CHARLOTTESVILLE – Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., may lose his straight-talking bid for re-election. If so, though, he says he’ll go down swinging.
Perriello was swept into the Republican-leaning 5th Congressional District seat in 2008 by a mere 727 votes as part of a Democratic tsunami, but he’s now locked in an uphill battle with Republican state Sen. Robert Hurt, struggling to avoid becoming another 2010 incumbent casualty.
Many incumbent Democrats, fearing a virulently anti-incumbent electorate this year, are shying away from their party’s leaders and President Obama’s agenda. Yet, while Perriello faces the same upset voters, he unabashedly defends his support for Obama’s health care reforms and cap-and-trade environmental rules that many criticized as big-government expansionism but which Perriello insists benefit the economy.
“I think we get high marks for working hard, and showing up, and having integrity, which people say they really value,” Perriello said at a recent voter registration drive in Charlottesville.
For all his steadfast candor, however, Perriello is in political trouble. The more recent poll show him trailing Hurt by 11 points, despite Obama’s praise of Perriello as one of the “courageous” lawmakers who “put their careers at risk” to support him.
“His is not a traditional Democratic district,” Obama said. “But he’s done what is right.”
Virginia’s 5th District is bigger than New Jersey, stretching from north of Charlottesville south to the North Carolina border. In 2008, when Obama carried Virginia, though, Perriello’s district voted for Republican John McCain.
Like Obama, Perriello is preaching patience to voters, saying that problems that accumulated over years could not be resolved quickly.
“As hard as I’ve worked … I need a little more time,” Perriello said. “And President Obama needs a little more time. We need more time to keep undoing all the mistakes that got us into this mess in the first place.”
But with unemployment still high, home foreclosures soaring and Americans struggling, Perriello’s call for more time isn’t swaying voters frustrated by his record.
Ronnie Carter, a retired furniture store employee in Appomattox County, said he was frustrated by Perriello’s vote for Obama’s stimulus bill and health care reforms, which he said Democrats pushed through despite public opposition. “If they had listened to the people, this health care thing wouldn’t have passed,” he said.
Hurt, campaigning in Appomattox, said Perriello’s record is out of step with the district. “The people of the 5th District made it clear that they didn’t want any of that, and he’s voted for all of it,” he said.
Perriello’s supporters praise his courage but fret that he may still lose.
“He goes out and talks to people, he listens to people,” said Virginia Wayne Harbaugh of Charlottesville. “But it’s … in a Republican district.”
Win or lose, Perriello said, he’ll continue to stand by his votes.
“The upside is, if for any reason we don’t get over the finish line,” he said, “I walk away knowing that I gave every ounce of my soul and being for the last two years to serving the people of central and southern Virginia.”
