To the editor:
Last Friday state Senator Amanda Chase attended a pep rally at a private home in Mineral. Her purpose was to hit up unsuspecting Republican donors to fund her bid for the governor’s mansion in 2021. In pictures of the event, no one is wearing a mask or social distancing. I wonder if the Covid-19 numbers will go up in our county in the next two weeks.
Our country is in an unparalleled health and economic crisis. Regardless of your political affiliation, I hope we can all agree that our leaders need to be calm and make well measured decisions. Chase’s behavior has shown that she is the polar opposite of a competent leader.
For those unfamiliar with her, she earned the moniker #parkingprincess in March 2019 when she threw a temper tantrum in the General Assembly parking lot. She tried to park in a restricted area and an officer asked her to move her car. She responded by berating the officer with racial epithets and made denigrating comments about the clerk who was allowed to park there.
When interviewed about it later, she first denied cursing and then admitted it. The scene she caused prevented schoolchildren from exiting their buses for a field trip. She exclaimed, “Don’t you know who I am?”
In May of 2019 Chase used the Capitol Police for transportation so frequently during the General Assembly session that its chief asked the House and Senate clerks to remind lawmakers about accepted procedures. Chase received more than 20 police transports during the General Assembly session—all of them outside the established protocol outlined in a Jan. 24 email from Senate Clerk Susan Clarke Schaar to senators that “the Capitol Police staff are not to be used by members or staff for personal transport.” She also utilized the Capitol Police as her personal service in the fall of 2018 when the General Assembly was not in session.
The day after her appearance in Mineral, Chase attended another fundraiser event with musician Ted Nugent, an admitted pedophile. He wrote a song entitled Jailbait with lyrics like, “Well I don’t care if you’re just 13, You look too good to be true.” He also adopted a teenager with the express purpose of having sex with her. Ted purposely soiled his pants for a week in order to avoid the Vietnam draft. Why in the world would a gubernatorial candidate associate herself with someone like this? Is she that hard up for money?
It seems that Chase is desperate for the attention that the reality TV era has made seem commonplace. But this entitled and unhinged woman is the last thing the hardworking people of Louisa need in the governor’s mansion. We need a strong, decent and hardworking leader and I sincerely hope that the Republican Party is able to field such a candidate for governor in 2021.
Aleta Strickland
Louisa
This letter was previously published in The Central Virginian and is republished here with the permission of the author.