Tom Davis: Keep "Urban Kind of People" Out of VA-11

Last summer, when Stephanie Herseth (D-SD) won a special election in South Dakota, Republican Tom Davis (R-VA-11), former Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, downplayed the Republican defeat by whining, “If you take out the Indian reservation, we would have won."

Oh, Tom.  Those pesky minorities, voting Democratic again.  If only you could take them out of those districts you need to win - it would be so much easier for Republicans to gain power and stay in power!

Of course, if you can't "take out" minorities, your next best defense if you're a Republican is keeping them from coming into your district in the first place, and an article in today's Washington Post shows us that Davis is actively engaged in preventing more "urban kind of people" from moving into his own district:

The Republican congressman from Fairfax seems to believe that the only way he can guarantee himself reelection till the end of time is to prevent Democrats from moving into his district.

Davis last week announced his intent to use Congress's authority over the Metro system to force a downsizing of a huge, 2,250-unit condo, townhouse and commercial development planned for 56 acres next to the Vienna Metro station. [...]

One politician who spoke to Davis says the congressman told him straight-out that he opposes Pulte Homes' MetroWest project because "all it does is produce Democrats."

Davis won reelection last year with a solid 60 percent of the vote against a largely unknown opponent, but he saw frightening cracks in his electoral foundation. "He lost Merrifield, the area around the Dunn Loring Metro station, and he's convinced that it turned blue because of development around the station," says Democrat Gerry Connolly, the Fairfax board chairman. [...]

Davis's alternative to density at such suburban Metro stations as Vienna is not more sprawl, but rather a push to repopulate the District. "Culturally, the people who would move into this project in Vienna are urban kind of people. A lot of them are single, and they would be happy living closer in."

Which would put those people where they belong, either in Democratic Washington or in suburbs in Rep. Jim Moran's Democratic district."

"Urban kind of people."