The crowd was light this morning at the Aurora Hills Community Center, one of Arlington County’s 54 polling centers.
About 35 people had voted there by 11:00. The morning is typically the busiest time for voting, polling center staff said.
Polls close at 7:00 tonight.
Matthew Berry says he’s “feeling very good” about his chances in today’s Republican congressional primary.
The former government lawyer has a more than 2-to-1 fundraising advantage over his opponent, retired Army colonel Patrick Murray, and Berry says his campaign’s internal numbers “look very good.”
Voters “seem to be responding well to our positive message,” Berry said. He has spent much of the past 48 hours knocking on doors, calling likely voters and attending events.
One might think Berry would be envious of Murray’s slick, air conditioned campaign bus, which has been making dozens of stops around the 8th District over the past five days, but Berry insists that old-fashioned door-to-door campaigning is actually more effective.
“My focus is on targeting likely primary voters,” he said in a telephone interview conducted Sunday night. “I personally don’t think the best way to do that is get on a bus and wander around the district, but everybody makes their own campaign choices.”
Berry, an unabashed policy wonk whose main campaign focus has been on fiscal issues, says Republican voters should support him because he has more specific solutions to the country’s problems than his opponent.
He also says that he would be more electable in the general election (a claim also made by Murray).
Berry points to the Murray campaign’s attempts to paint him as the “establishment” or “insider” candidate as an indication of why Murray may be vulnerable in the fall.
“He’s said that I spent too much time inside the Beltway — and the last time I looked at a map most people in Virginia’s 8th District happen to live inside the Beltway,” Berry said. “If his strategy for getting elected in the 8th District is to denigrate people who live inside the Beltway, then he’s going to get slaughtered in the general election.”
Arlington Science Teacher Wins Presidential Award — A beloved H-B Woodlawn High School biology teacher has won a prestigious honor from the White House. Dat Le is among the 103 recipients of the 2010 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Teachers from Huntingtown, Md. and Bristow, Va. are also among the recipients, although Le is the only inside-the-Beltway award-winner. He will receive a $10,000 prize from the National Science Foundation and a seat of honor at an awards ceremony later this year.
Republicans Voters to Choose Congressional Nominee Today — Voters in Virginia’s 8th Congressional District are heading to the polls to choose which GOP nominee will face incumbent Rep. Jim Moran (D) in the fall. The Associated Press wins the award for the most concise, cynical take on the race:
In the 8th District, little-known candidates Matthew Berry of Arlington and Alexandria’s Patrick Murray, vie for the right to challenge 10-term Democratic Rep. Jim Moran in the heavily Democratic inner suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Polls are open from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. today. Click here for a list of polling place.
Maggie Moo’s Closes in Shirlington, Yogiberry Moving In — Via Shirlington Village Blog, we learn that the Maggie Moo’s ice cream shop in Shirlington has closed. A Yogiberry frozen yogurt store will be moving in. Sign of the times?
Republican congressional candidate Patrick Murray may be a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Army, but he’s only a three-month veteran of electoral politics. And that doesn’t worry him one bit.
“I think [voters] like the fact that I’m not a politician,” Murray said on Friday, during an interview on board his newly-rented campaign bus. “People talk to me and they say, ‘you don’t talk like a politician,’ and I take that as a compliment because I’m not.”
Murray says his ‘Time to Lead’ bus tour, on which he embarked Thursday and will continue through Tuesday’s GOP primary, is part of an “insurgent ground campaign.” He’s visiting Metro stops, grocery stores, farmer’s markets and other high-traffic spots in an effort to get out the vote.
“We are cautiously optimistic but we’re running like we’re 50 points behind. We’re getting up before dawn and going to bed after dark. Our goal is to get to all 151 precincts in the eighth district.”
Murray may not be 50 points behind, but his fundraising has consistently lagged opponent Matthew Berry, a former general counsel at the Federal Communications Commission.
“My opponent has raised a lot more money than I have but he’s raised it from the outside,” Murray said. “He’s definitely the establishment guy.”
Later, Murray took another shot at Berry’s inside-the-Beltway career.
“I have a lot of experience in what I like to call the real world,” he said. “My opponent has none, he’s a federal government lawyer. There’s nothing wrong with federal government lawyers but that’s his sole perspective.”
“This is a year where we need some maturity, some leadership, and somebody in there who can stand up to both sides and get some things done,” Murray said.
Murray insists that he would have the best shot of defeating incumbent Rep. Jim Moran in the fall — a feat that no Republican has managed since Moran first won the eighth district congressional seat in 1991.
“I feel very strongly with my head and my heart that I’m the best candidate,” Murray said.
Former Army colonel Patrick Murray, who’s facing Matthew Berry in the VA-8 GOP primary on June 8, appeared on Fox News’ Strategy Room show on foxnews.com this morning.
Murray said his biggest issue is “the fact that we have misplaced our Constitutional values.”
“I believe we’re ignoring the Constitution,” Murray said. “I am a big believer in the 10th Amendment… I think our footprint for the federal government has gotten way too big.”
Murray also discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as his own military experience.
See the clip here.
Patrick Murray is ramping up his rhetoric in the somewhat low-key Republican primary battle for Virginia’s eighth congressional district.
Murray, who is challenging Matthew Berry for the right to face incumbent Democratic congressman Jim Moran in the fall, sent an email to his supporters today blasting Moran and the Obama administration.
Murray said defeating Moran would “restore honor and dignity to representation for Virginia’s 8th Congressional District.”
Murray, a retired U.S. Army colonel, wrote about the need to reverse “the dangerous course that the Obama administration has carelessly taken us on.”
Also in the email, Murray sounded a bit Ted Stevens-esque when he referenced our “our innovative use of every modern communications tool at our disposal.”
“Two of those tools are Facebook and Twitter!” Murray wrote. “You have probably heard of them (Obama’s use of these new media techniques was widely publicized during his campaign).”
Murray has largely avoided mentioning Berry during the course of his campaign. He has, however, repeatedly criticized Moran and the Obama administration, and has focused much attention on the issue of securing the country’s borders.
On Monday he said on Twitter: “Times Square terrorists have international links. Now can we focus on securing the border?”
