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Why is Tom Rust deceiving his constituents??

by: DanielK

Mon Aug 31, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM EDT


In any campaign canvassing and door knocking within a candidate's district is the bread and butter of any serious and successful campaign.  It allows the candidate to get to know the issues most affecting their neighbors and hopefully future constituents and speak to them directly.  We all should know that a candidate can't possibly knock on every single door within their district by themselves and typically rely on staffers and volunteers to provide boots on the ground to get the message out.  Well, in the 86th District Republican incumbent Tom Rust is trying to deceive his constituents into believing he is knocking on every door himself!  As a constituent, I can tell you that is not the case and I have proof!
DanielK :: Why is Tom Rust deceiving his constituents??
In my district I've been able to come across numerous notes that have been left on the doors of voters.  Although I am only providing three examples it is clear that Del. Rust is not the one who is signing "Tom" at the end of these notes.  

In the top note you'll notice that the entire message is written in cursive with very little space between the words and even the three lines.  

The middle note is different in two very distinct ways.  First, it is printed with a few instances of cursive on the end of the individual words.  Unlike the first note that was consistently all cursive this has about a 90/10 differentiation between the two styles.  Second, a quick glance will show the separation between the three  lines and the individual words show significant irregularities from, the first note.  Clearly, this was note written by the same person who wrote the first not but still signed "Tom".

Lastly, the third note left is the clearest example that a third individual different from the first two wrote this note.  This last note appears to be written by someone with extremely poor penmanship which makes it look childish.  I do not believe I have to go into any detail as to how this is different from the first two examples as the note speaks for itself when compared.

As a constituent of the 86th district I am quiet disturbed by this as it is a clear evidence of Tom Rust's campaign attempting to deceive voters and his constituents.  But this also raises some serious question about my delegate:  Does Tom Rust want people to believe that he is out knocking on every voter's door by himself?  Does he believe in quantity of quality and simply having his staffers leave these notes without attempting to contact his constituents?  Does he really want to talk to his constituents and learn first hand what issues are really affecting them or does he simply want to turn a deaf ear to those who put him into office?  Well, here is what I think.

I don't think for a second Tom Rust wrote all three of those notes.  If anything, he may have wrote the first one, or the second one or third but without a sample from him we can't be sure.  The only thing we can be sure of is all three notes are written by three separate individuals who are portraying themselves as my Delegate.  Obviously, the Rust campaign knows it is in a serious fight for their political lives against Dulles Supervisor Stevens Miller so quantity of voter contact is taking a higher priority than quality of voter contact. (A recent poll showed Rust and Miller in a statistical tie at 40% each http://bit.ly/1aE1gK)  These three notes left at the homes of Rust's constituents provide irrefutable evidence that he wants voters to believe he is personally out there knocking on every single door in his district.  As a constituent this is absolutely unacceptable for my elected official to be doing this and he should immediately own up to his attempts to deceive the people he has been elected to represent.

My anger from this does not simply come from the fact that he is just dropping notes on doors without knocking but that he does not appear to have any desire to hear from his constituents.  This is evidenced by the fact that I've been told that his staffers and volunteers are not even knocking on doors and simply leaving these notes.  In these tough economic times I think it is imperative for our elected officials to hear from those they are elected to represent.  Given the record of Tom Rust this should not surprise anyone as he has shown he is completely out of touch with his constituents.  We all know he was one of the influential forces behind the Abusive Driver Fees which did nothing to solve the transportation problem. His vote against the Governor's Economic Opportunity Fund which eventually went on to help Stevens Millers bring Raytheon and it's good paying jobs to Dulles further demonstrates he is not making decisions with the best interests of his constituents in mind.

Since it is pretty clear that Tom Rust is having his staffers leave and sign notes on his behalf it makes me wonder whether he is sitting back in his office trying to figure out another way to bring back to the Abusive Driver Fees or another way to prevent economic growth in the 86th. This deception also makes me realize that he may be following the play book of Bob McDonnell when it comes to pretend.  Bob McDonnell has been pretending to be a moderate and Tom Rust is pretending to be doing all the door knocking in his campaign.  The last thing people in the 86th needs is a delegate who is gonna play the same type of pretend politics as Bob McDonnell.

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Ahahahaha
I find the three handwritings pretty hilarious, as if he thought no one would notice.

Although, there is a perfectly acceptable explanation for it - volunteers/staffers back at the office sit around writing that note on cards, then Rust goes out and drops them off.  Unlikely, but an excuse they could give.

That having been said - I object to you saying that a VA Delegate physically can't reach every door in their district.  I've worked for my own Delegate Margi Vanderhye in the past, and I know for a fact she personally does reach every voter's door (in her voter universe) over the course of an election cycle.  But then again, Margi is awesome.

This is a non-story, but funny nonetheless.  What do Rust staffers have one pile of lit to give to people they meet at the doors and another, "signed by Tom" pile to leave when they're not home.  Lame.


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