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Faisal Gill Loses His First Endorsement
By Greg L | 11 February 2007 | 51st HOD District | 12 Comments
About a week ago I advised readers to watch the endorsements listed on Faisal Gill’s campaign website for surprising changes, and fairly recently one of those has appeared without notice or comment. Occoquan School Board Member Milt Johns has pulled his endorsement of Faisal Gill, the first of what may become several endorsees to distance themselves from the Faisal Gill campaign for various reasons.
As I understand it, some time ago Faisal contacted Milt Johns and asked for his endorsement . Milt was assured by Faisal Gill that fellow school board member Julie Lucas wouldn’t be running for the nomination, and on that basis Milt agreed to endorse Faisal Gill. After learning that Julie Lucas indeed was going to run for the position, Milt was none too pleased as it really put him in a difficult position, and he quietly withdrew his endorsement. It’s entirely possible that Milt may end up endorsing his colleague Julie Lucas, as he would have a number of reasons both positive and negative for doing so.
Faisal Gill’s backfiring little stunt can either be attributed to a deliberate lie, or a stunning degree of political incompetence. You’d imagine that Faisal would have a good read on who his opponents would likely be, but after a series of early missteps already this scenario seems more plausible than Faisal Gill making deliberate misstatements.
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12 Comments
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This was an obvious endorsement that was going to be lost. It is Julie’s fellow schoolboard member. Faisal did not tell Milt that he was sure Julie would not run. I don’t think Faisal will lose anymore endorsements.
Julie did not know if she was going to run till 2 days before the deadline. How was Faisal to know if Julie was going to run or not? Is it his fault that Julie does not know what she wants.
I was almost certain that Julie was going to run well before a convention was announced, although she always maintained that she was thinking about it rather than saying outright that she would. Anyone with some degree of political insight would have recognized there was at least a strong possibility of a Julie Lucas candidacy as far back as December.
And this is coming from someone who is in Gainesville and doesn’t necessarily have their ear to the ground for all of the daily political winds in Occoquan. If I knew about it, the insiders in Occoquan certainly knew. I’m not under the illusion that I am so spectacularly gifted in political insight that I’d know what’s going on in Occoquan before someone like Faisal Gill does.
I come with a humble question for the greatest of the political gurus, The Blog Seer of Northern Virginia. If Milt Johns did not know Julie Lucas was going to run, how did your wise and noble self delve this fact from Ms. Lucas’ mind?
I did something novel: I spoke with her. Milt spoke with Faisal, as far as I understand.
Amazing! Who would have thought of that? I am humbled by the simple elegance of your solution.
Nonetheless, Master, I remain confused. I find the order of your lesson puzzling. Only now have you revealed that you spoke to Lucas. Before your mystic revelation was achieved with just a humble degree of political insight. What other revelations do you have for your student?
Will you reveal how it is that you know Faisal Gill was either lying or incompetent? Did Gill put Johns under a spell, which you have now lifted? How come Milt Johns did not talk to Lucas, someone he sees frequently, about her plans? Why did he talk to Gill instead? What would possess Gill to speak for Lucas?
Greg, you missed the point. Your claim was that Gill promised Johns that Lucas wasn’t running, and that Johns must be “none too pleased”.
But Milt Johns knows Lucas, works with her on the school board. Why would he ask, much less listen to, the opinion of Faisel Gill about whether she would run, rather than simply asking her?
As you note, you asked her. If you could do so, why do you think Milt would be unable to do so? You must not think much of his ability to think clearly, if you think he would have forgotten that he could ask Lucas what she was doing, and instead had to ask Faisel.
Milt endorsed Faisal because Lucas wasn’t running. Once Lucas saw that there was an opening to knock Faisal off with the “muslim/terrorist” stuff, Lucas decided to run. With Lucas running, Milt isn’t going to endorse her opponent. Perfectly understandable, and doesn’t require questioning Milt’s intelligence OR Gill’s magical powers of mind-reading and fortune-telling.
Lest my comment be misconstrued, I think highly of Milt Johns, who has been my representative on the School Board.
I think he is quite capable of figuring out to ask Lucas if she is running — it’s Greg who thinks he’s the only one smart enough to know to talk to the prospective candidate instead of her opponent.
I asked her, and she wouldn’t tell me if she was or not. But I came to the conclusion that she would and said so in the intel report starting in early January.
Now I don’t know about Julie’s relationship with Milt Johns. What me might or might not know about Julie’s intentions is beyond me, but I have heard that Faisal was adamant about telling Milt that Julie was not running — not that he didn’t think that she was running, but that she absolutely was not. Would Milt take his word for it? I don’t know, but it looks like he did.
I also think highly of Milt, and am certain that if he had any question about this he would have been able to find out in no time. In the end he ended up getting a bit blindsided here, mislead for the sole, albeit temporary benefit of Faisal Gill, and put in the difficult position while he has his own campaign to be concerned with.
I’m a Lucas supporter and I hope she trounces Gill, but c’mon Greg, when it comes to this race your analysis is becoming more comically juvenile every day. Milt Johns, a reliably competent school board member, doesn’t rely on Julie’s word, but is instead mislead by Faisal Gill into thinking that Julie won’t run?! Your evidence–you “have heard that Faisal was adamant about telling Milt that Julie was not running.” Heard from whom, Milt Johns? Faisal Gill? Someone else who was actually involved in the conversation? Get a grip. Thank God Charles is generally willing to weigh in here with some common sense.
A candidate calls you asking for an endorsement, and tells you that someone who you might also be inclined to support isn’t going to run. You’re not interested in the race, and have your own campaign to concern yourself with. Would you take the guy at face value? I’d be inclined to, given that it would be insane for a candidate to lie about such a thing, and he’s probably in a better position to know the political landscape than you because he has a vested interest in knowing it.
Who would ever think that Faisal Gill might be lying about potential opponents when trolling for endorsements? That would be beyond dumb, it’s political suicide. Now I don’t know what Milt Johns might have done to independently find out what was going on, or if he did anything at all to verify what he heard from Gill. But I have heard that information from Gill was the basis for his understanding, and it turned out to be incorrect.
So Gill either knew what Julie would do or he did not. If he knew, he lied, and I doubt that was the case because it’s just so incredibly outrageous. If he didn’t know, it was a major gaffe for his campaign and resulted in some damaged relationships with folks he would be well served to have good relationships with.
In the end, a major endorsement for Faisal Gill is now gone, and there’s a possibility this won’t be the only instance. That’s got to be pretty embarrassing for the campaign and will mean whole lot of campaign literature is going to have to be re-done.
And no, I’m not naming sources.
Another noteworthy Gill blunder is when he listed Milt’s name on his web-site he referred to him as incorrectly being the Occoquan School Board representative rather than Brentsville. Based on the simplicity of getting a task like that correct, it seems impossible that he would be capable of writing a well written bill.