Failure Is Not an Option: Just Your Choice

HIT RETURN TO RESUME OPERATION

In June 2015, as a freshman congressman, Don Beyer, Jr. had been interviewed by Steve Scully on C-SPAN, after having successfully defeated two Negro women, one Hispanic, one Negro male, the first openly gay Jewish American ever elected to a state office and one Caucasian male in the most diverse congressional district in the Commonwealth, and the most reliable Democrat Party District in Virginia, prompting Alexandria activist Gail Gordon Donnegan to comment to the Washington Post, after that primary election, that it was disappointing to see a rich, White male prevail, and he went on to defeat an Negro male, described by the Washington Post as a "unicorn", because his religion was Judaism. Explaining his victory, Congressman Beyer said that he was "the only one who had the resume."

There are so many Democrat Party votes in Virginia's 8th Congressional District that, in 2016, Scott McCaffery, the editor for the Arlington Sun Gazette, had said that bookies wouldn't lay odds on a Republican picking up a seat because it was so far out of reach, and in 2017, Patricia Sullivan, of the Washington Post, had confirmed that the County of Arlington which had last voted for a Republican Presidential nominee in 1980, was the jewel of the kingmaker congressional district that had decided statewide elections for the prior two decades. But, this year, after being so confident after what he had described as the election of his lifetime, the 2020 election, that, after years of expressing "frustration whenever government officials political leaders used God to promote bad policy or ideas--or twisted the Bible to make a bad point," upon the urging of Congressmen Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin, he had accepted the invitation of the Congressional Free Thought Caucus, which he claimed on Twitter "pushes for science-based policies (key during the pandemic), and described by The Friendly Atheist as "a group of lawmakers dedicated to promoting reason-based policy."

However, this year, for the first time since his election, although he has informed supporters that he is concerned that the Republicans are attempting to recruit "an extremist" to defeat him, Beyer faces a primary challenger, a 29 year old woman of color, daughter of immigrants, Victoria Virasingh, who hopes to be the first Indian/Latina to represent the district, and she has already raised over $123,000, far exceeding the amount raised by any Republican in the district since Patrick Murray's last race in 2012, while, having already raised over $927,000, is in a position to exceed his normal campaign receipts of around $1.3 million. And Virasingh has stated that she is running not because Beyer, who has the worst roll call vote attendance record in Virginia, despite boasting to Steve Scully that he was the envy of Congress for having a district to close to the Capitol, has performed poorly, but that she, with no prior experience in elective office, or government service, can do better.

And, Arlington County, Virasingh's home since birth, alone has the most government scientists in the nation, is the most educated, by credentials congressional district, and boasts a rank of 14th for holders of graduate degrees; so, at least on paper they look like intelligent people.