Sandlin
She is Jessica Sandlin, a single mother of 5, who attended the GOP breakfast Saturday for her first time, seeking signatures on her petitions to get on the ballot.
Winner of the June 8 primary will represent the party against Democrat incumbent Glenn Nye in November.
She joins Scott Rigell, Ben Loyola, Scott Taylor, Kenny Golden, Bert Mizzusawa, Ed Maulback, and Chuck Smith.
Smith had been in, got out, and now says he'll rejoin the race. He was scheduled to have announced last Tuesday but didn't.
He told Virginia News Source Saturday that he expects to announce this week.
Sandlin clan
Although the field is crowded and it's always anybody's race, the national GOP has given its approval to Freedom Ford car dealer Scott Rigell, the choice of X-2nd District Congresswoman Thelma Drake.
It was unusual for a sitting member of congress in the 2nd district to lose the seat as Drake did to Nye in one of the major partys' hottest contested races, but some of the complaints against Drake was poor management of her congressional office.
At least for a while, she had GOP carry-over staffers from XXX-GOP congressman Ed Schrock who dropped out, opening the way for Drake, when VNS and Blog Active exposed he had an active campaign on gay services seeking gay sex.
Schrock's position was in jeopardy to losing because of the homosexual disclosure, but he dropped out in time to give Drake time to mount a effective first term campaign.
Probably out of necessity and highly limited choices, she retained several of Schrock's top staffers - who in themselves were detrimental to good constituent relations, disliked and typical GOP parnoids.
A recent push poll, apparently by the national party, only considered Rigell, for whom the poll was slanted, Loyola, a Navy Acad grad and independent businessman, and Mizzusawa, a retired general, working now as a consultant, as viable candidates. They were the only ones mentioned in the poll - meaning the national party was effectively ignoring the others in the race.
Sandlin is a late comer to the race. Some at the GOP breakfast found her to have qualities they compared to AL Gov. Sarah Palin - refreshing, plain spoken, with a strong conservative trend she articulates well.
Some of the party's moss-back old-timers, however, grumbled, "She's never been here before," and "She's not even a member of the city committee." Neither complaint has anything to do with qualifications.
A lot of the rank-and-file are complaining about the national party apparatus putting a silver spoon in his mouth - an unfair advantage.
The question is: Will all the candidates fragment the party loyals and give Nye the edge in the general election?
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