The Power of Negative Thinking

Negative campaign ads have a long and storied history in this country. Most people know about the really famous textbook examples from presidential races past, like Reagan’s “bear in the woods” attack ad on Walter Mondale in 1984, George H.W. Bush’s “Willie Horton” attack ad on Michael Dukakis in 1988, or George H.W. Bush’s “tank ride” attack ad also on Michael Dukakis in 1988 (stop, stop, he’s already dead!). While those are certainly memorable, we’re partial to the weirder and exponentially more entertaining ads that occasionally crop up in state-level races. Like Texas lieutenant governor David Dewhurst’s 2014 ad accusing his opponent of changing his legal name via an off-key “Let It Go” parody. Or Carly Fiorina’s eight-minute-long cinematic epic portraying Barbara Boxer as a menacing blimp during the 2010 California Senate general election. 

But without a doubt our vote for the greatest attack ad of all time goes to another artistic masterpiece by the Fiorina for Senate team, the infamous “demon sheep” ad directed at her primary opponent Tom Campbell. We are not exaggerating when we say that this ad remains one of the most incredible things we’ve ever seen. It features a woman solemnly intoning words like “purity” and “piety”; Terry Gilliam-style animation of a lightning bolt knocking a cartoon sheep off a Doric column; and finally, live-action footage of a man in a sheep costume with glowing red eyes crawling around on his hands and knees among actual sheep while pretending to eat grass and repeatedly casting sinister glances at the camera. What is all of this supposed to mean?? We’re not entirely sure, but it’s tremendous. As a completely irrelevant side note, the genius who made both of the Fiorina spots also produced Christine O’Donnell’s iconic “I’m not a witch” ad during the same election cycle, which was a response to an attack ad rather than an attack of its own, but we’re mentioning it here anyway because we’re in charge of this newsletter and no one can stop us.

Where were we going with all this? [Editor’s note: *history’s longest sigh*] Oh, right—we were reflecting on how despite negative campaign tactics being commonplace in national and state races, they’ve long been quite uncommon in Alexandria local elections. Even though we would have sold our left kidneys to see mayoral primary campaign lit depicting Justin Wilson as Godzilla in the act of destroying the Old Town historic district, the fact that such attacks don’t often happen here is, in our view, a good thing—negative campaigning can feel personal and overly mean in a close-knit city where candidates and voters often know one another and have relationships outside of local politics and governance concerns. We appreciate that typical local Alexandria campaigns have overwhelmingly focused on candidates’ personal stories and values and their forward-looking visions for the city, with very few attempts to go for the jugular by portraying political rivals as livestock with laser-beam eyes.

So it feels notable and worth discussing that Frank Fannon’s definitely not a Republican independent campaign for city council was a departure from the tradition of positive campaign messaging in Alexandria. Over the past couple weeks his campaign sent local voters a deluge of mailers and ads not just railing against the things he opposes (apartments, traffic, taxes, “new proposals,” the general concept of additional people) but also directly attacking Democratic candidate Sandy Marks. Unlike the unhinged commercials we wasted your time describing in the introduction to this essay, these messages were pretty straightforward and didn’t land in the avant-garde puppetry performance zone. But they did change the tone of the campaign, raising the temperature of the debate and driving a local political climate that felt more tense than usual, particularly when combined with the absolute ocean of negative mail from the No campaign on congressional redistricting. 

It goes without saying we don’t have any insight about what considerations went into his decision to do this, but a likely factor was running in a rare council election with just one open seat. These types of races lend themselves to direct attacks in a way that multi-seat races don’t. In a normal council election, you don’t need to beat everyone. You just need to finish somewhere in the top six, which lowers the pressure to knock someone else down and raises the value of being broadly acceptable. But when there’s just one seat open, the competition can get a whole lot more ruthless—less “please include me as one of your choices” and more “my opponent is a moron who thinks a hotdog is a sandwich.” Add in the compressed timeline of a special election and the clear indications that Fannon was running a campaign that was genuinely trying to win (not always the case with local conservative gadflies non-Democratic candidates), and you can imagine how he made the choice to throw out the usual playbook.

But ultimately, as we saw on Tuesday night, this was not a winning strategy. Despite the fact that Fannon’s campaign raised more money, he lost to Sandy by 24 points—the latest evidence that there is not currently a meaningfully large constituency in this city for anti-housing, anti-bike lane, anti-everything candidates. Obviously we don’t know if he would have performed any differently, for better or worse, if he hadn’t gone after Sandy. We’re not clairvoyant! We’re not even actors playing clairvoyant on television, like Miss Cleo. (We are, however, happy to take your call for just $4.99 a minute.) There’s so much conflicting evidence out there about whether negative campaigning actually works, but local candidates focusing on positive messages have tended to win in recent years—so it seems safe to say that telling voters what you’re for remains a surer path to victory in Alexandria. 

Finally, a thought about the performance of third-place candidate Alison O’Connell (fantastic name, no relation) before we wrap this up: one of the big surprises on election night was how much she overperformed relative to the amount of money her campaign raised and spent. There are likely various reasons for that, but relevant to this discussion is the theory that she was at least partially helped by the third-party spillover effect of negative advertising. This is an interesting phenomenon observed in studies of three-way races in which negative campaigning reduces voters’ opinion of both the targeted politician and the attacker while benefiting the third candidate. Something else to think about before deciding to accuse one of your rivals of the heinous crime of not hating people who live in multi-unit buildings!

At the end of the day, in elections as in life, the way we talk about things matters. Negative campaigning has been shown to reduce trust in government, which is not an outcome we want to produce here in Alexandria, a city that already has at least one group of Facebook sleuths dedicated to investigating the disappearance of municipal integrity. Fortunately, voters here have shown time and again that they respond to candidates who share optimistic, inclusive messages about making an already great community even better. It may not be as entertaining as demon sheep, but staying positive brings people to the table in a way that flipping it over never will.

Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life 

• The Environmental Policy Commission’s annual retreat is coming up on May 2 and you should get this on your calendar for two reasons: 1) it’s a chance to meet Marta Schantz, recently featured in ALXtra’s Commissioner’s Corner, and 2) because according to the event description “possibly three (3) members of City Council will be present” which is a real line that we did not make up.
• If you’re looking for either of us today or tomorrow you’ll probably find us at the Friends of Duncan Library book sale which is currently underway at Duncan Library. Books at the sale cost $2 for paperbacks and $4 for hardbacks, and if you haven’t been previously, the selection is always extremely on-point because we’re a community of impeccable literary taste and sophistication. Jesse already has something like 700-800 books in his house because he is a normal non-hoarding adult man who just enjoys reading, but he’s confident he can find room on the shelves for one or ten more. Becky also has a lot of books, but she’s not going to brag about it here because it’s NOT A COMPETITION, JESSE.
• But that’s not the only library-related item of note this week as the Alexandria Library Board has been torn asunder by division over a study of potential reforms to the library system’s governance structure. We never cease to be impressed by our city’s dedication to making even the most benign topic controversial. What’s next? A sweet sweeping scandal??? We also appreciate the opportunity to learn that the library is partially governed by a non-municipal body called the Library Company, which sounds very real and not at all like a front for an international hardcover smuggling ring.
• Gaming news website Happy Gamer wrote up a nice feature on Continues Arcade which it describes as a bar tailored to “an audience that grew up with both Street Fighter and craft beer.” We hope they still let us in even though we’re not the target demographic, when we were kids we were only allowed to drink macros.
• After residents and businesses objected to the idea of paid street parking on Sundays, city council granted their request to drop that proposal… by charging more for parking on the other six days of the week. PLOT TWIST!!! This was a real mischievous genie kind of move and an important reminder to always read the fine print on your wishes.
• The winner of our America 250 City Art Poster contest was Torpedo Factory artist Matt Liptak with a crimson-hued entry paying homage to many of the things that make Alexandria great. He put the town crier on the poster for crier-ing out loud, of course he won!

Local Discourse Power Rankings

1. Is Our Children Learning (Last week: 3). Much as medieval philosophers wrestled with the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin [Editor’s note: are we sure that wasn’t a math problem? Those dudes had some wild ideas about math], Alexandria has recently found itself caught in the similarly epistemological debate “how do we know how many school board members is the right number of school board members.” On the heels of a parent-led petition calling for a renewed conversation about reform, school board members Kelly Carmichael Booz and Ashley Simpson Baird shared a blog post that reminded us of all the recent efforts to propose changes to the Board structure, with a particular focus on staggered elections and the necessary process timing of getting any kind of change enacted. Members of city council, however, are more interested in a conversation about the ideal size of the school board. And you know what? It’s a tricky question! What is the ideal number? Currently we have 7 members of council and 9 members of the school board, so maybe we should go down to 7 on school board so the two elected bodies are evenly matched and can play man-to-man defense against one another in basketball [Editor’s note: not how basketball works]. Or maybe 3 is the right number—there are three school board districts, one member per district is clean and simple, and they can rename themselves the Alexandria City Schools Triumvirate [Editor’s note: stop thinking about the Roman Empire all the time!]. Or how about 21 school board members—we can have mini 7-member boards in each district and they combine Voltron-like into a 21-member Super School Board. No wait, 32-member school board! One per electoral precinct! Or maybe we should just find out how big Arlington’s school board is and have one more or one fewer members than they do, whichever would piss them off the most. Ugh, we don’t know what the right answer is, why is philosophy so hard!!
2. Tall Erections (Last week: NR). Last week the city’s long-term economic development plans reached a crucial milestone, as the new Inova Alexandria medical campus at the heart of the redevelopment of the old Landmark Mall site celebrated its topping off. And while we’re very excited about this important progress benchmark, and we loved seeing all the pictures of Council Members in hard hats, signing beams and all that, it’s just… topping off? “Topping off” is a thing we just drop in casual conversation now?? We’re not doing phrasing any more? Come on! We can’t be serious here! “Where were you this afternoon?” “Oh you know, I was just down on Duke Street getting topped off with some people” WE KNOW YOU CAN HEAR IT. WE HEAR IT TOO. This expression has to be a prank being played on all of us by a bunch of belly-laughing dudes in the construction industry. Next you’re going to try and convince us that a “soda jerk” is a real thing with an innocent meaning and not something you used to be able to pay five dollars to get in the back row of a movie theater in Times Square. “Topping off,” honestly people, we’re better than this.
3. Barred and Feathered (Last week: 1). Our beloved commonwealth has long been notorious for having some particularly screwy laws related to alcohol. Now, we’re far from alone in this, as cities, counties, and states across the country responded to the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 by introducing their own patchwork of booze regulations informed by the personal preferences and temperance levels of whoever happened to be in charge of a particular jurisdiction at that moment in time. But while the laws of other places have led to things like dry counties, happy hour bans, or a bias against mini airplane bottles, Virginia’s silliest alcohol laws required us to do math (famously something that goes well with drinking). One law made it so that you were not allowed to serve more than 3 ounces of spirits in a distillery, and another—the so-called food-beverage ratio—mandated that bars and restaurants must sell $45 worth of food or non-alcoholic drinks for every $55 worth of hard spirits they sold. But no longer! Thanks to a bill from Delegate Senator Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (HB975, signed into law by the governor), that ratio is lowered to 30% for most establishments, making it much easier for restaurants that serve nice cocktails and high-end spirits to survive (and also a separate bill raised the distillery limit from 3 oz to 6 oz). As well-documented fans of nice cocktails and high-end spirits, we’re obviously very pleased with this outcome, but even more importantly… does that mean that EBP is the fun senator now?? Are her colleagues in Richmond like “heyyyy, Senator Sea Breeze! Pull up a chair, bend an elbow with us!” If this is the start of a whole new brand built around righting the wrongs of un-fun laws, we can certainly get her a list. EBP… call us.
4. The Write Stuff (Last week: NR). In what we can only describe as the most important act of journalism we’ve ever been personally witness to, Ryan Belmore at The Alexandria Brief analyzed the entire write-in vote file from Tuesday’s City Council special election, and readers, it. is. phenomenal. You can read his entire analysis here, but key takeaways include: Donald Trump finally winning an election over Barack Obama 8 votes to 7; George Washington tying Jesus in a dead heat 2 votes to 2; and former mayor Justin Wilson getting absolutely smoked by former mayor Bill Euille 1 vote to 5. Someone wrote in “Gaius Julius Caesar”... not “Julius Caesar,” not “Caesar,” but “Gaius Julius Caesar” and it’s like we get it dude, you went to Princeton, just write that next time. Someone else wrote “Iosip Djugashvili” which, as we learned from reading this article, is Joseph Stalin’s birth name and good god it’s adorable how big a dork everyone in this city is. Were we disappointed that a bunch of people wrote in “Mickey Mouse” which is every male boomer’s platonic ideal of an absolutely sick burn? We were actually, come on Alexandria, you’re better than that. Were we also upset that no one appears to have written in “Pete Steverson”? Without a doubt—but hey, there’s always next time Pete.
5. The Passive Voice (Last week: NR). People say bad things tend to happen in threes, but as we all know, we’re notorious overachievers here in Alexandria. As detailed in the Alexandria Brief yesterday (in an article far more serious than the one described in the previous item), there have been at least five “pedestrian incidents” announced by APD this month, along with some others that have been publicly reported but not included in that official count. What is a “pedestrian incident,” you may ask? Great question. It’s a pretty vague phrase isn’t it? Leaves some key details to the imagination. Is it like when you’re taking a brisk walk and slip on a banana peel somebody threw on the sidewalk (a real thing that has happened to one of us)? Or when you’re walking the dog and see your neighbor with whom you have beef and have to cross the street to avoid talking to them? No? Oh, okay, it’s when a pedestrian gets injured. Cool cool cool. Is anyone else involved in the incident besides the pedestrian????? We’re being facetious to make a point, but there’s nothing funny about how dangerous our streets are for people trying to walk somewhere, and it’s really not at all helpful to use passive phrasing that reinforces victim-blaming attitudes in a car-centric culture that too often refuses to hold drivers accountable. Listen APD and local media, if we want to read about how pedestrians wouldn’t get hit if they’d just stop looking at their phones or how it’s normal for drivers to speed aggressively because they’re butt hurt about having to wait in traffic, that’s what the neighborhood listserv is for, stay in your lane!!

Commissioner’s Corner

That’s right, we’re back with the latest edition of our only new feature everyone’s favorite new feature, our interview series with local people serving on our city’s boards and commission! This week we’re joined in conversation with Planning Commission chair, Melissa McMahon.

ALXtra: So you’re on the Planning Commission. Sounds real Soviet, real central committee-ish. What’s going on here.

MM: Um…

ALXtra: No? What is it then?

MM: Not communist, but I could call it “communitarian.” The Planning Commission is an appointed body defined in the City Charter and tasked with ensuring that the work of the city is consistent with our Master Plan. The principle is that as a community, we plan things together for the greater good, and once we make those plans, we have to do all we can to make them a reality. Practically speaking? We review land subdivisions, development proposals, special use permits, zoning code changes, small area plans, and we make those recommendations to City Council every month.

ALXtra: Honestly would have been cooler if you were a bunch of communists. Ok, so as you say, you’re a key aspect of our city’s decision-making process. You even get to sit on the Council dais! Be honest, when you get up there has Vice Mayor Bagley left a bunch of bell pepper crumbs behind?

MM: You know, the new Del Pepper Center (makes air quotes) “dais” is strikingly bell pepper free.

ALXtra: I bet she’s left some bell pepper in Del Pepper [rimshot] and you’re just not telling us. But moving on—what’s a recent project that you think is really interesting, or that’s a good example of how Planning Commission makes a difference.

MM:  My favorites are the big plans. A recent one was the adoption of the Green Building Plan. I really think Planning Commission has the most impact when we get a chance to shift how planning is done, and this is a shift in framework within which we evaluate projects. Several commissioners put their hearts into this over many years and the standards represented in the new GBP are the closest we’ve come to-date to what it will take to meet our city climate goals. I’m really proud of the community and staff labor that went into that.

ALXtra: Are there particular qualities that can help a commissioner succeed in this role?

MM: The ability to wake up again after falling asleep next to your 7 year old and then to read into the wee hours of the night? Willingness to have polite but public disagreement with people on camera? Wait, and off camera. Ability to count up to seven votes on the spot? I’m really selling this aren’t I? A more serious answer? … I think a “big picture” view is important. Planning Commissioners see stuff that’s really in-the-weeds sometimes… and if I’m getting lost in the weeds it helps me to step back and ask myself, what does the Small Area Plan say about this? What does the Housing Plan say? What are we really trying to do and is this getting us closer to that goal?

ALXtra: Planning Commission gets significantly more public testimony than most of our boards and commissions—what kind of feedback have you found to be most useful and beneficial to the process?

MM: The early kind. Truly, the best experiences we have with project approvals are when the engagement happens up front, it’s highly inclusive, and when the item gets to Planning Commission there’s no drama. Even if controversies can’t be fully resolved prior to PC, if a lot of discussion has already happened the staff report shows it, the staff recommendation reflects a deliberated result, and Commissioners have had time to consider the perspectives before the actual hearing starts. But but but! If you can’t get a word in before the night of the hearing, the best feedback is calm, clear, to the point without pointing fingers, ideally with a specific ask that is within the purview of our authority on the item.

ALXtra: When you’re considering an item on your docket you’re often judging a bunch of competing priorities. Is it hard to balance those demands that might be in tension?

MM: On the scale of “do we need another pizza place in Alexandria?” hard to “selecting an ice cream scoop flavor at Jeni’s” hard to “ACPS redistricting” hard? It depends… often the community conversation can make every decision sound like a really tough decision, but when I ground myself in the future described in our adopted plans, it usually makes the way forward clearer.

ALXtra: Is there a moment from your time on the Commission that will stick in your memory long after you’re done serving? Could be funny, could be poignant, could be funny (please just tell us the funniest thing you’ll remember)?

MM: Ahhhhhh sigh, you’ve got the wrong commissioner. Long after I’m done serving I’ll probably say, “who did what when now?” I guess the thing is, I don’t try to remember moments. My whole person is fixed on the group effort, then the votes happen, the baton gets passed, we go home for the night and snag some sleep. Since I have the great luck to live here in Alexandria (totally rad, btw), I don’t so much look back on those moments or decisions as enjoy the results of the communal (not communist) labor of great city planning all around me in real life, every day. 

ALXtra: [wiping away tears] WHO LET ALL THIS DUST IN.

We Get Letters

After we published a very silly sea shanty about the questionable legality of weddings performed aboard the Tall Ship Providence in our last issue, we are delighted to report that we received—and this may be a sequence of words that have never been combined before—a REBUTTAL SEA SHANTY and accompanying visual illustration from Alexandria Clerk of Court Greg Parks:

“The Pier Line” (A Friendly Reply Shanty)

One fine spring day the headline ran,
A tale of trouble by boat and land,
Of vows adrift and a reckless plan,
And a Clerk who’d lost his way.

But hold fast there, you scribes ashore,
You missed a step in your legal lore,
For counsel checked this route before
A word was sent to press.

The pier’s the line, that much is true,
Where Virginia’s claim holds fast and through,
And right there, firm, in proper view,
The vows are sealed on land.

Ho, hey, the wedding day,
Nothing here has gone astray,
Sign on the pier, then sail away,
That’s how it’s rightly done!

The Clerk’s no fool, nor new to trade,
The law’s his craft, the calls well made,
Before a plan like this is laid,
He reads each line twice through.

So Billy Bob and Nancy Jo,
You’re safe to cheer and onward go,
The legal part is done before,
Then celebrate at sea.

Next time ask before you sing,
Before you sound the warning ring,
The truth was tied to one small thing,
You didn’t check the plan.

So raise a glass and spread the word,
The finer facts are now well heard,
No vows are lost, no rights deferred,
Just joy from shore to sail.

This is the best correction we have ever received, and the most gracious possible way to say “we’re doing the actual legal ceremony on the pier, you dopes.” Demerits for not specifically indicating if the Wellerman is catering the ceremony with tea and rum, but otherwise, perfect. Future letter writers, please take note that the bar has been raised.

Overheard in ALX

Speaking of compositions in verse, and cementing our newly achieved status as Alexandria’s premier literary magazine, we present this poem that a member of the Bluesky ALX community penned in response to a Facebook post about an unusually tame raven that’s been loitering on the Dos Amigos patio:

We give this poem five bumps of opium out of five, and this is the kind of incredible content you’re missing if you’re hanging out on other social media platforms, just saying.

One Awesome Thing in ALX

Public Service Recognition Week is coming up in two weeks (May 4-10) and in preparation for it, the city has launched a website where you can send a note or share a video about a city employee that went above and beyond. So whether it’s a DASH driver that has learned your name, a clerk at City Hall that always goes that extra mile, a transportation engineer working to keep you safe, or one of the city’s aercheologists arceoleogists [Editor’s note: GODDAMMIT] archeologists that takes the time to explain something interesting, think about how our public servants have made a positive impact on your life and take a few minutes to share a note of appreciation.

This is sort of a Two-for-One Awesome Thing because it’s pretty awesome that we live in a city that’s taken the time to put together a recognition activity like this, and it’s also pretty awesome that we are a city full of people who will take the time to click that link and express their appreciation. None of the things that make this city the absolute best place to live happen by accident—there is a real live human person behind each and every benefit we enjoy, amenity we take advantage of, or service we rely on. It can be easy sometimes to focus on the things that frustrate us, or to only observe the ways in which we might see things coming up short—and that makes moments like this all the more important, when we can step back and say thank you to people that richly deserve it.

See you back here in two weeks. If you need us before then, you can find us on the Clerk of the Court’s lawn singing our thank you shanty at him.

You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.

ALXtra is a free-to-read newsletter about current events in Alexandria, Virginia. Subscribe to get it delivered directly to your inbox. Paid subscriptions give you access to the comments. Revenue from subscriptions gets used in the following ways: 1) a third goes into a charity fund, and every time that fund hits $500 we’ll make a donation to a local nonprofit in the name of ALXtra’s readers and we’ll feature and write about that organization, like we did here, here, here, here, here and here; 2) another third of the money will go toward investments in the newsletter; and 3) the final third of the money goes toward self-care for your two intrepid authors.