No turning back for Drake (VA-02) on Bush

This is an editorial in today's Va-Pilot about Cheney's visit to Norfolk last Monday night, and possibly hurting Drake's re-election bid. (If you get a registration page at the link, scroll down and click "ask me later")


http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=100367&ran=62267

The Virginian-Pilot
© March 1, 2006

The anticipation was palpable, even in the Hilton Norfolk Airport parking lot. Women in evening black and men in dark blue wool scrambled out of parked cars and into an icepick breeze, chattering excitedly as if headed to the theater.

In a way, they were.

The man they were coming to see may only boast an 18 percent approval rating in national polls. But Vice President Dick Cheney had 100 percent support from the local crowd gathered to hear him boost the re-election of Rep. Thelma Drake.

From the Peninsula to the Beach, the well-heeled party faithful had braved bridge-tunnels and traffic jams, and ponied up anywhere from $150 to $2,100 a plate, to hear a pep talk from the GOP’s second-in-command.

They filed through a maze of blue cloth security cordons, under metal detectors and past a bank of waiting TV cameras to a table-filled, red-white-and-blue festooned ballroom.

There, as red-badged Secret Service officers kept a sharp eye on movements and TV reporters checked their earpieces, Drake’s boosters laughed, kibitzed, told the occasional hunting joke and greeted each other like long-lost friends. The atmosphere was more family reunion than fundraiser.

cont'd.....

;)

Seems the speech Cheney gave in my podunk corner of the world, is the same one he gives in the other 434 congressional districts. Snork.