As predicted, new state money for education doesn’t always find its way into the schools.

A friend and I were to meet two weeks ago at Camden Yards to watch a Baltimore Orioles baseball game. An hour before game time, it was pouring with a forecast for steady showers until midnight. I was still driving back from Newport News, trying to make the game by at least the third inning. My friend left eastern Loudoun County at 4:00 for the 7:30 game. He just made it just in time to wait 30 minutes before the game was called – after the brave souls who showed up spent their dinner money at the park. I won’t miss rooting for Pete Angelos’s team.

Baseball will always be my favorite sport – at least to watch. If the Montreal Expos move to Northern Virginia, I’m sure I’ll slog out to watch a lot more than I do the O’s.

But slog out is what I’ll precisely do. I live just outside the Beltway in central Fairfax County. Yesterday, the Northern Virginia group trying to get the Expos to relocate here presented their vision of the stadium and surrounding development in Loudoun County. The spot is just inside the Loudoun/Fairfax border.

Loudoun officials were in attendance touting the benefits to the county. But as Washington Post’s columnist Marc Fisher noted this morning, “Not a soul from the Fairfax County government was at yesterday’s announcement, even though a good slugger could hit a baseball from the stadium site across the county line into Fairfax.”

Why not?

The potential impact on Northern Virginia’s clogged roads remained unclear. [Vice president of transportation consultant Transcore James E.] Curren’s analysis showed that a typical 40-minute commute at 5:30 p.m. from Tysons Corner to Ashburn along the Dulles Toll Road would increase by two to four minutes on a game night, he said. The key congestion challenge, he said, is having enough entrances to the stadium to keep fans’ cars from plugging roads outside the development.

Unclear impact? Fairfax County officials were clearly not there because Loudoun County will get all the financial benefits and Fairfax will get all the traffic headaches.

Project developers have pledged tens of millions in road improvements, including a new interchange with the Dulles Toll Road, an interchange at what is now Innovation Drive and Route 28, and a link between the stadium and the Dulles Greenway. A Smart Tag, an electronic card similar to the EZPass, could be used to pay parking fees to streamline entrance to the park, the developers said. A shuttle service from a Metro station could serve as a stopgap pending a planned Metro extension to Dulles, they said.

Metro to Dulles? Not in my lifetime the ways things are going. I love baseball, but I’m not sure if, having nothing but “pledges,” I’ll be attending too many games. Rt. 28, along which the stadium will be built, is already a parking lot heading south during rush hour. It will see more cars added in that direction and probably enough in the other direction to clog it, too.

Meanwhile, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner said he supports the Loudoun County effort. “My first choice would be a Virginia site, my second choice would be the district, but I do think the national capital area deserves a team,” Warner said.

As Norfolk also has a bid in and the Governor thinks the capital area should get a team, where does that leave Norfolk? Hmmmm.

Fairfax County, a Washington suburb, is one of the few in the area that hasn’t passed a resolution on the impact of the Patriot Act.

Alexandria, Arlington County, Takoma Park, Greenbelt, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and the District have passed resolutions denouncing the Patriot Act and promising to uphold the civil liberties of residents, according to the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.

Passing the resolutions is a largely symbolic act, but 330 localities nationwide, including New York City, Baltimore and Philadelphia, have done so.

Most of the resolutions, including the one that was discussed by the Fairfax supervisors yesterday, urge congressional delegations to allow the Patriot Act to expire or to add congressional oversight to the act.

Fairfax, on which have been imposed security significant costs – with accompanying though perhaps insufficient funds, decided by a 5-3 vote to study the Patriot’s Act impact on the civil liberties of Fairfax residents. No time limit was proscribed by the resolution.

Del. Preston Bryant (R-Roanoke), one of the leaders of the revolt of 17 GOP moderates who voted for a tax increase, has a thoughtful column that should be read by Democrats as a challenge.

He provides some insider information about what went on at the recent private “Ideas and Issues Retreat” among Republican Assembly members. He rightly dismisses as naïve any suggestion that policy can be divorced from politics. But he also writes,

It’s predicted that the House GOP in 2005 will lay out specific government reform initiatives. You’ll likely see legislation pushed that’ll make collaborations with the private sector more easily formed, all in hopes of capitalizing on innovations, technologies, and efficiencies honed by competitive market forces that don’t exist in the government world.

If only the GOP offers reform initiatives designed to better spend taxpayer money, the Democrats will lose whatever advantage they may have gained from the fractious battle among the GOP this past session.

Most Virginians apparently believed it was time to raise and reform some taxes. But that doesn’t mean they’ve completely endorsed how the state spends money. There are plenty of ways of streamlining government, including, as was apparently discussed at the GOP retreat, public-private partnerships. If Democrats sit back and let the GOP grab all the headlines regarding government reform, they’ll no doubt be painted, and perhaps rightly so, as simply “tax and spenders.”

Wonder what Democrats are saying at – or even if they are holding – an “ideas and issues” retreat?

Now that the Democratic primary for the congressional seat in the 8th district of Virginia is history, and after The Washington Post ombudsman agreed with us that the paper’s coverage was unfair in publishing unsubstantiated accusations that Moran uttered an unknown anti-Semitic remark, The Post continues today its coverage with an article in the weekly Fairfax Extra of the paper.

The chance to regurgitate the accusations is enabled by a story headlined “Moran’s Use of Editorial Stokes Ire of Jewish Leaders.”

Bending over backwards to cut The Post some slack, I can argue that the paper not only is covering a legitimate story but that in doing so it substantiates an argument I made last week about self-censorship.

The story is that “some Jewish leaders” were upset that in the final hours of the campaign Moran circulated a local newspaper’s editorial endorsing him. The editorial read, in part,

This election is not about Moran’s ability to lead, or about news headlines accusing him of questionable public statements or personal finances. It’s about a cabal of powerful Washington, D.C., based interests backing the Bush administration’s support for rightwing Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s handling of the Middle East conflict trying to upend an outspoken and powerful Democratic opponent.

It’s been no offhand comments of Moran, unscrupulously taken out of context and touted in front page headlines by the Washington Post more than once in the recent period. It’s been Moran’s ability to weigh in with his considerable seniority and powers of persuasion on behalf of a more balanced approach to the Middle East crisis that has made him a target of reprehensible smears and innuendos by a combination of pro-Republican and pro-Sharon interests, including The Post.

The same sordid mentality that is behind the Bush re-election campaign’s current effort to win by focusing on out-of-context sound-bite attacks against his opponent, to the point that no less than 80% of Bush’s TV ads are negative attacks, is driving the effort against Moran.

Maybe this is more about a mud fight between The Post and the weekly Falls Church News-Press. The Post’s Lisa Rein writes,

While not mentioning Jews, the editorial pushed an uncomfortable edge with what some Jewish leaders considered to be coded language that blamed Jews for steering U.S. foreign policy.
“It smacks of anti-Semitism,” said David Bernstein, Washington director of the American Jewish Committee. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that when you speak of a pro-Sharon cabal, that means Jews.”

Again, we’re seeing support for a more even-handed policy in the Middle East cast as anti-Semitism. And with Moran’s use of the editorial, he is somehow also guilty of anti-Semitism.

Jerome Chapman, a Jewish activist from Alexandria, said the editorial “demonizes and scapegoats supporters of Israel for Moran’s problems. An editorialist can, of course, express his opinion, but when the campaign reprints it and passes it out . . . it’s outrageous.”

Why can’t we say that Sharon’s policies are not only vicious and a form of terror in their own ways, but that they are counter-productive in establishing a secure, peaceful Israel? If The Post would have its way, we can’t. And that is self-censorship. Rein concludes,

The Israel-Palestinian conflict was in many ways an unspoken subtext in the primary contest. Moran has criticized Sharon’s declaration that Israel would continue “targeted killings” of Palestinian militants and strengthen West Bank settlements and called his a more “balanced” approach to the conflict, while [his opponent Andy] Rosenberg said he supported Sharon’s policy “when justified.” Rosenberg cultivated financial and political support from many Jewish voters.

Benton, whose newspaper weighs issues from downtown redevelopment in Falls Church to the war in Iraq, said he is frustrated that “you can’t oppose Sharon’s policies in the Middle East without being accused of anti-Semitism.”

“To me, there’s nothing anti-Semitic about my editorial,” he said. “I take umbrage at the idea that ‘cabal’ is a loaded word. . . . It doesn’t have prejudicial connotations.”

Amen.

The Washington Post today editorializes on Katie Webb, the lobbyist for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, and her decision to write what The Post calls a “refreshingly straightforward” letter to six Republicans who asked for money for their campaigns’ treasuries. In her letter, she said no and why.

So in a retaliatory move (much like the GOP’s attempt to remove sales tax exemptions for businesses because the business community supported higher taxes), the GOP called her letter bribery.

In a letter to Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore (R), Republican Caucus Chairman R. Steven Landes (Augusta) said he believes the lobbyist’s statement violates laws that cover bribery.
“Ms. Webb’s suggestion that . . . financial support is contingent upon how we vote creates the impression that this lobbyist is engaged in a systematic effort to trade votes on specific legislation for financial support,” Landes wrote.

Remember: Steve Landes is also the guy who said during the budget debate that Virginia should stand by its long-standing tradition of considering expenditures and income separately — as if they don’t impact each other.

Of course, groups give to candidates because they support their issues. But leave it to Sen. Dick Saslaw (D-Fairfax) to be, as The Post’s editorial says of Webb’s letter, “[r]ight on the money.”

Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) defended Webb and said her organization’s actions were no different from those of the National Rifle Association, which rarely gives money to lawmakers who support gun control.

“This is just the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Why would [the hospital association] want to contribute to the campaigns of someone who never supports their issues?” he said, adding that the Republicans’ effort is “tantamount to extortion. They are saying, give to my campaign or I’ll report you to the attorney general. The voters ought to show them the door.”

It was nice to see The Washington Post’s ombudsman agree with us that the paper’s coverage of the alleged anti-Semitic remarks by Cong. Jim Moran (D-Va.) was unfair.

But the paper’s editors were un repentant.

Metro’s top editor, Jo-Ann Armao, says she is “frankly baffled by the suggestion that The Post should not have reported this story — a longtime aide and political ally to one of the Washington area’s most influential congressmen quits the campaign at a critical point in time and cites as reason his on-the-record allegation that the congressman, already under fire for previous comments deemed inappropriate, made an anti-Semitic remark. The story was thoroughly and diligently reported. We tried many times to get Secrest to say specifically what Moran said to him, telling him that it hurt the credibility of his charge. His refusal was a factor in how we played the story,” Armao said.

“Many readers and voters have said they don’t believe Secrest’s charge. And every reason they cite — that there was a financial dispute between the two, that Secrest is sometimes a hothead who has had breakups with other clients, that there was a dispute about campaign strategy, that Secrest wasn’t specific, that others denied the charge — they know because they read them in our stories. In other words, we reported everything we could and left readers to make the decision about whether to believe Secrest’s allegation.

“Critics seem to be saying,” Armao said, “that we should have decided whether the charge was true before deciding whether to write a story. I do think that we have to judge the credibility of the accuser, and in this case again, it was someone who has been a staunch backer of Moran for two decades, someone who has not been accused of lying, someone who has a national reputation he seemed to be risking.”

“If Secrest had told us the alleged specific comment, and Moran denied saying it, would it have made a difference to those who feel we shouldn’t have written the story?”

Michael Getler, the ombudsman, said Armao’s last point is a good one, but

My own view is that what The Post violated was a fundamental sense of fairness and common sense by airing and repeating this explosive, uncorroborated, unexplained — and denied — charge four days before an election. Because Moran is such an easy target is all the more reason to be careful.

Thanks to Paul Goldman of the Augusta Free Press who wrote a column a few days after our first post, concerned about the coverage. His column, which we forwarded on to The Post, was quoted in the ombudsman’s critique.

No postings today. I’m off to see my daughter’s soccer team win the state semi-finals, and then to see if Barry Bonds can hit one out of the Yards.

I try to have faith in people. I think they’ll vote for the candidate who best serves their ends, and I respect that some think Bush is doing that for them.

But a couple of comments in a Washington Post story about how good economic numbers aren’t helping Bush, there are two quotes that stand out.

Maria Sandoval, an elderly Democrat in Colorado Springs, has had a rough time of it in the past few years, living solely on Social Security and relying on the county clinic for her health care. On the economy, Bush “hasn’t done very good,” she allowed. He could have offered more help, she said, and his prescription drug law does not promise her much, either.

But Bush has her vote, she said firmly. “I guess he hasn’t put too much into [the economy], but he’s busy with a lot of other things. He’s on top of everything. That’s what I like about him.”

He’s on top of everything? Like the guy or not, it’s clear that he’s been scrambling for months trying to get on top of the Iraq thing.And then there is this:

During the Clinton years, Jeremy Tuck said he had been selling mobile homes in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and, at $45,000 a year, making good money. Last year, he was assembling mobile homes, earning $15,000 and living hand-to-mouth. But Bush has his vote this November. Had Gore been elected in 2000, Tuck said, “we would’ve been taken over by Saddam Hussein or [Osama] bin Laden.”

“You make more money in plain terms when Democrats are in office,” Tuck said with a shrug, “but Republicans are stronger on the military, and that’s why I’m voting for President Bush.”

We would have been taken over by Osama bin Laden? He’s making a third of what he did while Clinton was president and he’s happy. I wish everyone were so easy to please.

More revealing was this.

“Americans are a show-me people,” said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion expert at the American Enterprise Institute. “They need to be shown that things have actually been changed, and I think in an economic recovery, this means seeing the guy down the street getting his job back rather than good jobs numbers.”

… John R. Zaller, a political scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles, suggested that voters … may have considerably sharper antennae than economists.

In the fall of 2000, when most economic indicators continued to surge, anxiety among voters began to take a toll on Democrat Al Gore’s White House bid, Zaller said. That anxiety proved to be prescient: By the spring of 2001, the economy had slipped into recession.

This go-round, jobs are coming back, but Americans may sense that those jobs are not of the same quality as the work that was lost, Newport said. Any good economic news is being tempered by high gasoline prices, and a generally sour mood has made voters skeptical.

Katie, bar the door! That’s what some are saying to the bold move by Katharine Webb, the powerful lobbyist for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. Asked by six Republican delegates for donations recently, Webb said a polite no to those who voted against the budget.

Polite yes, but also direct. Usually, requests are either ignored or some innocuous excuse is used to reject them. But breaking with tradition, Webb sent a letter that, according to The Washington Post’s Mike Shear, read in part:

“HOSPAC’s financial support must be contingent on a recognition that it is reasonable for health care providers to be paid for the costs they incur to deliver services to Medicaid patients,” the letter stated. “Your failure to vote for a budget that only provided a modest increase places us in the difficult position of denying your contribution request.”

That’s not the way, it’s usually done.

“It’s a real big look under the tent. It is rare that you see things spelled out with such clarity,” said Bill Allison, a spokesman for the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. “A lot of these things are usually inferred. For somebody to put it down in writing is incredibly rare.”

Webb may not be alone. At lunch with education lobbyists last month, I heard the same may be coming from education groups who plan to make an example of the delegates who voted against the budget or tax increases. Others may join the effort.

Brett A. Vassey, president and chief executive of the Virginia Manufacturers Association, said many groups will be making similar decisions about campaign contributions by tallying up the voting records for the session.

“I don’t think Katie’s alone,” he said. “We are adding a greater level of analysis to the voting history of legislators before we give anything. And we are advising our members to do the same. Katie is always pushing the envelope.”

A couple of delegates are pushing back. One is Tim Hugo (R-Fairfax) who complained, “I think this is over the top and beyond belief,” Hugo said. “We are not finished with the budget. I would be worried, Democrat or Republican, about accepting any contributions from the hospital association.” Hugo, you may recall, spent thousands of dollars on auto calls to residents around the state urging them to oppose the tax increases.

Webb said … that Hugo and the other lawmakers were the ones who asked for contributions weeks ago, prompting her letters. She questioned their concern about the ethical implications of receiving her letter before the amendments were voted on. “If that was so important to them, why did they ask for money well before the budget was done?” she asked.

I’ve said this before: The greatest pressure on Republicans in ’05 will not be from the right against those who voted for the tax increases, but from the moderates against those who didn’t. The Club for Growth will try to impose its will, of course. But watch Hugo and others back peddling when they get challenged.

Del. Dave Albo is one who may be vulnerable, not from within his own party but from Democrats. He tried to explain his not vote in a column recently, but may have shot himself in the foot:

The only good news is that McLean’s Delegate Callahan, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, managed to get us a little bit better than our normal 7.4%….we will receive $37.3 million. It was going to be only $10 million.

A little bit? That’s almost four times what Fairfax would have gotten, and he’s complaining. He did the same a couple of years ago when the sales tax referendum for schools was in play. He opposed Del. Jim Dillard’s formula that would have returned 80% of Fairfax’s sales tax dollars to the county instead of the usual 20%. He wasn’t happy because the county didn’t get all of it.

I wonder how many of his residents would rather be living in the areas of Virginia that get all of their sales tax dollars back. Check home listings and schools in say, Wise County. Nothing against Wise, but you get what you pay for, and I’m sure many Wise residents wish they could afford what Fairfax has.

[Ed. Note: Post edited for typos after original posting.]