald Reagan (R) (1980) and the new millennium (2000).

It is also roughly the amount of time between when I launched my first web site . . . and today.

Many details of the timeline are lost to the fog of history, but here’s what I’ve been able to piece together. In the fall of 1995, I was in the eighth grade at Franklin Middle School in Chantilly, Virginia. I was sitting in my math class, likely not paying much attention, when somebody entered the room to make an announcement: they were looking for students who were interested in computers to work on some project. I was interested in computers (and not very interested in anything else going on at the school), so I volunteered.

At some point, a number of us volunteers got together with some staff members and learned that what they wanted to do was create a web site for the school. We had some business partners who arranged for a bunch of us middle schoolers to take an introductory course in hypertext markup language, or HTML, which is the language that (still today) tells a web browser how to display a page on the Internet.

I knew that the Internet existed, but that was about all I knew about it before that class. My family had an account on CompuServe, an online service much like its main competitors, America Online (AOL) and Prodigy. They had begun including access to the Internet along with their own curated services, but I was not very impressed when my father first showed it to me. I don’t remember what specific page we tried to bring up, but I do remember that it took forever just to load a couple of smallish graphics. We were probably on a 9600 baud modem at the time, although we might have upgraded to 14.4k. My impression was, unless speeds got a lot better, the Internet was not going to catch on. Luckily, speeds got a lot better.

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