I’ve gotten a good number of e-mails and phone calls in the past day, since the Charlottesville Daily Progress ran an article about the race among Democrats to fill Virginia’s 57th House of Delegates seat, since Del. Mitch Van Yahres announced his retirement.
For that article, political columnist Bob Gibson contacted me on Wednesday night, asking if I was interested in running for the seat. It’s true that the thought had crossed my mind and that I have spoken with some friends and family about it, and so I told him the truth. That appeared in the Progress yesterday, as the final paragraph in the article. The possibility of my candidacy was de-emphasized in the piece for good cause: there is somebody running (former mayor David Toscano), there are people seriously considering running (Peter Sheras and Will Harvey), and then there are folks who are entertaining the notion (Jeffrey Rossman and me). We’re named in the article in that order, and rightly so.
I didn’t float a story in the paper to see what reaction I’d get — I answered a question honestly. I wish that the answer were more exciting than that, but it’s not. I want a strong progressive with experience in campaign politics to run in this election, and I’m not playing coy when I say that I’m looking hard for just such a candidate. If you know such a person (and, obviously, they must live in the 57th), I’d love to hear about it.