Bloggers for Miles

Tonight the Curmudgeon attended an Arlington fundraiser for Miles Grant (aka The Green Miles), who's running for Virginia delegate, that doubled as a farewell party for the bloggers behind RK (formerly Raising Kaine), who are shutting down at the end of the year.

It was a fun little get together. We chit-chatted with Lowell Feld, one of the forces behind RK, who told us that after four years it was time to move on to something new--or maybe old. Feld used to be with the Energy Information Agency before he got sucked into full time blogging a few years ago, not long before the Jim Webb campaign took off on the net. It was easy for him to leave then since it was the Bush administration, but now, with Obama in, he wants back in on energy policy. And doing nothing but blogging and campaign consulting can be a bit wearing.

We also talked to Ben Tribbett of Not Larry Sabato, who hosted the event. We were surprised to learn that Ben is now an Arlingtonian, after spending his entire life in Fairfax County.

Then, in one of those "small world" moments, we met a fellow from Santa Monica who, it turned out, had dated a woman Mrs. Curmudgeon went to elementary school with. It was certainly an OMG moment.

We also caught up with Jessica Barba, one of Tom Perriello's campaign staffers. Perriello, you may recall, had one of the grandest upsets of the campaign season when he narrowly unseated GOP incumbent Virgil Goode in Virginia's 5th congressional district (we'll know for sure tomorrow when the final recount is completed). We'd gotten many an email from Barba during the campaign season, so it was nice to put a face with the name. She'll be joining Tom's congressional staff come January, going from poorly paid campaign staff to poorly paid hill staffer.

At some point, we talked briefly with a guy, whose name we failed to note, who is working on Terry McAuliffe's Virginia gubernatorial campaign and exchanged some observations on strategy and tactics in what will clearly be an entertaining three-way race for the Democratic nomination to succeed Tim Kaine as governor of the Commonwealth.

Oh yes--we also chatted with Miles Grant, the candidate for whom this was all about. Miles is running for state delegate against Arlington incumbent Al Eisenberg (assuming Eisenberg runs for re-election). Miles is an environmental activist and fellow Arlington blogger and would make a terrific delegate to Richmond. We were quite astounded, however, when Tribbett told our assembled group that, based on his research, Miles's campaign against Eisenberg would be the first time since the 1970's that any Democrat in Northern Virginia had challenged an incumbent Democratic delegate in a primary race!

If Miles does nothing else, just breaking that long record of unchallenged incumbency will be a good thing.