Vanderhye, a gubernatorial appointee on the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, is both articulate and accomplished, so it’s doubly disappointing that she’s stooped to misleading, negative portrayals of her moderate Republican opponent.

District 35: Steve Shannon

Both candidates in the 35th District have run exemplary campaigns focused on the issues, not personal attacks. Voters should re-elect incumbent Steve Shannon, one of the many moderate Democrats who voted for the flawed transportation bill, abusive-driver fees and all. Shannon, a former Fairfax County prosecutor, made his mark defending child victims of sexual abuse; a bill he sponsored last session that would have raised any failure to register with Virginia’s sex offender registry from a misdemeanor to a felony should be enacted into law.

Republican challenger Arthur Purves, president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, is a stalwart conservative who has painstakingly charted the spiraling cost of state and local government — and taxpayers’ declining rate of return. But politics is the art of compromise, and Purves’ inability to persuade his own party to support his sixth run for office would make him the Ron Paul of the General Assembly.

40th District:Tim Hugo

The race in the 40th District between Republican incumbent Tim Hugo and Democratic challenger Rex Simmons has been anything but exemplary. The mud has been flying for weeks, ever since Hugo ran a “nutpicking” attack ad quoting from an anonymous entry on the liberal Raising Kaine blog (later attributed to a primary opponent critical of Simmons).

But Simmons’ below-the-belt attempt to smear Hugo by attempting to link him to Abu Ghraib, a tactic University of Virginia political guru Larry Sabato called “somewhere between ludicrous and desperate,” wins the prize for sleaziest campaigning.

A former congressional aide, Hugo was a key player in the recently passed transportation bill and can be counted on to push for additional highway funding for Northern Virginia. Simmons should have relied on his impressive background with the General Accountability Office instead of resorting to such a transparent attempt at character assassination.

67th District: Chuck Caputo

Incumbent Democrat Chuck Caputo is another moderate Democrat who voted for the transportation bill, and has somewhat surprisingly been attacked by Republican challenger Marc Cadin for his “support” of the controversial abusive driver fees. But the fact is that many Republicans and Democrats voted for this revenue-raising measure. Partisan attacks that don’t point this out deliberately mislead the public.

Caputo is a popular long time civic activist and consensus builder who has been endorsed by groups from the Sierra Club to the National Federation of Independent Business, making him a good fit for this ideologically diverse district.

86th District: Tom Rust

Former Herndon Mayor Tom Rust has joined top House and Senate Republicans calling for vigorous enforcement of immigration laws at the state and local level. Rust was also one of the architects of the transportation bill that is bringing $400million to Northern Virginia after a two-decade funding drought. Defending the bill, Rust points out that the gas tax would have to be increased 35 to 50 cents per gallon to raise the same amount of revenue for Northern Virginia.

Former Herndon planning commissioner and Democratic challenger Jay Donahue’s attacks on Rust for the widely unpopular abusive-driver fees are disingenuous, especially considering that it was Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine’s amendment that made them applicable only to Virginia drivers and Rust has already endorsed a plan to “fix” them next session if he’s re-elected.