Staton for Senate

State Senate, that is, not U.S. Senate.

Mick Staton, member of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, won the Republican "firehouse" primary today quite handily, beating his closest opponent by almost double the votes. He will now face Democrat attorney and former Supervisor from Leesburg- Mark Herring- for the State Senate seat in the 33rd District of Virginia.

Staton may not be the most formidable opponent for the Republicans, considering that his father-in-law, Dick Black, was easily defeated mere months ago in his reelection bid for state House. Democrats are almost giddy as they prepare to attack Staton with the same vigor that they applied to Mr. Black.

Nonetheless, there are two very interesting aspects to this election:
1) Mr. Staton has been on the Board of Supervisors for only 2 years and has quickly mastered how things get done, especially when it comes to transportation issues. This will serve him very well in the election and will allow him to propose positive reforms for VDOT.
2) A win for Mr. Staton will show that the Republican party in Loudoun County is not disillusioned and fading. With the beating that Republicans took in November, nothing would be more important than a solid victory by Mr. Staton- underscoring the fact that many other factors played into the losses a few months ago. The Republican party needs a boost and an assurance that it can still reach the voters in Loudoun. Mr. Staton must make sure he addresses the issues most important to the people and doesn't get sidetracked on the peripheral topics.

We'll see what happens in the next 3+ weeks, but for now, Mr. Staton's got a lot of work ahead of him.