Want to run a freeway through your voters’ neighborhood? The Post will endorse you

On Sunday, the Washington Post endorsed candidates for the Virginia House of Delegates. In District 48, which covers the northernmost sections of Arlington, Rosslyn and Clarendon, and Crystal City and its surrounding neighborhoods, Republican Aaron Ringel is challenging incumbent Democrat Bob Brink. The Post decided to endorse Ringel based on one issue alone:

Robert H. Brink, the Democratic incumbent, has held this seat for a decade, and in that time he’s barely faced a serious challenge. This year he has one in the form of Republican Aaron Ringel, a bright young combat veteran of the war in Iraq who works for a defense contractor. Mr. Brink is a competent legislator but he has opposed widening Interstate 66. That wins points with some homeowners who’d be directly affected but does little for the tens of thousands of commuters who suffer that road daily. Mr. Ringel takes a broader regional view of that issue.

In other words, the Fairfax County editors of the Post want Arlington’s officials to put their interests ahead of the people who actually live in the district. This isn’t a small group of NIMBYs; Arlingtonians feel very strongly, and have since the 1970s. The Post, on the other hand, hasn’t ever seen a highway project it didn’t like (or, in fairness, a transit project).

In unrelated news, the Washington Post’s circulation dropped 6.4 percent in the last six months.