George,

I don't think being from anywhere in the 5th District has to be bad. There may have been some negative vibes associated with Meredith's C'ville ties, but she would have never raised even the amount she did without those same connections.

What it will take for someone from anywhere to win against Virgil is a candidate who can give people a reason to come out and vote. You can spend hundreds of thousands on a campaign chasing after the few undecided voters, or you can get people out of the house because they want the candidate to have a chance to enact into law what they say they will try to do. We like to say that our Party is the "Party of Hope", but when was the last time we really were?

Elections for the past many cycles have been Democrats trying to do the same old thing as the Republicans, just better. And turnout continues to head for the basement. It is time for Democrats to pick candidates who will dare to suggest that the people, not just the plutocrats, can benefit from governmental action. This will mean more than tinkering on the margins and pandering to interest groups: the natural constituency of the Democratic Party has never had real interest groups, except, at one time, the Party itself.

Take the most serious issue facing voters in the 5th District: job loss due to free trade. The only idea I heard to deal with that concern was Virgil's plan to stop illegal immigration and remove the right of citizenship from those born here. He has taken "nativism" to a new nadir.

A campaign that might have drawn people from their homes on the 5th of November could have included:

1. National inventory or sales taxes to finance the cost of keeping jobs in America. Let the sales of foreign made products help pay for the cost of the jobs they are replacing.
2. A national health plan that would remove the cost of health benefits from employers, making American labor more competitive.
3. A targeted, refundable investment credit (paid for by 1. above) that would go to industries which have lost a certain market share to imports. This includes agriculture. The refundable credit limits would be based on the number of employees.
4. A program to give labor a bigger share of ownership in American business. Plants where workers have an ownership stake are less likely to seek cheap labor abroad to replace production here.
5. A program to make the American consumer aware of the environmental and human costs of cheap labor production abroad. It works for Starbucks. (This focus might also have given young people a reason to get involved in the campaign.)

Well, you get the idea. Why anyone would want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to seek an office, in which it seems little is even being contemplated as accomplished, always has amazed me.

Al Weed (electronic mail, November 8, 2002)