Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 6, 1994 TAG: 9402060092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Political newcomer Steve Fast, 32, described himself as a man with working-class roots who will fight for families.
"It's time to send a representative to Washington who shares the conservative values and principles of the majority of Southwest Virginians," Fast said.
Boucher, 47, will seek a seventh term this fall, a spokesman confirmed last week.
The 6-foot-4 Fast, who earned a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in 1990, outlined a five-point platform that covers tax relief, affordable health care without more federal bureaucracy, deregulation to spur job growth, support for gun rights and family issues, including an anti-abortion stance.
Fast said he wants to run a campaign focused on issues, but he wasted no time in attacking Boucher, whom he called a liberal who's "managed to stay in office because he hides his voting record."
Boucher did not return a telephone call for comment on Fast's statement.
"We need honesty in government, and that's why it's time to get rid of Slick Rick," Fast said to about 30 cheering supporters.
This would mark the first time the Republican Party has challenged Boucher in a nonpresidential election year.
Lew Sheckler, the GOP's 9th District vice chairman, said Friday that Fast is the only person he's aware of who has expressed an interest in the party nod.
"I support him," said Sheckler, a retired Radford University professor who unsuccessfully sought the same nomination two years ago. "He's intelligent, articulate, knowledgeable and a solid conservative."
Fast will attempt to solidify that conservative image with appearances Saturday with Mike Farris, who lost the lieutenant governor's race to Don Beyer in November.
George Alder, chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Committee, said Fast, because he's a teacher, will be able to make the case against Boucher throughout the 200-mile-long district.
"We need to be able to teach some people out there why they innately should have some problems with Boucher and his record," Alder said.
Alder pointed out that Gov. George Allen won 65 percent or more of the vote across most of the 9th District last fall, while Farris captured about 55 percent.
Fast "can tap into that same conservative base and maybe even expand on it," Alder said.
The 9th District had a long history as a Republican stronghold before Boucher upset 18-year GOP incumbent William Wampler in the recession-year election of 1982. Boucher won re-election with 52 percent of the vote two years later, went unopposed in 1986 and 1990 and won re-election with 63 percent of the vote in 1988 and 1992.
During his last campaign, Boucher outspent Radford clothier Gary Weddle by a more than 6-to-1 margin.
Weddle, who campaigned in 1992 in part by pledging to serve no more than four terms, said he had told Fast that the power of the incumbency could be overcome by three factors: money, money and money.
Fast, citing Farris' fund-raising success last fall, said he would focus on raising money from grass-roots supporters, rather than political action committees.
Fast started the day on the campus of the 600-student Baptist-affiliated Bluefield College in Tazewell, where he serves as mathematics department coordinator. He made stops before 70 people in Abingdon and 30 in Norton before winding up the day at a Holiday Inn on the edge of Salem, which is in the 6th District.
He skipped the New River Valley for a practical reason, not a political one - to make it easier to obtain coverage from the Roanoke TV stations, Alder said.
Unfortunately, the strategy did not pay immediate dividends, as only one TV news crew showed up for his formal announcement - and they were late.
Still, Alder said Fast has met with party activists in the New River Valley and has support.
"He has some strength here, because he went to graduate school here," Alder said.
Fast said he worked a variety of jobs, including as a security guard, to support himself and his young family while in graduate school. He earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Akron, a master's degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.
An Akron, Ohio, native, Fast lives in Tazewell with his wife, Judy, and their four sons: Stephen, 10, Tommy, 8, Jacob, 5 and Caleb, 3. Judy Fast said she home-schools her children.
The district executive committee will meet later this month to elect a temporary chairman, because current chairman Jerry Kilgore, a former part-time prosecutor from Scott County, is now serving as Allen's secretary of public safety.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB