Hurst Pulls No Punches at Candidates Forum

Washington Jewish Weekly recently wrote up a great summary, Va. candidates spliton Iraq, immigrationIsrael barely mentioned as Beth El Hebrew hosts panel(sic), of a candidates forum held at the Beth El Hebrew Congregation at the Alexandria Reform synagogue's Brotherhood political brunch. Tom Davis did not attend and sent his wife Jeannemarie Devolites Davis while Andy Hurst represented himself.

Hurst said that Davis' consistent backing of President George W. Bush's "stay-the-course" Iraq policy is one of the chief reasons he is challenging Davis.
"Iraq is gong nowhere, the occupation is not fixing anything ‹ it's hurting things," said Hurst. If "you trust [Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld] with security, I have a bridge I want to sell you."
Iraq "won't stabilize until we leave," he said.

Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".

Thieves Without Honor

It appears that certain Allen opperatives have taken to Stealing signs in the middle of the night from the elderly. This is just despicable behavior, and illegal, theft and trespassing as signs are personal property.

I will say that where I live, in McLean near Tysons, a lot of Webb signs in the medians have disapeared and have been replaced with Allen signs. Can't speak for private homes though.

If your Webb or Hurst signs are stolen, please contact me here at the Hurst campaign, nate@hurstforcongress.com, so we can give you a replacement, and maybe even a 4x8.

Let's flood them with our signs! Sea of Blue!

Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".

Hurst: We Need Change, Davis: Stay the Course

Bryan Scrafford from Ambivalent Mumblings, put up a great post today, Hurst Campaign Recognizes Need For Change, Davis Remains Loyal to Bush.

Bryan was given an original statement from the Andy campaign for this piece and is coupled with great analysis by Bryan.

Unfortunately for the residents of Virginia’s 11th district, Tom Davis falls is one of the Republicans who blindly support President Bush’s policies on foreign affairs. On June 16, 2006, for instance, Tom Davis voted in favor of H. Res. 861. The resolution stated that it would be inappropriate to discuss any policy in Iraq besides staying the course. Furthermore, during a June 16 speech delivered on the floor of the House of the Representatives, Tom Davis all but declared that the terrorists would prevail if there was even discussion about whether or not Bush’s “Stay the Course” strategy was correct.

Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".

Why moderates and Independents should consider voting for Andy Hurst

Recently, Craigs Musings publicly endorsed Andy Hurst for Congress, today he published a list of reasons on why moderates and independents should support Andrew Hurst this year even if they have voted for Davis in the past.

Included are...

* Tom Davis understands technology and its importance to the economy of Northern Virginia and has been instrumental in creating high paying jobs for the region;

Congressman Davis certainly has in-depth knowledge of the technology industry, especially as it pertains to northern Virginia. While it's probably a stretch to give him credit for igniting the region's technology boom, he has done some good work, especially in the area of government contracting.

But voters should know that Andy is well-versed in the needs of Northern Virginia's technology industry as well. In fact, he recently received the Young Lawyer of the Year award from the Bar Association in part for his pro-bono regulatory work on behalf of minority-owned technology start-ups. Rest assured that he'll work hard to bring high-paying, quality technology jobs to northern Virginia.

Head on over to Craig's Musings to read the rest.

Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".

Senator Edwards and Governor Kaine Endorse Andrew Hurst

About a week ago, Senator John Edwards endorsed Andrew Hurst and held a fundraiser on his behalf. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine will also host a fundraiser benefiting Andrew Hurst on October 28th.



Last week, Senator Edwards said the following:

Senator Edwards inspired nearly 70 Hurst supporters yesterday by reminding us all that America "can do better."

"Under the leadership of George Bush and his Republican allies, we've lost standing in the world and failed to live up to our responsibilities as the only remaining superpower," he said.

"I'm proud to call Andy Hurst my friend and I'm proud to support his campaign."

“We are very excited to have the support of Senator John Edwards and Governor Tim Kaine. I look forward to representing the11th so we can take on corruption and stand up to President Bush’s misguided policies,” said Andrew Hurst.

This year it is extremely important that we take on Congressman Tom Davis, Chairman of Government Reform and Oversight who has refused to use his jurisdiction and investigative powers for what really matters. Davis has declined to look into the rampant corruption in Congress and in Iraqi reconstruction contracts as well as rejecting calls to scrutinize the recent Mark Foley scandal of which GOP leaders knew what and when.

Instead, Tom Davis, has sought to distract voters by investigating baseball and supporting a discriminatory amendment to the Virginia Bill of Rights.

Join Senator John Edwards and Governor Tim Kaine in supporting Andrew Hurst Today!

Click HERE to Volunteer or request bumper stickers or yard signs.

Click HERE to Contribute to the Hurst Campaign.

Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".

What is Davis Waiting For?

Andy is renewing his Call for Tom Davis to Demand Hastert's Resignation, below is the announcement.

Hurst Calls on Davis to Demand Hastert Resignation

Congressman Davis remains unwilling to call for the resignation of his Republican colleague, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, despite recent revelations that Hastert and members of his staff knew of inappropriate e-mails from Rep. Mark Foley to underage pages and did nothing.

In a recent statement Davis said, "If any members of Congress, leadership or rank and file, were involved in covering up knowledge of Mr. Foley's sexually explicit messages, they should step down immediately." (Chicago Sun Times, 10/4/06)

Hastert himself has admitted he was informed of the e-mails more than a year ago and House Majority Leader John Boehner recently told ABCNews that he told Hastert of the e-mails and was left with the impression it was being "dealt with."  Hastert took no action to investigate the situation.

"Congressman Davis issues a statement saying anyone involved in the cover-up should step down.  Hastert was involved in the cover-up.  Davis should call on Hastert to resign," said James Walkinshaw, Hurst's campaign manager.  "Every day that goes by without a strong call from Davis for Hastert's resignation is another day that Davis puts his allegiance to the Republican Party ahead of common sense and basic honesty."

"Unfortunately this type of situation is common-place in the current Congress.  This is yet another example of a win-at-all-costs culture where holding on to power is more important than doing the right thing," said Andrew Hurst.  "Davis should demand Hastert's resignation immediately."

Given his ties to Foley and to the Republican leadership, Tom Davis has a unique responsibility to speak out.

    * Davis is a former Chair of the NRCC and self-described "leader" in the Republican Congress.

    * Davis chairs the Government Reform and Oversight Committee with oversight responsiblity for all federal programs, including the Page program.

    * Mark Foley was a major contributer to the NRCC during Davis' Chairmanship and served as the NRCC's "bridge to Hollywood." (CQ, 10/2/06)

"We will continue to call on Davis to demand Hastert's resignation," said Walkinshaw.  "Andrew Hurst believes Congress should put children's safety and well-being ahead of the crass obsession with preserving power.  We're confident that Congressman Davis will eventually come around to that view as well."

Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".

Chairman Tom Davis Refuses to State What He Knew About Mark Foley!

What did Representative Tom Davis know about Mark Foley and his problem regarding sexual deviancy towards minors, specifically towards House Pages? The honest answer is that I don’t know, because Tom Davis refuses to answer the simple question of what he knew and when.

On Monday, His Democratic opponent for the US House(VA-11), Andrew Hurst, issued a statement asking Tom Davis, amongst other things, to come clean and inform the public and his constituents what he knew. There is reason to believe that Representative Davis may have known about Mark Foley's problem before the public scandal. Tom Davis was the Chairman of the NRCC directly preceding Tom Reynolds, in fact Reynolds was his hand picked successor. Furthermore, while Davis was Chairman, the NRCC received $210,000 from Foley. Additionally, Tom Davis is currently Chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee which has jurisdiction over ALL federal programs, including the House Page program, yet refuses to investigate how this could have happened.

Tom Davis was recently quoted by the Associated Press…

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who served as a Senate page between 1963 and 1967, said Foley's attempts to socialize with pages went beyond the ordinary. Davis and other lawmakers may have taken their own pages to lunch at the Members' Dining Room at the end of the year, Davis said, but anything else was considered inappropriate.

Based on the above quote in which Tom Davis states “anything else was considered inappropriate”, I renew the call for Representative Davis to do the following things;
• Immediately disclose any personal knowledge you had of Rep. Foley's electronic communications. Various members of the Republican leadership knew of the illicit emails and did nothing. As a committee Chairman and former head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, you must have been privy to these conversations. What, exactly, did you know and when did you know it?
• Call for the immediate resignation of Republican leaders like Tom Reynolds and Dennis Hastert who knew about the illicit communications for years but failed to investigate. Those who put politics ahead of the safety of children do not deserve to serve in Congress. Don't you agree?
• Use your position as Chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee to open a full and complete investigation to determine who knew what and when. You had no qualms issuing a subpoena to Terri Schiavo as she lay on her death bed. Will you subpoena Hastert, Reynolds and others who failed to protect underage pages from a sexual predator?
• Demand that National Republican Campaign Committee Chair Tom Reynolds donate to charity any funds given by Rep. Foley to the NRCC. As NRCC chair, you accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mark Foley. Will you call on Rep. Reynolds to donate those funds?

Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".

Tom Davis Refuses to Take Action on Foley!

Yesterday, Andrew Hurst Democratic candidate for Congress (VA-11) issued a statement asking Tom Davis, Chairman of Government Reform and Oversight Committee and former Chairman of the NRCC to do the appropriate thing and take action and due diligence on the Foley pedophilia scandal. Tom Davis has yet to even issue a response. (for the record, I e-mail Nick Meads Tom Davis’s campaign manager asking him for a statement, and received no response).

Here are the four specific actions that Tom Davis was asked to take.

1. Immediately disclose any personal knowledge you had of Rep. Foley's electronic communications. Various members of the Republican leadership knew of the illicit emails and did nothing. As a committee Chairman and former head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, you must have been privy to these conversations. What, exactly, did you know and when did you know it?

2. Call for the immediate resignation of Republican leaders like Tom Reynolds and Dennis Hastert who knew about the illicit communications for years but failed to investigate. Those who put politics ahead of the safety of children do not deserve to serve in Congress. Don't you agree?

3. Use your position as Chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee to open a full and complete investigation to determine who knew what and when. You had no qualms issuing a subpoena to Terri Schiavo as she lay on her death bed. Will you subpoena Hastert, Reynolds and others who failed to protect underage pages from a sexual predator?

4. Demand that National Republican Campaign Committee Chair Tom Reynolds donate to charity any funds given by Rep. Foley to the NRCC. As NRCC chair, you accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mark Foley. Will you call on Rep. Reynolds to donate those funds?

I would like to point you now to an independent website tomdavistruth.com which points out that Tom Davis should have known about Foley’s problems.

According to Roll Call: “nearly a dozen House GOP lawmakers and staffers have acknowledged that they knew of the initial batch of non-sexually explicit messages from Foley to a 16-year-old former House page, some of them for a year or more.
Tom Davis likely was one of the first to know. Davis worked closely at the NRCC with Reynolds especially in 2001-2002, since Davis would end his term at the end of the cycle in 2002. Davis was grooming Reynolds to head the NRCC after Davis would leave. Presumably this inner circle of high-level Republicans who knew about Foley would have included Tom Davis, since during that election year they worked intensely together and since this news would have a potentially devastating effect on their fund raising challenge.

The question to ask now is, when will Tom Davis take action, when will he declare what he knew and when (I hope he’s not waiting until GOP leadership straightens out their story), will he call for Hastert to resign, and will he use his power to investigate (he does in fact have jurisdiction).

Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".

Hurst to Davis: Take Action Regarding Foley

The Hurst Campaign is demanding Tom Davis take action on the Foley Situation.

Democratic congressional candidate Andrew Hurst issued the following statement today regarding the controversy surrounding Rep. Mark Foley

"The disturbing revelations of inappropriate e-mail and instant messenger communications between Congressman Mark Foley and underage pages working at the Capitol have shocked our collective consciousness.

But perhaps more shocking is the fact that Republican leaders knew about these communications and did nothing.

The idea that members of Congress could sit by and watch while underage pages were preyed upon is almost too much to believe.

My opponent, Tom Davis, highlights his leadership and clout on Capitol Hill as reasons to re-elect him. But leadership is about much more than building pork-barrel projects and holding meaningless hearings.

Leadership is about standing up for what's right even when it might get you in trouble with your friends.

So today, I call on Congressman Davis to do the following things:


-Immediately disclose any personal knowledge you had of Rep. Foley's electronic communications. Various members of the Republican leadership knew of the illicit emails and did nothing. As a committee Chairman and former head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, you must have been privy to these conversations. What, exactly, did you know and when did you know it?

-Call for the immediate resignation of Republican leaders like Tom Reynolds and Dennis Hastert who knew about the illicit communications for years but failed to investigate. Those who put politics ahead of the safety of children do not deserve to serve in Congress. Don't you agree?

-Use your position as Chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee to open a full and complete investigation to determine who knew what and when. You had no qualms issuing a subpoena to Terri Schiavo as she lay on her death bed. Will you subpoena Hastert, Reynolds and others who failed to protect underage pages from a sexual predator?

-Demand that National Republican Campaign Committee Chair Tom Reynolds donate to charity any funds given by Rep. Foley to the NRCC. As NRCC chair, you accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mark Foley. Will you call on Rep. Reynolds to donate those funds?

-Congressman Davis' Government Reform and Oversight committee has responsibility to oversee federal programs, including the Page program. What kind of oversight did the committee provide in this instance? Not much, it appears.

Congressman Davis claims the benefits of leadership, but thus far has accepted none of the burdens."

Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".

Should I be Nervous?

Should I be nervous about this, and is this illegal?

So, for a while now I have been writing posts about Tom Davis that are pretty negative, but I never thought it would come to this. Someone using a House.gov IP (using the internet in the capitol or from one of the House office buildings) has started to do opposition research, on me.

Let me be clear on this, someone, not from a campaign office, but using a federal computer, on federal property (and presumably on federal payroll) has been investigating me. (see picture at end of diary for documentation)

Now I can't prove that this was a Tom Davis staffer, only that it was a House Member or staffer. But I find this completely unacceptable.

I don't pay taxes to be researched and possibly attacked by government officials.

I'm not really sure exactly how Tom Davis feels about Civil Liberties because he missed the torture bill vote, but I do know that he supports the patriot act.



Nate de la Piedra is the Online Outreach Coordinator for the Andrew Hurst for Congress 2006 Campaign. The ideas expressed herein belong to Nate de la Piedra and do not necessarily represent those of Andrew Hurst, his advisors, staff, or "The Campaign".