Following up on my last blog about the Virginia Coordinated Campaign, “Is Shannon distancing himself from President Clinton or the Party?,” I now believe that the Shannon Campaign is trying to both distance itself from the other Democratic candidates and use the coordinated campaign’s resources to their advantage—having its cake and eating it too. I believe this for two reasons, one, because of the already documented non-existent events with the other Democratic candidates on the Shannon website, and two, because of my experiences canvassing last weekend.
Just recently, I decided to go canvassing for the Shannon Campaign with the hope of getting first-hand knowledge about what’s going on. However, going canvassing for them is easier said than done. After multiple calls and emails and after finding out that the Shannon Campaign headquarters is not metro accessible, I was informed that I should go through the Virginia Coordinated Campaign as they will be handling all further canvassing efforts—a very surprising thing to hear with more than a week out from the election at that time. Upon finally making it to the coordinated campaign HQ for Alexandria, it felt very much like a Deeds HQ converted to a coordinated effort. The flyers we handed out did have all three major Democratic state candidates, but the literature provided only mentioned Deeds achievements. Coincidence? I think not.
The point is, while I don’t know what exactly is going on within the Shannon Campaign, I can speculate. And it certainly seems as though it is trying to utilize all of the money, flyers, volunteers, and resources that the coordinated effort, funded in large part by the Virginia Democratic State Party, can provide without publicizing that it is doing so. I don’t know if this method by the Shannon Campaign will be an effective one or not come Election Day, but let us hope that he does POOCH THE COOCH.
–L.A.F.S
