Favolagate: Barbara’s non-response response

The Progressive blogosphere has thankfully united behind Jaime Areizaga-Soto, after our Favola-Dulles Rail connection piece and 31st district parallel analysis took Northern Virginia by storm. At the same time, new fundraising numbers released late last week reveal a different picture money-wise: Favola is clearly in the lead financially, with enough cash on hand to launch a full-out assault on Mr. Areizaga-Soto over the next few weeks leading into the August 23rd primary. But, we’ve already gotten a preview of the lengths Ms. Favola will go to disguise her campaign’s insecurities as some anti-negative mailing ploy against Areizaga-Soto. In what should’ve been a positive remark regarding her own personal fundraising numbers, Ms. Favola’s campaign could not help but mention her opponent:

Jaime Areizaga-Soto is self-financing his campaign and loaned himself $160,000. After spending thousands on a negative smear campaign, Areizaga-Soto has drained his coffers and has only $41,137.84 left.

This so-called “negative smear campaign” that Mr. Areizaga-Soto is running is actually hardly distasteful. Here in the purple Commonwealth, we can find countless examples of candidates who have gone to unnecessary lengths to attack their respective opponents and come out of it looking ruthless and undeserved of a win. What strikes me about Favola’s counter-attack on Jaime Areizaga-Soto is that not once has her campaign provided a adequate response. Here is as close as she got to one, in response to Areizaga-Soto’s negative mailers:

Since I am not independently wealthy, I need donations from members of the community to fund this campaign and am humbled that so many individuals, from all walks of life, are supporting me. I have always declined contributions from developers who would appear before the County Board and have done so in this Senate Campaign. However, I’ve learned that when you fight for children and families, safe communities, progressive environmental policies and good paying jobs you need every sector of the community with you.

Her first defense is the need to apparently distinguish her financial well-being from that of Areizaga-Soto. Ms. Favola reveals that she is not “independently wealthy,” but fails to note how Mr. Areizaga-Soto made his money. He was not a big-business executive (or the spouse of one), but an attorney with heightened experience in the government and military. Her second counter-attack involves a rejection of her big business connections and an attempt to tout her “community-based” fundraising. If Barbara Favola can make that assertion, given that bigwig developers make up the top contributors to her campaign, then Jaime Areizaga-Soto easily can as well.

Finally, she closes by saying that she has declined contributions from developers who would appear in front of the County Board, which makes sense from a political standpoint. Here, Ms. Favola is playing the game of avoid-the-matter-at-hand. It’s not that Barbara Favola is lying, but simply that her connections to some of these developers inevitably give them clout in her current and future decision-making.

Developer John Shooshan – who has been dubbed the “Baron of Ballston” – has headed a plethora of projects on behalf of his real estate development company in Arlington. It just so happens that, as we and so many other blogs have previously reported, Mr. Shooshan has sent out fundraising letters for Ms. Favola and serves as one of her biggest individual donors. To make matters even more touchy, he touts his connections to Ms. Favola in his company bio and has a series of ties to WMATA (the transportation authority that runs the Metro and is heading Dulles Rail construction efforts). After all of these confusing connections are revealed, it becomes clear that regardless of whether he has appeared in front of the County Board before, Mr. Shooshan well has the clout to directly or indirectly influence Favola’s thought process on respective projects, funding, and decisions. That ultimately makes the difference.

I will not even mention the disgusting insider polling methods that wrongly categorized Jaime Areizaga-Soto as a Republican, but I am very disappointed in Ms. Favola’s tactics. It is becoming very hard to even try to defend her actions and statements over the past few days and weeks. My opinion on the matter is already very clear, but I hope local voters and constituents are taking note of her campaign’s failure to adequately respond to the very truths allegations that have been brought forth against Ms. Favola. I very much hope (though seriously doubt) that Favola/Favola’s camp will come through with a full response detailing how Favola has supposedly been a transparent and unswayed member of the County Board and why voters are to think that her connection-filled past won’t inflict poorly on her if she is indeed the 31st’s State Senator come January.

UPDATE: ARLnow is also reporting today that Favola’s campaign has continued to stick onto Areizaga-Soto’s self-contributions to his own campaign, revealing that he has made his money by working for top international corporations and law firms. But, while I am seriously inclined to view this as exaggeration given the lack of specific examples, Favola’s camp fails to realize that she has a potential conflict-of-interest by accepting developer donations, while Mr. Areizaga-Soto doesn’t.