Campaign 2010
It didn’t take long for the 2010 congressional campaign to get started. Soon after U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th, was sworn in last month, the National Republican Campaign Committee started cranking out anti-Perriello press releases.
Now less than two months after Perriello took office, the NRCC has aired its first television commercial — in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market — accusing Perriello of “stretching the truth” on the stimulus bill.
Perriello has been targeted early because he is considered politically vulnerable.
When Perriello beat Republican incumbent Virgil Goode by a mere 727 votes in November, Mark Warner won his Senate seat with 65 percent of the vote and Barack Obama became the first Democrat to carry Virginia in a presidential election since 1964.
In 2010, Perriello won’t have those long coattails to ride.
At the same time, some people in the 5th District are angry at Perriello for beating Goode, and they are waiting for the chance to vote against him in 2010. To those people, it doesn’t matter what Perriello does between now and then.
Goode hasn’t said he will run for his old seat next year.
But even if Goode declines to run, the 5th District was drawn by the General Assembly to help a Republican win a seat in Congress, so someone will definitely challenge Perriello.
Americans are worried about the stimulus bill Perriello supported because they’re not sure it will work — and they’re not sold on how it’s supposed to work. For their part, Republicans wanted more tax cuts and less government spending to kick-start the economy.
The problem for Republicans is that when they controlled Congress, we got tax cuts and more government spending. In fact, Goode’s final earmarks for the 5th District are just now coming through the legislative process.
If it was OK for Goode to get federal money for projects in the 5th District, is it wrong for Perriello to do the same thing?
Call them earmarks, pork, pet projects, boondoggles, investments or whatever you want — spending taxpayer money is still spending taxpayer money.
To Perriello’s credit, he’s already had a bill passed (a higher education tax credit) and he supported expanding health care for children. Both will help the people of the 5th District. Perriello has also continued to meet with local officials and residents about how best to use the federal stimulus money.
To Perriello’s critics, nothing he does will ever matter. That’s how a group like the NRCC can get away with jumpstarting the 2010 elections mere months after the polls closed in 2008. The never-ending fight for political power in this country means our politicians are always in “campaign mode.”
It’s shameful that Rep. Perriello has been attacked so soon when he’s followed Goode by bringing federal dollars to the district — plus he supported a higher education tax credit and health insurance for children.
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Reader Reactions
I don’t hate anybody, dear! You and I are diametrically opposed politically becaue I think FOX dumbs people down. Rush and the hate spewers try to “escite” the populist base—a term which is a joke in the first place since Republicans try fearmongering and racism to GET the votes of the people at the bottom and don’t care about them—with ridiculous stuff like the War on Christmas. The Republicans care about two things—free-market economy (the thing that exported our jobs and trashes unions) and NOT raising the taxes of the very wealthy. They’ll try anything to get the bottom 98% to vote for them, including predicting dark revolutions and riots when the economy collapses.
Bah, humbug!
JudyC - I haven’t called you anything. What shall I call you? I merely suggested that you were being dumbed down by MSNBC and CNN.
I sense much hate in your heart.
Crocket and RWfanatic:
Did I call y’all names? You sound like you’re the idealogues, not me!
I would never listen to anything Limbaugh had to say due to his hateful, racist comments in the wake of Katrina. Every once in a while, this bilious tub of lard shows his true colors. I wonder if they make XXXXXKL Klan costumes.
If so, Rush surely has one in his closet.
HPHPHPHP - your last sentence should read a follows….until the most extreme ruling party is replaced - Our country is going to continue to decline.
As a moderate conservative, I am disturbed at the continuing tact of the Republican Party which actually seems to be a continuation of the Presidential campaign rhetoric—attacks and substance-less innuendo at a time when our nation is in absolute crisis on a number of fronts. Like it or not, the American people have spoken through the recent elections, and it is a time to recognize that people are very unhappy with the way things were going. The Republican Party has to take, I’m afraid, the preponderance of the responsibility for our current national problems, and the people want new leadership and different legislative agendas. Criticizing Perriello from the opening gate is very immature and very premature at this point. I must say that it seems to me that the Republican Party has been taken over by a small group of extremists who have no new ideas and no solutions—staying the course with the attacks, the heavy preference for low taxation of the wealthiest among us, the unwavering representation of the interests of big oil and big business, and generally having little seeming empathy with the plight of the common person is fast losing the support of the American people. Rush Limbaugh has never appealed to me, because he’s only someone paid very well to stir up the most partisan folks to a fever frenzy—naturally those paying him are pleased with his continuing venom, and also worried about losing more power than they already recently have lost. We simply have too many crises as a nation right now to be so juvenile and partisan. It’s not impressing anyone that the Republicans have started new attack ads especially since they contain no solutions or new ideas of merit—until the most extreme wing of the party is replaced, the Party is going to continue to decline.
Crocket, you are wrong! MSNBC and CNN did not dumb Judy C down; as you can see by her irrational rants, she could not get any dumber.
It would benefit her greatly if she did watch FOX and discover what is really going on in the world instead of being Obamanized by his networks, MSNBC and CNN. In addition, if she would listen to and heed Rush, she would not be as most liberals are, bitter and hateful to anyone who disagrees with them.
JudyC - tho MSNBC and CNN have calmed you, and filled you with a life of gayety. They also have dumbed you down.
RWfanatic, the Republicans and their media mouthpieces are intentionally deceptive in the extreme.
I find I have two choices for entertainment: watch MSNBC or CNN and be lulled and happy that freedom and justice have returned, or watch FOX and find out what these slimeballs are doing.
To a man (or woman), all FOX’s disingenous personaliites are on one tip: is it fair for you guys who pay your mortgages on time to have to pay for your neighbor who bought too much house and has an extra bathroom?
This was never the intention of this particular bailout, which focused on hapless people with subprime balloon mortgages, and indivicuals who lost jobs and are now unemployed or working for a far lower wage.
Refinancing these mortgages wont cont taxpayers a dime and will actually save the banks money by greatly reducing foreclosures. All it will do is force financial institutions to refinance houses that are underwater, that are mortgaged for more than they are currently worth.
Everything FOX concocts is disingenuos.
Then you have lardball Limbaugh at CPAC last night, alleging that the welfare system forces fathers from the home and breaks up families. Translation: let the poor starve so I don’t have to pay for them.
Everything the Republicans do, in the macrocosm of Washington or the microcosm of Southside, is designed to whip the bottom 95% of the population into a frenzy to support a party who let their jobs go overseas.
Bah, humbug!
The more editorials I read in this newspaper lately, the more I am convinced it may be time for it to simply follow the same course as the Rocky Mountain News.
I agree it is shameful that Rep. Perriello has been attacked so soon; however, it is probably necessary. Why do you fault the NRCC ads, but say nothing about the pro Perriello ads that have been run ad nauseam for the last several weeks. What is the opposition to do…..let all the Perriello adoration go unchallenged? If you are going to criticize one side, you should also do the same for the other.
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