Here is a link to a piece from Sunday’s Post on the various campaigns and their use (and misuse) of social media. It went to press before the GOP convention on Saturday, so it doesn’t capture what has happened since Saturday’s GOP convention. A couple of items worth noting:

1. Both Virginia and national Democrats were laying into EW Jackson on social media long before the last convention ballot. And within moments of his nomination, they were busy establishing the narrative that Jackson was a dangerous lunatic doomed to sink the entire GOP ticket. Contrast this with the cancellation of the media availability after the convention for the entire ticket. There are probably very good reasons for why the availability did not occur. But on press row, it looked and smelled like panic.

2. However, the GOP is beginning to pull itself together and develop a coordinated rapid response. They have the opportunity to turn the tables on Democrats with the June 11 primary, when the nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general are chosen. I suspect they will have some real fun with those results…

[Continue reading Norman Leahy’s post at Bearing Drift.]

Norman Leahy blogs at Bearing Drift. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.

Last week, I was invited to attend a concert at Evermay as part of the S&R Foundation’s Overtures series. While the music of classical guitarist Soichi Muraji was highly enjoyable and the ostensible point of the evening, the surroundings of Evermay can’t help but steal the show.

The S&R Foundation was set up by two Georgetowners, Dr. Sachiko Kuno and Dr. Ryuji Ueno. The husband and wife team made a fortune with their bio-med company Sucampo. The private couple splashed across the news several years ago when they bought the long-listed (and coveted) Evermay and Halcyon House estates.

The landmark historic Evermay Estate sited on over 3.5 acres in the heart of Georgetown. (Stuart Estler) Instead of living in these massive properties, they’ve converted them into use for their worthy foundation, which is focused on “support[ing] talented individuals with great potential and high aspirations in the sciences and arts, especially those who are furthering international cultural collaboration.” Music is a key objective of the foundation, and it began hosting concert series at Evermay last year.

I had heard good things about the series, but had not until last week attended a concert. And it is really quite an experience.

[Continue reading Topher Mathews’s post here at The Georgetown Metropolitan.]

Topher Mathews blogs at The Georgetown Metropolitan . The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.

One bike shop owner has grumpy words about Capital Bikeshare riders, while some users run into full and empty stations. In fact, bike sharing gets more people biking in general, and its relatively few frustrations, while problems to be solved, also encourage people to use personal bikes more.

(Jeffrey MacMillan) A Capital Business article Monday rounded up many praises and a few frustrations with Capital Bikeshare. Some people still find themselves “dockblocked,” where there’s no spot available at a station. A Portuguese tourist couldn’t find a dock at Dupont Circle, nor could a Justice Department employee when reporter Mohana Ravindranath was there.

This is indeed a problem which D.C. can’t hope to entirely solve, but when it happens, it does dissuade riders from using Capital Bikeshare more. Capital Bikeshare has added more rebalancing capacity since the system launched, and should continue striving to keep up.

Other riders have stopped using Capital Bikeshare for commuting because there isn’t enough capacity at the peak. Ravindranath interviews Aaron Ordower, who gave up trying to CaBi from 16th and U to the World Bank because he couldn’t count on finding a bike. But in this case, while it would be nice for CaBi to be able to serve his needs, it’s less reasonable to expect that.

[Continue reading David Alpert’s post at Greater Greater Washington.]

David Alpert is founder and editor of Greater Greater Washington. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.

Kenneth Cuccinelli II certainly fits right in with the other Virginia Republican candidates picked over the weekend at the party’s convention in Richmond. The slate of nominees come with the powerful aroma of the Tea Party.

Running for lieutenant governor is E.W. Jackson, an African American minister, Harvard Law School grad and grand-voiced speaker who exhorts that strict religious principles be the foundation for state politics. An avid right-to-lifer, Jackson has said that Planned Parenthood has killed more blacks than the Ku Klux Klan.

Mark D. Obenshain, a lawyer from Harrisonburg, will be the GOP candidate for attorney general. Loyally conservative, he is the son of Richard Obenshain, who helped build the modern Virginia Republican party by luring over conservatives who had been part of yesteryear’s Democratic machine. This helps Cuccinelli at the top of the ticket by giving the slate one foot solidly in the state’s political history.

It all sends an interesting signal. Cuccinelli has never been unclear about his message, but there had been hope that he might be something of a closet populist, given recent television ads projecting him as a regular guy who just wants to get the government off our backs and help small business. Or course, this also might have been a calculated move to the center designed to snare more moderate conservatives put off by some the strident stances he has taken over the years..

Well, you can’t get more strident than Bishop Jackson. I remember hearing his thundering voice as he spoke at a mostly white conclave of Tea Party people in piney-woods New Kent County a couple of years ago. He has had a variegated career, including the Marine Corps, Harvard Law, chaplain to Boston firefighters and so on. He’s a darling of the right-wing media and has been on Fox and been interviewed by Glenn Back.

So why the seance for the Tea Party glory years of 2010? The Internal Revenue Service has certainly helped on that score. The actions of the Cincinnati office of the IRS must be like an answered prayer to anyone hoping for a revival of the movement this year.

The ball’s now in the court of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. Although one recent poll showed him ahead of Cuccinelli, he still needs progress if he’s to win the undecideds. In many ways, the GOP convention helps McAuliffe. Next on his agenda: getting a person of color as the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor. He’s got one candidate in Aneesh Paul Chopra, who was Virginia’s chief technology officer as well as Barack Obama’s.

Peter Galuszka blogs at Bacon’s Rebellion. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.

There was good news and bad news for Maryland transit Thursday.

The bad news was Maryland’s decision to cut bus service on the ICC. The good news was that the Purple Line, Corridor Cities Transitway, and Baltimore Red Line are all advancing, and that MARC’s Penn Line will start running on the weekend.

Overall, that’s a huge net gain for transit in Maryland.

The new BRT and light rail lines are still years away, but weekend MARC service could start as soon as this winter. The MARC news alone is a bigger win for transit than the ICC buses are a loss.

[Continue reading Dan Malouff’s post at BeyondDC.]

Dan Malouff is an Arlington County transportation planner who blogs independently at BeyondDC.com. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.