Today, Saturday March 20, I went down to Charlottesville to listen to Al Weed at a breakfast of Charlottesville and Albemarle Democrats. He presented some video of his opponent, Virgil Goode, talked about Goode's strengths as a candidate, and then dialogued withy gthe attendees on how to run against those strengths. He was quite candid about areas on which he does not think Goode is vulnerable, but listened with interest, taking notes, as suggestion were offered.
From remarks he has heard around the district, it is nclear that the people around Goode expect this to be a competitive race - they may already have have a million on hand, which is a substantial amount for a district without a major TV market. Al hopes to raise enough money to remain competitive. Here I note that he is not yet the official nominee - that will occur on May 8th, at the nominating convention,but he has no opposition for the nomination. He was suprised that Goode was willing to appear with him before he is officially nominated - in a sense, that raises his credibility.
One more note abut May 8, before I cut to the extended portion of this entry. I remind any of you who are flush with cash and feeling generous, that the $2000 FEC limit is actually double that in Congressional and Senatorial races, because you can give that amount during the nomination contest (like, NOW) and again give the same amount during the general election campaign {after May 8].
For more information about Al Weed, the best source is of coursse his webpage, which is
http://www.AlWeed2004.com
A couple of notes about the District. It covers a large part of the state, and includes the counties of Albemarle, Nelson, Fluvanna, Buckingham, Cumbefland, Appomatox, Prince Edward, Bedford, Campbell, Charlotte, Mecklenburg, Franklin, Patrick, Henry, Pittsylvania, Halifax, and Lunenberg. "Major" cities are Charlottesville, Appomatox, Bedford City, South Boston, Danville, and Martinsville - in otherwords, there is no major city. The district has seen major job losses, both in textiles and in tobacco.
Wallie Blair, Dean chair for the adjacent 6th District, was kind enough to pull up some voting statistics for me. As I noted yesterday, Govcernor Warner carried the District, but otherwise it has gone Republican recently. Still, the figures provide some interest:
Bush/Cheney 135,417 58.39%
Gore/Lieberman 89,524 38.60
2001 Gov's race:
Earley 81,696 46.20
Warner (D) 92,643 52.39
2001 Lt Gov race:
Katzen (R) 82,818 49.69
Kaine (D) 78,832 47.30
The attoney General's race was lopsidedly Republican, but the Democratic nominee was Black, and this district is the heart of the "massive resistance" to integration in Virginia - Prince Edward County even closed its schools for a number of years rather than integrate. Statewide the Dems won both races at the top of the ticket, but lost the AG race by a fairly wide margin.
A couple of comments. I think Kaine ran behind because he was not as well known (Warner had run for Senator against John Warner, losing by only about 5% statewide) and because of how he was known, asosciated with Richmond (he was its mayor) which did not necessarily play that well in the more rural parts of the District.
Warner did well not only becaused of name recognition, since his opponent was the sitting Attorney general. He also did well because he was a businessman, who could talk about economic issues, which do matter very much. Al haas this abililty as well, and also can talk to the rural parts of the District since he is both a farmer and a winery owner.
I do not claim that this will be an easy race to win. Unlike some Democrats, Al Weed is not running away from the national Democratic party. And despite the fact that the district does vote Republican in presidential races, there are still people who consider themselves Democrats, who might vote if they felt they had a reason to.
Here it is worth noting two facts. The district saw significant turnout for the Democratic presidential primary, meaning that there is base of people waiting to be motivated. And in the 2002 off-year election, turnout in Charlottesville was only 40%, and Albemarle has 52,000+ registered voters. Both of these are areas where Al Weed is well known and respected. By maximizing turnout there, and - and this is a little couterintuitive - also working hard in Goode's home county of Franklin [where perhaps familiarity breeds a certain amount of contempt] the numbers become doable -- that is, it becomes possible to see how one could put together a winning Democratic race in a CD that most people have been ignoring.
In my post tomorrow, I will talk a little about Al Weed's life and background