A sad ending to a very odd local political race.
Matthew Geary was a prosecutor for Henrico County who was running for Commonwealth's attorney in Henrico. Henrico County is about as mainstream Republican as they come, and therefore a GOP prosecutor was an ideal candidate. Moreover, Geary was generally considered a pretty competent guy. Liberals didn't have much of a problem with him either. In fact he'd been working as chief deputy for the Richmond Commonwealth Attorney's office under a liberal.
So the guy was considered a local, generally well-liked, had a solid GOP background, and the experience for the job. And at 42, he was considered a bit of an up-and-comer although it was unclear if he wanted to enter the realm of "real" politics. But the Henrico position was one that he'd been pegged for for some time. He had gotten the endorsement of the Henrico police the very minute he declared. He was such a shoo-in for victory that up until July or August he was running unopposed.
And then something weird happened. In late July or August, it was revealed that he'd had an extra-marital affair a year earlier. According to Geary, his wife knew about it and he'd also told the local GOP committee when he first decided to run. About a week later, the Henrico GOP voted unanimously to withdraw their endorsement and ask him to stop down. And then Eric Cantor (in the midst of his budget battle) for whatever reason stuck his nose into local politics and trashed Geary and told him to withdraw as well.
At the same time, Bill Janis who was serving in the House of Delegates decided to step down and run for the Henrico position. Janis is a lawyer, but had no prosecutorial experience at all and had previously expressed no interest in the position. Janis couldn't run as a Republican because Geary already had the GOP nomination, so he ran as an independent. And the Henrico GOP, instead of endorsing their own candidate, starting putting all their money behind Janis. He raised like $100k in three weeks.
This is how it ends:
Neither one of them won the election. A Democrat, Shannon Taylor entered the election in late August and won it because Geary and Janis split the votes.
Bill Janis came in second. But because Janis took one for the team, so in January the GOP paid him back when the Governor appointed him Deputy Commissioner to the Department of Veterans Services.
Geary came in third. In the last few days and after the results were coming in, it was obvious that Geary was not going to win and that he had no future in any elected office he was pretty much all but formally endorsing Taylor. Taylor is completely qualified for the position, having been a prosecutor for some time. But also Taylor and Geary knew each other from law school and had semi-worked together because one was a prosecutor in Richmond and the other in bordering Henrico. A couple of days ago, Geary shot himself.
No one has been able to figure out exactly what happened to make the GOP suddenly go to such insane measures to prevent Geary from winning what is mostly a non-political position in a local office that most people don't know or care about.
