Whining Her Way To Public Office?

A few days after her nearly-half page advertisement, the Trait..., er, Lucy Beauchamp's decision to abandon the GOP and run for Clerk of the Circuit Court as an independent is now the subject of two articles in today's newspapers.

The first --- because it's the paper I read first --- is an article in the Potomac News by Jaclyn Pitts. In it, she starts out by saying "she just wants things to be fair." She claims to "prefer[] the primary method because she feels it is more fair to the candidates and gives more people the right to vote for the candidate of choice." She "thinks a convention is unfair because it allows only Republican delegates to choose who they want and doesn't let the public decide."

The second article, by Ian Shapira, is little more than a patented Pravda-on-the-Potomac, er, Washington Post hit piece on the GOP. It's not not mostly about the race for Clerk of the Circuit Court, but manages to include the Trait..., er, Lucy's specious grievances. The part dealing the the Trait..., er, Lucy, starts out as follows:

This week, School Board Chairman Lucy S. Beauchamp, a longtime Republican who has won three countywide elections, decided to run as an independent for clerk of the Prince William County Circuit Court because, she said, she was angry at Kopko's handling of her nomination process. He had favored a convention in that race as well.

The problem? She's lying. Openly. Brazenly. Either that, or Lucy's thought processes are wanting. Probably both.

Virtually anyone can vote in a Convention. All they have to do is show up. Virtually anyone can become a delegate to the Convention, again, only by registering and showing up (sounds a lot like voter registration, doesn't it?). And the Trait... er, Lucy, is still whining about the location of the Convention, a government school, the second choice (the first was Forest Park, in the Dumfries District, home of one of Lucy's biggest supporters, Supervisor Maureen Caddigan) one over which she has presided as School Board Chairman for more than a decade.

Of course, the real reason for the Trait... er, Lucy's decision is in the fact that she wanted the advantages of the GOP nomination, and Republicans found her wanting, just as Members of the Republican Committee found her wanting when she twice sought the Committee's endorsement, and was denied it (once, when unopposed!). 'Fact is, her candidacy went over like a lead balloon with Republican activists. Having probably figured that she couldn't earn the support of anywhere near a majority of Republicans who would actually show up at a Conventions, and brazenly resenting a process which would allow Democrats to participate in/interfere with GOP nominating contests, she simply decided to take her ball and go home.

I guess it really sucks when your record and political ambitions don't justify the trust and advantages of the GOP nomination for public office.

It would be refreshing of the Trait... er, Lucy, would simply admit that her decision to run as an independent is a self-serving political calculus, rather than making a pretense of victimhood. That she does not do so speaks volumes about her honesty. That she seeks to harm the GOP on her way out the door simply demonstrates just how much of a Republican she really is, and probably always was.