House Speaker William J. Howell made it clear yesterday that he is looking to Loudoun County to help Republicans keep control of the House of Delegates in the 2009 elections.

"I know this sounds self-serving, the presidential stuff is important, but next year we've got House of Delegates seats, and there's a couple that are representing Loudoun and parts of Loudoun County that I know we can win back," Howell told a meeting of the Loudoun County Republican Committee.

A former aide to Loudoun County Chairman Scott K. York said that York must be the happiest man in the country today.

That's because tomorrow York could become a powerful player in the region. At the first official meeting of the new Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, the board is likely to return to York a host of powers that were stripped from him from the previous board.

A former reporter who went from news-breaker to news-maker earlier this year when he revealed the details of his purported off-the-record conversations with Loudoun's top prosecutor is still on the local political scene.

After quitting his job with the Loudoun County weekly Leesburg Today, Charlie Jackson volunteered for several Loudoun Democrats' campaigns, he said in an interview today. He also helped set up a press event in which the Democratic candidates for the Loudoun Board of Supervisors signed an oversized ethics pledge for the benefit of clicking cameras.

A common gripe around Loudoun County these days has been the way Richmond divvies up the tax money generated by Northern Virginia, the state's "economic engine."

Only a fraction of every tax dollar generated in Northern Virginia comes back in the form of road improvements, school funding and similar benefits. Candidates keep demanding "our fair share" to pay for the county's badly needed schools and roads.

But two state delegates this week broke from the chorus.

Jill Holtzman Vogel, the Republican candidate hoping to replace retiring Virginia Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. in the 27th District, is getting heat over her husband's lobbying activity in Washington.

According to the Northern Virginia Daily, Alex Vogel's firm has lobbied on behalf of the American Immigrant Lawyers Association, which last week announced it supports a bill that would allow provide a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants.

Today, her Democratic opponent Karen Schultz called for her husband's firm to return the $63,000 it apparently got from the group to lobby for the bill.

A new political action committee has launched in Loudoun, and it has a familiar target.

The Loudoun Coalition, which formed in August, "stands in opposition to five incumbent supervisors who are standing for reelection," according to a Thursday press release announcing the group's formation.

If you live in Loudoun, you can probably guess which five they are talking about -- Stephen J. Snow (Dulles), Mick Staton Jr. (Sugarland Run), Jim E. Clem (Leesburg), Eugene A. Delgaudio (Sterling) and Bruce E. Tulloch (Potomac), the board's pro-growth Republicans.

"Sounds like one more guy having fun attacking the Republicans," Staton said Friday.

The chairman's race in Loudoun County is heating up -- but not in the way you might think.

Three-term incumbent Scott K. York (I), who has been chairman for the past two terms, started off his campaign for reelection this fall not by attacking his opponent but by going after five of his fellow supervisors, all Republicans, whom he has dubbed "the gang of five."