ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, May 28, 1996 TAG: 9605280018
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HOGES CHAPEL
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
JUST WHO IS the Giles County law student who talked his way onto the Republican ballot for the 9th District congressional seat with a stemwinder at the nomination convention?
Patrick Muldoon remembers the excitement election nights held for him when, as a young boy, he raced between Republican headquarters in Pearisburg and the county courthouse, getting vote results and writing them on a board for all to see.
This November, Muldoon, 31, will again be watching the numbers come in - but with much more at stake.
He hopes to defeat U.S. Rep Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, and go to Washington as what he says will be a voice more representative of the people of the 9th District.
Between now and November, though, Muldoon has a lot of ground to cover in the expansive 9th - which stretches from western Roanoke County to the Kentucky border - if he wants to see the numbers come out in his favor. He must give voters who have sent Boucher to Congress for 14 years a reason to replace him. Since being elected in 1984, Boucher has handily turned back three other GOP challengers and has twice run unopposed. |n n| Getting his message across is what Muldoon, a political newcomer who just finished his first year of law school at the College of William and Mary, did in Wytheville on May 11, when he blew away delegates at the 9th District Republican Convention with a rousing speech that captured the nomination for him.
Muldoon turned back former state delegate Barnes Kidd of Tazewell and Montgomery County GOP vice chairman Thomas DeBusk and won the nomination in two ballots.
He spoke of traditional conservative values and lambasted Boucher's voting record. Several convention-goers said they were swayed to vote for him because of the content and spirited delivery of his speech. He sounded like a winner, one woman said.
Muldoon's speech touched on opposition to abortion and prayer in schools but mostly attacked Boucher's voting record.
Muldoon has belittled Boucher's concentration on things high-tech, and has made light of Boucher's World Wide Web page recently being voted the best of Capitol Hill.
"Sure the information superhighway is a great thing, but you can't drive on it. We need new roads, highways and infrastructure to encourage business into Southwest Virginia," he said in his nomination speech.
He also has bemoaned a decreasing economic base in the district that forces young people to leave in search of good-paying jobs.
While many think the speech was his selling point, Muldoon likes to think that groundwork he laid in the weeks leading up to the convention provided the base of support that grew that day.
"I thought I had strong support going in," Muldoon said. "Everywhere I went
Muldoon doesn't think his age will be a problem for voters.
"Sure I'm young, but now's when I have the most to give. ... I really don't think people are going to have a problem with that. They might, but then, they have a problem with Dole's age and he's had plenty of life experience," Muldoon said.
Muldoon is one of five children of Patrick and Patricia Muldoon. The family has lived in an 1800s antique-furnished brick house in Hoges Chapel just outside Pembroke since 1969. He attended Pembroke Elementary School and graduated from Giles County High School in 1983. In high school, he served as vice president and president of student government and lettered in football and tennis.
From there, he obtained an engineering degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, working his way through school as a carpenter, a forklift operator and a warehouseman.
In 1990, he went to work as a civilian Army engineer for the Department of Defense in Fort Belvoir, Va.
Politics had always been a part of his life, going back to when he ran back and forth to get vote results and carry them over to Del. Jeff Stafford's headquarters. His father helped out in several of Bill Wampler's congressional campaigns, and Patrick Muldoon helped as a junior in 1982, when Wampler lost the seat to Boucher.
"When I was younger, I used to talk politics all the time," Muldoon said, but he learned that "it turns a lot of people off," so he saved the discussions for his closest friends and family.
At law school, "they never realized my conservative slant. ... They were kind of shocked that I was interested in politics and then the fact that I was conservative, they were surprised by," Muldoon said. "A lot of the young ladies in the class were not too thrilled about my position [opposing] abortion - they let me know."
Muldoon chose law school as he pondered an eventual entry into public service. It was last November when he seriously started considering a bid for Boucher's seat after he saw that "nobody was really stepping up."
Some even wondered why the Republicans feel it necessary to trot out a candidate against Boucher every two years, when efforts could be put into more winnable campaigns or when it might be best to wait until a very strong candidate comes forward.
Not running a candidate doesn't make sense to Muldoon.
"We don't have to, but we should," he said.
That's because he says Boucher's liberal voting record is not representative of the people of the 9th District, which stretches from western Roanoke County to the Kentucky border.
During Christmas break, he talked with Barbara Stafford, who took over her husband's state delegate seat for one year after Jeff Stafford died in 1990.
In January he talked to 9th District GOP Chairman Gary Waddell about the possibilities, and by February "I had made up my mind I was going to run," Muldoon said.
"Then I convinced my parents it was a good idea. They had full faith in me, but they would prefer I finish law school first and then do it."
With the party convention behind him, Muldoon says it's time to turn his attention to winning over the general electorate.
"I think I can count on the Republican vote. Now I need to get the conservative Democrats and independents. But luckily, I think most of the same things that won me over with Republicans are going to be the same things that are going to win me over with these people."
While Muldoon was hailed at the convention, before and after the vote even some staunch Republicans privately acknowledged Boucher will be hard to beat.
They spoke of Boucher's record of service - coming personally to local government meetings to help resolve issues or quickly returning constituents' calls.
Nancy Rader, long active in Giles County's Democratic Committee and its past chairwoman, said she has the feeling people in the county were surprised when Muldoon decided to run.
While Stafford enjoyed strong local bipartisan support during his tenure in the General Assembly, Rader thinks he was better known in the county than Muldoon is. She said she doesn't see Giles voters - who have supported Boucher in the past - switching to Muldoon just because he's local.
"I do think it's very hard for an inexperienced newcomer ... when you have an active congressman who has looked after the needs and the people of his district," Rader said. "I would think that Patrick has a lot of steps to take."
Muldoon concedes Boucher is "a nice guy" who appears to work hard for his constituents and comes back to the area frequently to give updates at his town hall meetings.
"There are lots of things that he does that are good for the district and that any congressman representing the district should do," Muldoon said. "It's the ones that are contrary. ... The ones that he's not going to come back and brag about."
That Boucher handily beat Republican challengers in 1992 and 1994 doesn't change Muldoon's belief that, overall, Boucher is out of step with the majority of 9th District voters.
"We need look no father back than his last election. Sure he won, but in this district, so did Oliver North. And Ollie North pushed those same [conservative] goals" that Boucher's challengers have.
"I think he believes what he stands for, but I think he's more akin to a big city liberal than a southwest Virginia person."
Name recognition is one of the big obstacles Muldoon will have to overcome. Outside Giles County and the immediate areas, "no one's ever heard of me before," he admits.
With extensive press coverage of his convention victory, he says he hopes "at least people have heard of me now."
LENGTH: Long : 154 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: headshots of Muldoon and Boucher color KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESSby CNB