I can't wait to see R. Larry and Andrew Graybeal duke it out for the comission seat in the 7th.

There might be a few more folks follow Andrew's lead and go to the darkside where they belonged long ago.

Graybeal sent me an email after the August general election because he was upset about something I had been quoted as saying about the election. It was out of frustration, I'm sure (nobody likes to lose), but he was upset about the help he received from the Party. My response was that I had known for sometime that he had never voted in a Democratic Primary in his life, that he was merely being opportunistic because the Property Assessor's race was one where no other Dem would run last year, so he went straight to the General Election as the Dem nominee, and that he was mainly recruited to run by a few disaffected Republicans. I told him I'd be glad to send him a copy of his voting record and his VoteBuilder file (the TNDP's voter file) which had him listed as a "strong Republican." Never heard back from him.

Graybeal was merely an opportunist. His background is real estate, so he naturally was interested in the Assessor's job, but he didn't have the guts to run against Ballard in the GOP primary. So, he latched onto a few Dems and did everything he could to deceive them and voters that he was a Democrat. I have a few (maybe more) regrets about my abbreviated term as Party Chair, and one of them was failing to recruit someone to take Graybeal on in the primary or even "outing" him. But I just felt that wasn't the right thing to do, as we were making an effort to expand our base. I asked the TNDP about it. There's really nothing the local parties can do in such cases, except ask for loyalty oaths. But they're not worth the paper on which they're written. I'm glad he is gone. The GOP in the 7th won't welcome him.

Appreciate the sentiment, Bill. It was a tough call and the pressure was on to do something. Graybeal kept appearing at Dem functions and clubs touting his Dem "credentials" and many of us just had to bite our tongues. But you are right . . . he didn't have a chance. Other than Amy, Finbarr and Sam - we just got steamrolled by (1) the GOP machine and (2) the overwhelming sense that the "crisis" of local gov't was over on the night of the February 5 primary after 90,000+ showed up to "kick the rascals out."