Not Sure What To Make Of This…

The anti-lawyer, anti-Obamacare ad should have come as no surprise to lawyers, or Virginia Democrats, who watched General Assembly Republicans torpedo Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s bid to expand Medicaid under the federal Affordable Care Act.

But at least one Democrat thought Dunnavant held more moderate views on Medicaid expansion.

Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, said that when he and Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, met with Dunnavant toward the end of the 2015 legislative session, “what was shared with me is that she was for Medicaid expansion.”

McEachin said he was “surprised” and “disheartened” to see Dunnavant come out so strongly against the issue in her ad.

I was shocked!  So I had to ask the question of the senator’s legislative office and they did confirm that Senator McEachin did say it.  Finally, this from John Fredericks of the John Fredericks show (hat trick to the Bull Elephant although I also got it from the Janis campaign) saying Dunnavant considered running as a Democrat(!):

The problem is, she first explored getting the Democratic nomination, before she filed for the seat to run as a Republican, in the same district.

***

Sources inside the Virginia Democratic senate caucus have confirmed that Dunnavant’s family engineered a secret meeting with Democratic leadership to investigate a state senate bid just before the 2015 General Assembly session ended in February.

There were three Democratic Senate leaders in attendance including Senate Minority Leader Dick Saslaw (D-Fairfax) and Senate caucus chair Don McEachin (D-Henrico).

One senator who attended the junta spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

McEachin went public.

“The rendezvous was for the purpose of exploring her options to run for state senate as a Democrat. Her brother called and asked us [Democratic senators] to meet with her because she was interested in running for state senate as a Democrat. Frankly, I would not have called her up for a meeting in a thousand years,” one state senator said.

“Dr. Dunnavant met with us to explore her interest in running for the state senate as a Democrat,” confirmed McEachin. “We chatted about the process, committee assignments, how things work, that sort of thing. She said she would follow up but did not call me, as best as I can recollect.”

Dr. Dunnavant a Democrat?  She is from a GOP family.  It is intriguing.

Sandy, what to make of it?

Got to realize that the McEachin statement is what we lawyers call hearsay.  Hearsay is not generally admissible due to its unreliability.  Now there is an exception to hearsay for what we call an admission by the opposing party in a lawsuit (or in a non-party context an declaration against a financial or penal [that is jail or prison, keep it clean readers!] interest) and the Dunnavant comment as reported by Senator McEachin was in the context of the election an admission or declaration against political interest.

But why did it come up?  Is McEachin trying to hurt or help Dunnavant?  If the Dems seek to find a candidate to run against the winner, there is less incentive to interfere in the primary except to elect a weaker candidate on the other side.  If he hurts Dunnavant to help a candidate that is easier to beat – cui bono (who benefits)?  Who is easier to beat?  Probably most Dems would say Vince Haley due to his working for Newt Gingrich (who I admire very much but is a polarizing figure admittedly) and that baggage might be useful for a dirty campaign.  However, if the Dems are not sure they will run a candidate, maybe they want the lesser of four evils to encourage their people to vote for.  But, that seems far fetched.  There is likewise no incentive for a leading Democrat to help a Republican win.

When you have several candidates, a negative attack on one hopeful by another is a bit like a bank shot in billiards – you hit one candidate you might knock that one out but also hurt yourself as well and benefit a third one.

The Bearing Drift take on the Times-Dispatch article is that the T-D forgot Vince Haley, who seems to be the tea party favorite: