A Perspective on Jeannemarie's Loss

Don't know about Chap deserving anything, but you are right. JDD stands for NOTHING. You'll see more consistency from a chameleon.

HV, get outta my head! My hubby and I were just talking about that last night. We concluded that JMDD got what she deserved when she lost the election.

It's one thing to work a political machine and wring every last bit of power and influence from it.

It's quite another thing to permit the corruption of the polling booth when you could stop it.

Chap worked hard and "deserved" to win this particular race. Perhaps, in the future, he may not be so "deserving." For now, Chap was the better of the two candidates. Anyone who is not part of the Maud Machine is good in my book.

Can Va.'s Davis Team Divorce Themselves From Politics?
He's Out of the Race. She Lost. What Now?

By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 10, 2007; C01

Theirs is a partnership of politics and ambition that formed a decade ago and grew into something more.

He was a powerful congressman. She was a fledgling state candidate with promise. A master politician with a national profile, he took her under his wing and found his life's love.

They both craved the game, and they both sought power. When he moved on to the Senate, she could run for his seat, or perhaps a statewide office in Virginia. Together, they made a life centered around these ambitions.

And then Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, the seven-term Republican from Fairfax County, decided last month that his dream job, the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, had slipped out of reach. And on Tuesday, the Democratic tide that rose in Northern Virginia swept out of office his wife, state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, a 10-year incumbent.

The rising arc of the Davis brand fell back to earth. Elections are cruel that way.

Now, the man who first came to the Hill as a Senate page and became a leading advocate in Congress for the affairs of the District, suddenly has to contemplate a future away from it all. He probably won't run for reelection unless he concludes it is a path to the Senate in 2012, say his associates.

"He saw a lifelong goal disappear," said Republican Gary H. Baise of McLean, a friend of the Davises. "He saw very methodically how he could get there; he would be the natural heir to John Warner. But all of a sudden, events spun out of control. He could no longer control them. So he devoted everything to helping his wife. And so there was just an enormous amount of prestige, power, perception, and his future tied up in his wife's race."

The story of how the Davises' success became interdependent is not hard to trace through those who have watched the political romance blossom over the years. Both declined to be interviewed for this article.

Davis entered politics in 1980, first as a Fairfax County district supervisor. He went to Congress as part of the Republican revolution of 1994 and rapidly rose through the ranks.

Devolites Davis is a native of Arlington who majored in math at the University of Virginia. A self-described Oakton soccer mom to four daughters, she caught the bug for politics in the mid-1990s. She brought a remarkable energy to her new career that she had previously applied to a statistical consulting business and to Girls Scouts and the PTA.

She ran twice, unsuccessfully, for a seat on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors against Democrat Gerald E. Connolly. But when Davis met her through political circles, the congressman saw a chance to advance a Republican woman in Virginia politics. He urged her to run for a seat in Richmond and he offered to serve as her campaign manager.

"Jeannemarie was part of the Tom Davis team," recalled David B. Albo, a Republican delegate from Springfield and a personal friend of the Davises. "There were a number of us for whom Tom Davis is our mentor. . . . He got us into politics. He introduced us to people who knew how to run campaigns. He taught us how to door-knock."

When Connolly faced Devolites Davis in the 1990s, "she was inexperienced," the Democrat said. "The sum total of her community experience had been as a Girl Scout leader. But Tom groomed her and counseled her and helped her, and she became a very skilled, articulate public official."

In a video produced during the 1997 election, Devolites Davis appeared in her family kitchen with her four daughters and then-husband, John A. Devolites. Sprinkled throughout is footage of her with students, Girl Scouts and senior citizens. At the end, she strolls with Davis along a sidewalk, and then it is just Davis, speaking to the camera, averring what an "extraordinary" delegate his acolyte would make. (He also testified to her "deep faith in families," a declaration that later became the subject of some ridicule on the blogosphere.)

Most friends and associates of the Davises won't talk openly about when the romance began. Tom and his first wife, Peggy Davis, a Fairfax County gynecologist who, by most accounts, despised politics, were divorced in the fall of 2003, just a few months before the new couple declared their plans to wed.

"Jeannemarie is Tom's perfect soul mate," said Baise. "Peggy was not. I think everybody sort of sees that. They live, breathe and love the action."

John and Jeannemarie Devolites filed for divorce in 2000 but remained united as parents. They appeared together in court in 2002, when their daughter, Ashley, then 20, was sentenced to a nine-year prison term for her role in a series of armed robberies in Fairfax City.

After their wedding, the new Davises moved quickly to forge a marriage that seemed inseparable from their public life. They did joint speaking engagements and campaign events. They scheduled a vacation once with a return date timed so both could attend the Vienna Day Fourth of July Parade -- and later bragged about it to friends. During Virginia's winter legislative sessions, the Davises started a tradition of reserving Mondays for "date night." He would meet her at the Capitol in Richmond, say hello to their Republican colleagues, and have dinner alone with her before heading north for the busy week on Capitol Hill.

"They seem infatuated with each other," said Del. Thomas Davis Rust (R-Fairfax), also a Davis recruit to state politics. "He is the congressman, he is the more influential, powerful person. But" -- and Rust chuckled here -- "she treats him as her husband, if you know what I mean. It's an equal partnership."

Davis often seemed to defer to his wife in public. He hovered near her at the state Capitol. He even agreed to a joint photo session wearing matching light blue shirts and white slacks, his fair hair nearly as coiffed as hers, and their two white Maltese dogs on their laps.

After walking away from his own ambition, Davis used every page in his playbook to save his wife and, at the same time, the Republican majority in the state Senate. He brought in his own seasoned staff and arranged for New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to join Devolites Davis at a campaign event and praise her votes for gun control. As she flashed her white smile and flipped her always-perfect dark hair, her husband watched from the back of the room, his dual roles of doting husband and tactical genius in full effect.

It was a pure Davis move, helping his wife court Democrats in an increasingly left-leaning district and offering Bloomberg the prize of heavy media coverage.

But it wasn't enough.

Davis's investment in his wife's career clearly has come to be about more than politics. But his strategy to mentor as many Republicans as possible has been good for the party. "This is one thing people forget: Tom Davis is one of the biggest reasons why we got the Republican majority eight years ago," said Albo. "He helped devise the strategy. He also raised a ton of money."

Able to name every member of the House by the time he was in seventh grade, Davis is renowned as a gifted statistician whose brain contains a virtual almanac of political and demographic data. And he has seen for some time that the Republican Party was headed for trouble in Virginia. The GOP lost eight seats and control of the state Senate in Tuesday's election. He has also believed that as a moderate Republican with a long record appealing to both Republican and Democratic voters in rapidly urbanizing and diversifying Northern Virginia, he could play a key role in forging a path for the GOP's future.

And so it was all the more embittering to Davis to watch the Republican State Central Committee last month opt for a convention instead of a primary to nominate its candidate for U.S. Senate. The choice gave a big advantage to conservative former governor James S. Gilmore III, who has more support among the party activists who populate state conventions. Davis viewed it not only as a slap in the face but as political suicide for the party, given how poorly he believes Gilmore's conservatism will play against the pragmatic moderation of the likely Democratic nominee, former governor Mark R. Warner.

"He's clearly disappointed," said Michael W. Thompson, a longtime friend who is president of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, a center-right think tank based in Virginia.

Thompson believes that Davis chose to throw himself into his wife's reelection campaign not to salvage his own political career but out of love. Others believe it was a little bit of both. Had he helped Devolites Davis to victory, he and she would likely have promoted the win as a huge vindication of his political potency.

Even Thompson conceded: "If he had won it, there would have been all sorts of celebrations." But he added: "Jeannemarie's race was the equivalent of winning the lottery. It was a long shot. Just because she lost it doesn't mean he's a eunuch."

But it does mean both husband and wife are at a crossroads, adapting to an abrupt shift in the balance of their personal relationship. Should they plan for him to try for Senate next time? Should she regroup and try for office again? Should they both ditch it, Tom when his term is up, and make a new and more lucrative life for themselves in the private sector?

"That is the $64,000 question," said Baise, the couple's friend from McLean. "If he truly believes that he cannot achieve his ultimate goal of being U.S. senator, then my money would be on him taking one of these jobs and hanging it up."

All I can say is the fact that she did nothing but totally ignore the corruption at the Vienna Polls last spring, when it was known that Maud cronies were forcing people to not vote for Brehony and Stick, she got was she deserved! I hope Maud gets the boot, and the whole lot of these nincompoops.

Thompson believes that Davis chose to throw himself into his wife's reelection campaign not to salvage his own political career but out of love. Others believe it was a little bit of both. Had he helped Devolites Davis to victory, he and she would likely have promoted the win as a huge vindication of his political potency.

OH PLEASE IT IS OUT OF FEAR. SHE IS A SHREW!! SHE IS PROBABLY BLAMING HIM FOR SOMETHING.

For the record - I do NOT now beleive that there was "corruption" at the Polls last spring - I do not in ANY WAY THINK or BELEIVE that ANY of our Town Officials Knew about it OR Approved of those irregularities in any way...

In Fact (and Yes, I AM the "Horses Mouth") there was ONE woman, who made inappropriate comments towords voters, but there is NO WAY, NO HOW, that those comments would have in ANY WAY changed the outcome of the election.

It was what it was.

I lost, and I lost alone. Please do not associate me with any other candidate.

Get over it. No big "conspiracy theory" here, pretty much nothing to talk about anymore.

Yes, a woman did make inappropriate and suggestive remarks, and she has since been removed from the Vienna Polls. But no "Blackhawk conspiracies" from the Town.

JMDD did all she was empowered to do. I met with the FfxCo Board of Elections, and made the appropriate complaints that were necessary for that situation. Proceedures have now been ammended for the future.

I was a Poll Watcher in this past Election, and everything did proceed 100% within the law.

No complaints whatsoever.

DB

Re Brehoney: For the record - I do NOT now beleive that there was "corruption" at the Polls last spring - I do not in ANY WAY THINK or BELEIVE that ANY of our Town Officials Knew about it OR Approved of those irregularities in any way...

What soul did she sell or what favors is she getting for saying this Brehoney Baloney...

FACT: It was known at around 11:30AM that there was at least one poll watcher either influencing peoples votes, and or forcing people to vote for Maud. This was brought to the officials attention and she was still there within an hour of the close of the election. NOTHING WAS DONE. This person was Rhoda Stevens.

I still say, if this had been a person forcing people NOT to vote for Maud, that person would have been arrested.

FACT: When the news of this was explained to the state attorney general, their official was absolutely amazed that she was not arrested on the spot after listening to the eyewitnesses coming out of the polls.

FACT: NOTHING was done, you say there was an investigation? Tell me all about it?

Vienna could not possibly want to see its name in print in the post with a story like this (Read Maud) so what really happened was more on the likes of a swift sweep under the carpets.

Re: I lost, and I lost alone. Please do not associate me with any other candidate.

Why? What gives you ANY thought that anyone is associating you with anyone let alone "any other candidate"?

FACT: For the record, you can make a legitimate argument that with what Rhoda Stevens was doing, if she had not been there to effect a change in the Vienna Elections, there was a real mathematical chance that one of you could have won. It can be proven.

FACT: Regardless of the outcome, the results of Vienna Election was the results of ELECTION FRAUD not matter how you cut it. One of the most important activities in American History and its model of democracy is the right to have free and open elections free from coercion and fraud. Well folks, here is one election that has FRAUD written all around it, and Mayor Seeman and Maud Robinson and Micheal Polychrones gloated and were proud to see things running this way, Jane in fact, stated that when she heard of what Rhoda Stevens had done, said," I stand by the Vienna Election, and do not see any reason or responsibility to do anything about what Rhoda Stevens had done, there is nothing that needs to be done." with full knowledge that Rhoda Stevens was committing Voter Fraud.

FACT: That in my books is wrong, and very wrong for Vienna. So, Brehoney, just because you may think that you would have been a loser and lost anyway, DOES NOT NEGATE THE FACT THAT THERE WAS CORRUPTION AND FRAUD IN THE LAST VIENNA ELECTION, and just because YOU say on this post that you don't think there was any corruption make this reader think that you are getting your back scratched in return for what? You career? Your husbands?

What did they do to keep your mouth shut? Oh, I guess the cats got your tongue, and I think you protest too much, because nothing you can say now after what you were saying on election day is ever going to get intelligent people from thinking otherwise, simply because this is the way things have been running in Vienna for years.

Corruption: YES
Fraud: YES
Vienna Politics Stinks to high heaven: YES

PS: If nothing wrong happened than why your statement: Proceedures have now been ammended for the future.

Please do not associate me with any other candidate.
I am getting a bit weary of this one...
I do not remember going before the election board. I also do not remember gathering more than what amounted to more than a few complaints. Nor do I remember trying to tie myself to you or your candidacy. Now or then. We are separate people with perhaps with the same goal, but we clearly have different ways in how we view achieving these goals. I think your constant barrage towards "not associating" with me is divisive, and in my opinion is one of the main reasons this Town is going in the direction it is going..downhill. Dividing people is how those who remain in power get there and stay there. If that is your desire than so be it. Go ahead and use my back and scratch your way to get to the top. I think you have gotten ill advice. I got the same advice but chose not to take it.
I was a Poll Watcher in this past Election, and everything did proceed 100% within the law.
You are comparing apples to oranges here. The County is in charge of these elections.

What Deborah is saying is that it is in her best interest not to dwell on the improprities of the election in question. What happened at that election is one factor of the machinations of the existing political machine. We are to ignore the obvious. In my humble opinion the idea of changing the Vienna election date to coincide with the regular November date is in order.

MAYBE RHODA STEVENS IS GONE AND MAYBE SHE ISN'T. DIDN'T ANY OF THE OTHER ELECTION OFFICIALS NOTICE ANYTHING WRONG? DID ANY OF THEM SPEAK UP? I UNDERSTAND THAT ALL THESE OFFICIALS ARE RECOMMENDED BY THE TC AND APPOINTED BY THE COUNTY. WHY NOT LET THE COUNTY SELECT THEM W/O TC (MAUD'S) RECOMMENDATIONS? MOREOVER, WHY NOT HAVE TOWN ELECTIONS IN NOVEMBER ALONG WITH COUNTY, STATE, ETC., ELECTIONS. MAYBE THEN WE WILL HAVE MORE THAN THE USUAL VERY LOW TURNOUT OF MAUD'S FRIENDS.

Do you realize that Rhoda never apologized for her actions. Why should she, she was doing what she was told to do. Her mentors failed to realize how this would have helped. But then again, they are not backing down from their nefarious ways.

ok - I'll try to respond to this and give you my best and most honest answer -

The reason I said that there was not (in my opinion) "corruption," is that after a fairly throrough investigation on my part, it did seem to me that the irregularities that occurred at the TOV elections were limited to one person and one person only.

Trust me, I looked into this pretty good...

There was no connection that I could find between that one person and the "Powers That Be" in the Town.

Let's go over those "Facts."

There were, as I recall, three (3) and only three "Official Complaints" filed with the State Board of Elections.(All were connected with only that One Person.)

NONE of those complaints involved ANYONE at ANYTIME stating whom one SHOULD or SHOULD NOT vote for.

Two of the complaints centered around being told that "Bullet Votes" or Single Shot Votes" were not to be allowed, and that the Voter needed to "Vote for Three Persons."

The Third Complaint involved the same Poll Worker, in that she made inappropriate remarks to a Citizen regarding his wife's social network, and basically said "If she is a friend of hers, then she is no friend of mine."

I personally made the calls to report the irregularities that day. No one called the "State Attorney General." They do not have authority over elections - There was no reason or need to call that branch of government.

I DID call the Virginia State Board of Elections - They were NOT "amazed" that the Poll worker was not "arrested on the spot."

That's just not true.

They calmly suggested that we call the Fairfax County Board of Elections, who was in charge of the Town Election with our concerns--which we did.

Insinuating that "One Must Vote for Three" is incorrect (and WRONG), but hardly a reason for "Arrest." No one ever suggested that anyone "needed to be arrested."

So I stand that while those three comments were in fact misleading (and yes, "wrong", there was not a "conspiracy" or a network of "corruption" within the Town that led up to that event.

Apples to Apples (or Oranges) - It is wrong that the County is different in being in charge of the November elections.

In fact ALL elections (Town, Regional, and I think National) are arranged, conducted, and under the authority of the Fairfax County Board of Elections.

Not Town of Vienna.

Things DID change significantly in this past November at VCC - Voting Machines were set against the short side of the wall, and Poll Workers did NOT wander within eye-shot of the voters while they were voting.

And Yes, HL, you are correct, in that the changes that have been mandated for the future for TOV are that FfxCo will appoint Election Officers for all elections, and not submit those to TOV for approval. That is what is meant by "proceedures have been ammended for the future."

E-mail and Blogs are such a poor form of communication.

I am open and willing to discuss any of this with any of you at any time.

I am in the phone book. Please call me --I'm here, and I don't plan to go anywhere.

Best,
DB

To this day the TOV forces citizens to go to court to obtain FOIA requests. To this day the TOV will not listen to the State FOIA Council. Hiding emails by the TOV about this issue stinks. On top of the multiple instances of our Mayor having been caught lying on video for any number of issues, these people should be trusted as far as we can throw them.

I do not care to keep rehashing this past election - it was ridiculous. Anyone who witnessed the crap going on knew it was a complete joke (even if not criminal). I overheard Maud Robinson bad mouthing both DB and SS to many people. Everyone knew the election was complete farce.

All that said, I take offense to this:

E-mail and Blogs are such a poor form of communication.

If not for this poor communicator, issues would never get brought up in Vienna. Thank goodness, we finally have an outlet to discuss things outside of Maud's "media controlled" world (re: lame Trompeter articles).

The trouble with most politicians is that they think they are practicing the worlds second oldest profession, when in reality, the first two are the same when it comes to people like Seeman and Robinson, hell the whole TC! This town council is so bad for Vienna, people don't even know they are being screwed! How's that for the worlds oldest profession!

Brehoney, for the record, you are xxx.

Re: The reason I said that there was not (in my opinion) "corruption," is that after a fairly throrough investigation on my part, it did seem to me that the irregularities that occurred at the TOV elections were limited to one person and one person only.

So, since it was just one person, then it's acceptable. It only takes one person to murder someone, does that make it right?

Re: NONE of those complaints involved ANYONE at ANYTIME stating whom one SHOULD or SHOULD NOT vote for.

You are dead wrong here. I heard one person state that Rhoda Stevens actually reached around the polling booth on some elderly person attempted and succeeded to change someone vote to make sure that they voted for Maud. This is corruption in my book.

Re: No one called the "State Attorney General."

That is flat out wrong. Since the Vienna Police was not doing anything about it, both the State Police and The State Attorney General's offices were called, and the official in Richmond was amazed that Rhoda Stevens was not arrested. You draw your own conclusions as to why she was not. No one mentioned anything about the election board, you should read more carefully!

Re: There was no connection that I could find between that one person and the "Powers That Be" in the Town.

Wrong again here. There is a tape recording that Rhoda Stevens states that she was told to do this by someone else... she refused to tell who told her to do so, seems to me that if it was Maud Robinson, that would explain why she was willing to keep her mouth shut to refuse to tell anyone who told her to do what she did. So you are wrong again here.

Re: Insinuating that "One Must Vote for Three" is incorrect (and WRONG), but hardly a reason for "Arrest." No one ever suggested that anyone "needed to be arrested." You are so wrong here, its pathetic. She was not just Insinuating, she was telling people this, and if you think that behavior like this is okay, you are part of the problem! Where do you draw the line on fraud and corruption, obviously since you are still trying to mislead Vienna readers that these things never happened, one must realistically wonder what you are getting out of all this attempt hide this level of corruption and abuse of and by our government!

You are xxx. If you ever try to run for anything, this will certainly haunt you... is that why you want to sweep this under the rug?

Re:Things DID change significantly in this past November at VCC - Voting Machines were set against the short side of the wall, and Poll Workers did NOT wander within eye-shot of the voters while they were voting. Are you such a simpleton to think that major politicians like Davis and Peterson are willing to put up with this type of corruption? Most certainly, this last election was not tainted by fraud and abuse, simply because it was not in the purview of anyone related to nepotistic Vienna. The Vienna polling behavior was flat out wrong and they new it, it was even discussed during the previous years election, because it was determined that Rhoda Stevens had done the very same thing during that election, and yet they made sure she was still able to be a poll watcher. That in my book spells both corruption and conspiracy, because Jane Seeman admitted, and even bragged that she knew about Rhoda's actions the year before, and she found no reason why she should be kept out of the poll during this election cycle. You think that is kosher? If you do, you are an ignorant boob, just like Seeman.

Again, I have to truly wonder why you stick up for this behavior? Whose skeletons are you protecting? What indeed are you willing to protect from discovery and what are you getting in return? And please, don't give me any more xxx about, nothing really bad happened here, you nose is getting longer and longer.

Get real. Come up with something that helps Vienna, and not the other way around.

Dear Attacker:

I don't get you. You continue to post in a very venomous and "cock-sure" fashion, yet you are truly misinformed, and you seem completely incapable of accepting the truth.

You post as if I weren't even there - When, in fact, it was I who filed the complaints, called the State Board of Elections, appeared before the County Board of Elections, and have a file here with photocopies of the actual compliants that were filed that day.

No poll worker "reached around the polling booth" and attemped and was sucessful at "changing" anyone's vote so that they voted for any particular candidate.

The report that I have here (btw, it was filed by an attorney in her mid-forties - not an "elderly" person...)states that when she had finished voting, (and she did "bullet vote"), the poll worker reached around her, pushed the "Back" button, and instructed her that she must "Vote for three persons." There was never any mention of any name of any candidate. The voter, who thankfully knew better, pushed the "Next" button, and told the Poll Worker that it was not incumbent upon her to "Vote for three."

That's it. I have copies here to prove that to you, if you would care to see that.

There is no record of anyone calling either the Police (Local or State) OR the Attorney General's Office. I cannot imagine what,if anything, either of these branches have to do with oversite of Elections. The State Board WAS called. I called them myself.

And no, the person that I spoke to was not "amazed" that the Poll Worker was not arrested, by any stretch of the imagination.

You appear to be truly angry, and somewhat irrational - Unable to accept facts, even after they are presented to you.

I do not know what more I can say to help you, nor do I know if I want to help you. But you are being very unfair to the Citizens of our town to keep spewing information that is just simply not factual. If somehting is wrong, then you (and I) have every right and responsibility to report that, and to take action.

But we do not have the right, nor should we, to keep spreading lies, just because we may be angry or upset.

Sleep well. I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving.

Deborah

Re: The report that I have here (btw, it was filed by an attorney in her mid-forties - not an "elderly" person...)states that when she had finished voting, (and she did "bullet vote"), the poll worker reached around her, pushed the "Back" button, and instructed her that she must "Vote for three persons." There was never any mention of any name of any candidate. The voter, who thankfully knew better, pushed the "Next" button, and told the Poll Worker that it was not incumbent upon her to "Vote for three."

This is proof of abuse and fraud. What more do you need? Even one attempt of this activity is wrong, and reports were that Rhoda was doing this on multiple votes.

Re: There is no record of anyone calling either the Police (Local or State) OR the Attorney General's Office. I cannot imagine what,if anything, either of these branches have to do with oversite of Elections. The State Board WAS called. I called them myself.

Yes, I was there too. And both of these offices were called. And the assistant to the State attorney was amazed. If you read the post carefully, again, I never mentioned anything about anyone at the Election Board whatsoever, amazed or otherwise, so quit putting words in my mouth.

Re: You appear to be truly angry, and somewhat irrational - Unable to accept facts, even after they are presented to you.

Angry, yes. If you think that Vienna's ability to get away with behavior two years running with full knowledge and even the a directive of allowing Rhoda Stevens to behave in the way she did and abuse the voting system, who wouldn't be angry? And I stand by everything I posted, they are facts, the citizens of Vienna should know how crooked their leaders are. Nothing, absolutely nothing was stated wrongly, no lies. If you are unwilling to accept them, then I reiterate my initial statement as to I wonder what gain you have in attempting to allow Vienna Citizens to think that there was no abuse or corruption of their election and election process.

This is not meant as a direct attack on you personally, but I must state strongly, that your posts do not paint an fair impression as to how Vienna had allowed the voting process to be abused, and then to simply ignore the abuses. This is flat out bad for Vienna, and bad for Virginia! If you simply refuse to understand this, you are, IMHO, part of the problem, and this is why things like this are allowed to happen in Vienna; no-one will stand up to this abuse, and challenge the behavior of our TC and local politicians. I have to applaud this site if for no other reason.