Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 24, 1993 TAG: 9310240199
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Jim Shuler\ Party: Democrat\ Occupation: Veterinarian, owner of Companion Animal Clinic.\ Age: 49\ Residence: Blacksburg.\ Political background: Former member of Blacksburg Town Council and appointee to the state Board of Heatlh.\ \ Nick Rush\ Party: Republican.\ Occupation: Federal Express delivery driver.\ Age: 25.\ Residence: Christiansburg\ Political background: Rush upset a two-term incumbent in the District B Montgomery County Board of Supervisors race in 1991 as a 23-year-old.
The 12th District, which includes 70 percent of the voters in Montgomery County and the eastern district of Giles County, has been a Democratic stronghold through Joan Munford's 11-year tenure. But Republicans charge that the General Assembly's 1991 redistricting, which removed several traditional GOP districts in eastern Montgomery County, gerrymandered the 12th even more to the Democrats' advantage.
But both Nick Rush and Jim Shuler are campaigning hard, going door-to-door, running radio and television advertisements and appearing at numerous forums, community meetings and at least two scheduled debates.
The key issues are economic development and jobs for the New River Valley, funding for primary and secondary schools and higher education and sticking up for the region in the Northern Virginia-Richmond- Tidewater dominated legislature.
Rush is running an outsider, anti-incumbent campaign while Shuler at times sounds almost like an incumbent. Rush in particular is critical of the state's economic development efforts and links himself to a larger Republican effort to shake up the Democratic status quo.
Shuler points to the state's relative fiscal stability and avoidance of major tax increases and says he will seek to improve on that rather than change things radically.
by CNB