David Blair for MoCo executive

[Anonymous]

Shame on you for spreading lies.

David Blair is a trustee of the Maryland State Democratic Party. How dare you compare him to Orange man? His wife is a small business owner and he has run a business himself and a nonprofit that helps county residents. That is real-life experience. Who do you think attracted all that business to Fairfax county? It was politicians with business backgrounds who know how to read a balance sheet and attract business. What is your solution to our unbalanced budgets? Tax our residents more or attract business that will generate taxable profits?

I have nothing personal against Marc Elrich. He was a fine teacher but he cannot manage the county. His skills in this department are next to nil and it shows. Montgomery County has the most overpaid county employees during the pandemic in the country. He overran his budget pre-pandemic. His health department could not create a simple database to vaccinate people. I can go on and on.

I understand that most people in the county are asleep at the wheel but I really do not understand why anybody in their right mind would advocate for another term of Marc Elrich unless you belong to the unions that brought him to power and benefited from the pay raises that he pushed forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd vote for my elderly dog over Elrich, and she shits in the house when it rains.

I'll vote for your dog too and I hate dogs.

Your dog has a third vote here. Would rather clean up his shit than Elrich’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Elrich was a teacher for crying out loud and he has already proven how he leads. I hope that and the state of MoCo are enough to deter people from voting for him again.

This issue is it's an off-year (non-presidential) election, and the CoExec race is effectively decided during the primary, since whoever has a D next to their name wins in the general. Elrich stands a good chance there because the average voter does not vote in an off-year primary -- only the most progressive and engaged do -- Elrich's main supporters. All he needs to do is win the "Takoma Park triangle" (SS, TKPK, and surrounding) to win it. They have high voter turnout and they vote for whoever is most progressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd vote for him.

Why? Blair has zero government experience. He's a rich business executive who can throw money away on a vanity campaign. Kinda like . . . oh, yeah -- that guy who is now our "former president". That worked out well.

1. not every non political person is Trump like, plus this is a county executive election, not a presidential one.
2. Elrich has mismanaged the county
3. Blair has been in the trenches, both as a business person and working with charities and non profits.
4. When was the last real world, non political experience Elrich had?

What has he done exactly and how would it apply to leadership in government? The name of his non-profit "The Council for Advocacy and Policy Solutions" says it all -- total word-salad without any actual substance. Advocacy toward what end? Solutions for which problems?

Blair's more like Trump than you think -- inexperienced and arrogant in thinking that you don't need to have actual experience and knowledge to be a leader in government and politics.

If Elrich is an example of the type of "leadership" needed, then it's a really bad example, so I'd rather vote for someone with no experience then.

But as a PP noted, Blair does have leadership skills and knows what businesses need to succeed. Elrich does not. At this point, anyone is better than Elrich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd vote for him.

Why? Blair has zero government experience. He's a rich business executive who can throw money away on a vanity campaign. Kinda like . . . oh, yeah -- that guy who is now our "former president". That worked out well.

Not understanding how the federal government works is not equivalent to understanding a local county government.

In addition, what exactly is so great about MoCo's government other than creating barriers for small businesses and stagnant job growth? I think Blair's experience as a local business owner would actually be beneficial to job creation in the County, particularly for small businesses.

I agree. And when you consider that the most of the government “experience” that Elrich and many others run on is county council member, eh, it’s not like they are so great anyway. To be fair, I preferred (and voted for) Krasnow last time, but I don’t really see Blair’s lack of local govt experience that big of a detriment for county exec. You have to start somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shame on you for spreading lies.

David Blair is a trustee of the Maryland State Democratic Party. How dare you compare him to Orange man? His wife is a small business owner and he has run a business himself and a nonprofit that helps county residents. That is real-life experience. Who do you think attracted all that business to Fairfax county? It was politicians with business backgrounds who know how to read a balance sheet and attract business. What is your solution to our unbalanced budgets? Tax our residents more or attract business that will generate taxable profits?

I have nothing personal against Marc Elrich. He was a fine teacher but he cannot manage the county. His skills in this department are next to nil and it shows. Montgomery County has the most overpaid county employees during the pandemic in the country. He overran his budget pre-pandemic. His health department could not create a simple database to vaccinate people. I can go on and on.

I understand that most people in the county are asleep at the wheel but I really do not understand why anybody in their right mind would advocate for another term of Marc Elrich unless you belong to the unions that brought him to power and benefited from the pay raises that he pushed forward.

Hear hear!

[Anonymous]

DH and I will both be giving up our unaffiliated status to vote for Blair.

[Anonymous]

I do not see a better alternative than Erlich right now.

I am never going to vote for a Republican. Ever. Again.

Sorry, but the Trauma of Trump, the GOP/Faux News fakers and the insurrection by domestic terrorists have put me off Republicans forever.

And I am a person who voted for McCain over Obama. POC too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do not see a better alternative than Erlich right now.

I am never going to vote for a Republican. Ever. Again.

Sorry, but the Trauma of Trump, the GOP/Faux News fakers and the insurrection by domestic terrorists have put me off Republicans forever.

And I am a person who voted for McCain over Obama. POC too.

??? Blair is a Democrat. This has nothing to do with Trump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shame on you for spreading lies.

David Blair is a trustee of the Maryland State Democratic Party. How dare you compare him to Orange man? His wife is a small business owner and he has run a business himself and a nonprofit that helps county residents. That is real-life experience. Who do you think attracted all that business to Fairfax county? It was politicians with business backgrounds who know how to read a balance sheet and attract business. What is your solution to our unbalanced budgets? Tax our residents more or attract business that will generate taxable profits?

I have nothing personal against Marc Elrich. He was a fine teacher but he cannot manage the county. His skills in this department are next to nil and it shows. Montgomery County has the most overpaid county employees during the pandemic in the country. He overran his budget pre-pandemic. His health department could not create a simple database to vaccinate people. I can go on and on.

I understand that most people in the county are asleep at the wheel but I really do not understand why anybody in their right mind would advocate for another term of Marc Elrich unless you belong to the unions that brought him to power and benefited from the pay raises that he pushed forward.

I'm perplexed by this thread. A few hours ago, I asked -- in general -- why David Blair would be an attractive candidate. PP, while you talk about Blair's business background and nonprofit that "helps county residents" and you go on to talk about "politicians....who know how to...attract business" you really haven't given me any reason to want to vote for Blair, or really, any understanding of the reasons why you dislike Elrich, except that you apparently dislike unions. So I will go and do my own research to see what small business his wife might own, what business Blair himself ran, and what his nonprofit does and how it apparently helps county residents. I will then try to make some reasonably informed guesses as to how these experiences might translate into decisions about some of my tax dollars and what kind of politician he might be. While I don't expect to get enough information on DCUM to help me to decide how to vote, it is very strange to read multiple posts supporting Blair without having a decent sense of why that might be, beyond the certainty that he is not Elrich.

[Anonymous]

We're screwed. There are still people in this county, and even this thread that somehow think Marc Elrich is doing a good job and the county is on the right track. Incredible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're screwed. There are still people in this county, and even this thread that somehow think Marc Elrich is doing a good job and the county is on the right track. Incredible.

It's the Takoma Park cabal.

[Anonymous]

Running a business has no relationship whatsoever to being a county executive who has to negotiate with and persuade county councilmembers who do not answer to the county executive and who have their own agendas and political bases. Similarly, running a business with workers who are not in unions has no relationship to running a county government and negotiating with with big and powerful unions. Blair has no experience with enacting legislation or working with unions. If you want to elect a rookie who stands for nothing and has tons of support from developers -- go for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Running a business has no relationship whatsoever to being a county executive who has to negotiate with and persuade county councilmembers who do not answer to the county executive and who have their own agendas and political bases. Similarly, running a business with workers who are not in unions has no relationship to running a county government and negotiating with with big and powerful unions. Blair has no experience with enacting legislation or working with unions. If you want to elect a rookie who stands for nothing and has tons of support from developers -- go for it.

So by this logic, nobody without past political experience should ever run for political office?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Elrich is the unions' meal ticket. Their mudslinging has started. I don't know if MoCo residents will ever wake up to local politics.

Almost none of the actual union members live in the county. I don't know how they have so much pull locally.