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During the recent statewide campaign, we and our sister organization, TFF Action, ran an unprecedented — and massively successful — voter education campaign, Winning Matters. Although we anticipated a wind down after the election in November, Winning Matters remains in high gear for the crucial special election for the 37th district Virginia Senate seat (in Fairfax, January 12) vacated by Republican Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli.

Winning Matters retained a staff of three (two field reps in Fairfax and a project manager) which has produced, and is distributing, thousands of paper and online voter guides in English, Spanish and Korean to churches, civic groups and area businesses. It also is providing absentee ballot applications for people not be able to vote in person on the 12th. Winning Matters also is working with churches to announce the election and/or put it in their bulletins as a reminder to their members to go out and vote.

If you are interested in helping Winning Matters with this crucial special election, between Republican Stephen Hunt and Democrat Dave Marsden, especially within your church, please contact Roger Pogge at 804-343-0010 or e-mail him at roger@familyfoundation.org. 

Although the campaign is a short one, it has been hot for a while, probably because it is so crucial to the makeup of the Virginia Senate, which the Democrats currently control by one seat. Among the issues: Marsden now claims to be for lower taxes, despite his history of votes to raise them; the fact that he moved into a friend’s house to be eligible to run for the seat; and, of course, it wouldn’t be a campaign in Virginia if life and abortion weren’t part of the (misleading) discussion. If Hunt wins for the GOP, it will remain within striking distance of winning crucial votes, with Lt. Governor Bill Bolling breaking ties. If Marsden pulls it out for the Dems, the left will have a little leeway with a second vote to spare. One seat might not sound like much, but whoever wins the election can change the dynamics of the entire Virginia Senate. Which is why winning matters.

Today, pro-family Virginians are celebrating yesterday’s election of candidates whom we believe hold to, and will govern by, values you and I share. After months of working hard either for candidates or organizations like The Family Foundation to educate voters, seeing the fruit of that labor is sweet indeed.

Exit polling found that evangelicals made up more than one-third of voters yesterday and 83 percent of those voted for the pro-life, pro-family candidates. Those numbers surpass the high water mark of pro-family involvement in any Virginia election to date!

No one can question that our Winning Matters campaign had an incredible effect on voter turnout. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the campaign by donating financially, distributing Voter Guides, Report Cards, holding voter registration drives, and a multitude of other activities. Your efforts made a huge impact yesterday.

But now, the work begins.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m as thrilled as you that Virginians sent a clear message to President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (not to mention Mark Warner, Jim Webb and the like) that we reject the debt riddled policies they are pushing. I’m excited that we have a Governor-elect, Lt. Governor-elect and Attorney General-elect who share our values. But I also know that we’ve been here before, in the days after elections, thinking that the work was done only to learn that it was far from over. We need to hold all of our newly elected officials to their promises.

Even with a larger conservative majority in the Virginia House of Delegates, the obstacle that our pro-family, pro-life agenda has faced for several years – the Virginia Senate – stands between us and our goals. While we hope members of that chamber also get the message of last night’s election results, they have two years before they face the voters. If history is any indication, they are hoping that you will have forgotten by then.

The first opportunities to affect the Senate will come with two special elections in the next few weeks. With Ken Cuccinelli’s victory last night, there will be an election to replace him in his Fairfax Senate seat. In addition, Senator Ken Stolle won election to sheriff of Virginia Beach, meaning that there will be an election for that seat as well.

Here is the commitment I’m asking you to make today: we will not stop, we will not rest, until the Senate of Virginia reflects our values! We will not stop working until that chamber joins the rest of our leaders in supporting common sense pro-life and pro-family proposals.

We have the opportunity in the upcoming session to give all 40 members of the Senate the chance to vote on legislation that reflects our values – and if they reject those values again, we have to make them pay the price at the ballot box in 2011.

I also encourage you to pray for all the newly elected candidates. In particular, over the next few months Governor-elect McDonnell will select key advisers, cabinet members and a multitude of officials on boards and commissions. Please pray that he appoints qualified, principled conservatives to those positions, the impact of which will go on well after he leaves office. It is often said that “personnel is policy,” so selecting those he will take counsel from in the years ahead is crucial for the new governor.

But today, celebrate. Enjoy a hard fought victory. Then get ready to join The Family Foundation as we look only to the future.

Thanks to so many of you who have helped us distribute hundreds of thousands of Family Foundation Voter Guides (click here) to churches in every corner of the state. (It’s not too late to spread the guides around, either — forward this link to your friends, family and fellow church members). With your help, our Winning Matters staff has conducted the largest Voter Guide distribution effort in the history of The Family Foundation. We are excited that so many values voters across the commonwealth will go to the polls tomorrow armed with the information they need to make an intelligent, informed choice when they cast their vote.

We’ve developed an online tool to assist us in tracking which churches distributed our Voter Guides. If you helped deliver Voter Guides, would you log on and let us know to which churches you delivered them? As an extra motivation, we are offering prizes for your participation. Win a framed photo of the Virginia capitol by being the person to submit the largest number of churches you coordinated with and delivered TFF Voter Guides to. If you distributed at an event, that also counts. Enter just one church or one event where you delivered Voter Guides and you will be entered into the drawing to receive an autographed copy of Governor Mike Huckabee’s latest book. Click here to enter to win! Your participation in this effort will help us better plan our future Voter Guide distribution efforts and enable us to be better stewards of the resources we have been blessed with.

Of course, don’t forget Tuesday is Election Day. Exercise your sacred duty and make sure your friends and family members go out and vote also.

Regardless of who you intend to vote for on Tuesday, polls showing large gaps in the statewide races are no excuse to not vote. Every pro-family, pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-traditional values Virginian must take the responsibility of voting seriously and exercise that sacred freedom at every opportunity. We urge you to ignore the polls and news stories and vote on Tuesday.

The Family Foundation has produced one million non-partisan Voter Guides to educate voters for this year’s elections so that citizens can be prepared when they vote. If your church has yet to distribute these guides, we urge you to contact us at 804-343-0010 so we can get them to you in time. Sunday is the last opportunity to educate your fellow church members concerning where candidates stand on pro-family issues.

Please click here to review the statewide Voter Guide that includes the races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Read the Voter Guide and study where the candidates stand. Also, please forward this blog post link to your family and friends and on your social networking sites, so others can be informed.

We also urge you to watch our online Video Voter Guide and share it as well. You can even  download it to a disk to show at your church. This is another way in which we are trying to educate Virginians prior to this year’s crucial elections.

Samuel Adams, one of our nation’s leading Founding Fathers, said:

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote . . . that he is executing on of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.

We I trust that you will vote on Tuesday, and that your vote will reflect your values.

Family Foundation Action today officialy released its 2008-09 General Assembly Report Card. A Capitol Square news conference is underway.  Below is the official news release from the orgnization:

FAMILY FOUNDATION ACTION RELEASES GENERAL ASSEMBLY REPORT CARD

RICHMOND — The Family Foundation Action today released the tenth edition of its non-partisan General Assembly Report Card. The educational document, released at a capitol press conference, informs citizens on key votes taken by the General Assembly during the 2008 and 2009 sessions. 

“In the House alone two-thirds of the members voted in favor of The Family Foundation’s agenda more than half the time, indicating a broad based, bipartisan support for The Family Foundation’s commonsense proposals,” said Victoria Cobb, president of The Family Foundation Action. ”It is our hope that the Report Card, along with Voter Guides that will be distributed in the fall, will motivate citizens to vote, and help them make informed choices when they go to the voting booth.” 

The mission of The Family Foundation Action is to protect families and promote responsible citizenship by giving Virginians the tools they need to hold their elected officials accountable. The Family Foundation Action is not a PAC and cannot endorse candidates. This organization will also be producing and distributing voter guides for Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General and select House races in the fall. The Family Foundation Action plans to distribute 100,000 Report Cards throughout Virginia in the coming months, double the number from the 2007 distribution. 

As with each Report Card distributed over the years, hundreds of votes taken by legislature during the past two years were reviewed. The first page of the report card explains the criteria used in determining which votes to include. Non-partisan and broad-based, the Report Card seeks not to benefit one party or one candidate over another, but to arm voting Virginians with the information they need to make an informed choice when they go to the ballot box.

This year’s Report Card has seven more “100 percenters” in the House than the last edition, bringing the total to 42. There are four in the state Senate, twice the number from 2007. In addition, there are no “Zeros” on this Report Card in either the House or the Senate.

“Demand for the Report Card continues to increase with each release,” added Cobb. ”We distributed 50,000 copies of the last edition, not including those that were downloaded from the Action Website. We hope to distribute twice that number with this edition to ensure that more Virginians know exactly where their elected officials stand on important values issues.”

Copies of the Report Card are available by contacting The Family Foundation Action at 804-343-0010 or at www.tffaction.org.

A recent Richmond Times-Dispatch article on voter guides was interesting, not so much for which organizations provide them — but tellingly — which do not.  It seems that the policy groups and

special interests which research and provide voter guides and report cards, like The Family Foundation Action, gladly do so, unafraid to promulgate which candidates stand where on issues of concern and importance to those who share each particular group’s vision as well as the general public.

 Except . . . it seems certain leftist groups do not provide such information.  Perhaps approving grades by liberal groups would blow the cover of their favorite candidates who, for electoral survival, contort their real records into a “moderate” image during campaign season (while demonizing conservative opponents).  Surely, voters wouldn’t recognize a stellar rating from a liberal report card from a candidate’s carefully crafted campaign brochure.  Nor would they appreciate it come election day.  Talk about unintended consequences.

 There’s nothing like the truth about candidates’ records — not by groups viewed as antagonistic, but by friendly ones.   If their message is as broadly accepted as they claim, these liberal organizations should paper the Commonwealth with information on exactly which General Assembly candidates stand shoulder to shoulder with them and not act embarrassed about exposing alleged “moderates” in swing districts.