Story by Chris Graham
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Talk about spining a story. If you believe the McCain-Palin campaign, the rally that had been scheduled for Wednesday morning at Fairfax High School is being moved to a nearby park because of “overwhelming” response for tickets.
The outcry that had been raised over the use of the school building during school hours for a partisan event, we are then to believe, had nothing to do with it.
“The response for the McCain-Palin rally has been so overwhelming that we now have twice as many supporters wanting to attend than can fit inside the Fairfax High School’s fieldhouse. We have moved the rally to Van Dyke Park to ensure that everyone who wants to hear John McCain and Sarah Palin’s message of reforming Washington will be able to do so. We look forward to an exciting event,” Mid-Atlantic regional campaign manager Trey Walker said in a statement released this afternoon by the McCain campaign.
The statement curiously included mention of how tickets for the event were still available on the Virginia.JohnMcCain.com website and would be available at Van Dyke Park beginning at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning.
The Washington Post reported this morning about the apparent violation in school-system policy that hosting the campaign event on the school premises during school hours would represent. Fairfax superintendent Jack Dale had said that he had made the call on foregoing the school policy in this instance because he thought it would be a good learning experience for students. In a story on the Post website this afternoon, school-board member Kaye Kory noted that only the elected board “has the authority to override a policy.” “We did not agree. We did not vote. We didn’t discuss. So this is a violation of not only our policy, but our procedure,” Kory said.
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