Dranesville District Race Sets Up Classic Best vs. Worst Matchup

Today, we are going to take a brief look at the race for supervisor in the Dranesville district of Fairfax County. Why should any of us care about a contest for supervisor in one part of one county of Virginia?  A couple of reasons: 1) Fairfax County is the largest jurisdiction in Virginia, with over 1 million people; 2) each of the 9 “magisterial districts” in Fairfax have more than 100,000 people, larger than the vast majority of counties in Virginia, just a bit smaller than the City of Alexandria and similar to the City of Portsmouth; and 3) this year, we have a race between one of the most outstanding local officials in Virginia (current Draneville Supervisor John Foust) and one of the absolute worst (Herndon town council member Dennis Husch).

What’s so great about John Foust? From my perspective, having known him for several years, a short list includes: honest, responsive, personable, funny, smarter-than-hell, progressive, principled, and great on issues like Tysons development (Foust was a strong ally of the Tysons Tunnel effort). In sum, reelecting John Foust should be a complete no-brainer, one of the easiest choices Dranesville residents could possibly have walking into the voting booths.

Now, what’s so bad about Dennis Husch? For starters, he’s a highly divisive anti-“illegal immigrant” warrior. He’s also a standard-issue, hard-right-wing Teapublican, mouthing the usual demagogic nonsense about how “anyone seeking public office who does not ascribe to ‘first principles’ will be rejected by the voters” and how “the people will force the federal government to constrain its activities as demanded by the Constitution.”

Yet, despite this supposed concern for the Constitution, Husch is clearly not a big fan of citizens coming before him and speaking their mind. For more on how Dennis Husch (mis)treats his constituents, click here or watch the video below. This really says it all about Dennis Husch. However, if you need any more, click here, or watch the video on the “flip,” in which Husch cites the 13th Amendment – the one which abolished slavery – to defend his, uh, questionable political behavior. The 13th Amendment? He’s comparing his situation to that of African American slaves? As I said above, a key word to describe Dennis Husch is “divisive, and once again, he has lived up to that reputation. Go John Foust!