George,

Steve is right is right about rural votes. What hurts is that Al weed is a farmer, knows farming and farm issues intimately and can talk directly and easily with any farmer in the Virginia Fifth Congressional District. Al personifies all of the virtues and real values that farmers have traditionally shared and respected. Farmers identify with Al's impressive life experience and admire it.

Yet, Al was decisively beaten when he was out-Jesused by a light-weight moral midget. What does it take for a man of real substance to win in Virginia? Why do drop-cases like George Allen, Virgil Junior, Jim Gilmore and Paul Harris politically prosper while Al Weed did not?

Ham Caldwell (electronic mail, November 9, 2004)