Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 12, 1994 TAG: 9408120071
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The Abingdon Democrat is in little danger of being outspent in his re-election bid. In the first six months of this year, Boucher raised $240,000, spent $113,000 and had $609,000 in the bank. Fast, in contrast, has spent $54,000 since February and had only $19,000 in the bank as of June 30.
But Fast's passing the $100,000 mark in August - he mentioned it during a small fund-raising dinner in Blacksburg - is significant, because it's as much as former Radford City Council member Gary Weddle spent in his whole campaign against Boucher two years ago.
Boucher has defended his seat three times; the closest a challenger came in votes and money was 1984, when Republican state legislator Jefferson Stafford of Giles County spent $396,000, only $54,000 less than Boucher did.
Fast, 33, is running a bare-bones, grassroots effort across the 9th District, which stretches from western Roanoke County to the far tip of Southwest Virginia. He's trying to link Boucher to President Clinton on the hot-button tax and health-care issues. He's also portrayed Boucher as a liberal, Washington insider who's out of step with the district he has represented since 1983.
Boucher, 48, largely has stayed busy with work in Congress this summer. But he has decried Fast's campaigning as negative, particularly on gun issues and the possibility of increased tobacco taxes to pay for health reform.
Boucher opposes such taxes. At the Montgomery County Democratic Committee picnic last month, Boucher welcomed the link to Clinton, who narrowly won the 9th District in 1992. Boucher's re-election campaign goes into high gear on Labor Day, with the annual "Acres of Democrats" rally in Abingdon.
Fast, though, maintained Wednesday that his message is getting out, largely by word of mouth rather than expensive television advertising.
"We think the momentum's building," Fast said. "People are receptive to our common-sense, conservative values."
Fast recounted being asked at a recent campaign appearance if he was accepting money from political-action committees. "I don't have that problem," he said with a laugh.
While Boucher reported receiving $137,000 in PAC money from Jan. 1 to June 30, Fast had yet to receive his first PAC penny.
Boucher sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has had a key role in writing new communications law. Common Cause, a public-interest group that tracks campaign spending, released a study this spring citing Boucher as one of the top four recipients of communications industry PAC money over the last decade, raking in some $171,000.
"Unfortunately, our system is designed to preserve the incumbent," Fast told 31 potential donors gathered Wednesday at Thomas DeBusk's home. "We are working on raising money. ... The fact of the matter is that the ammunition in this war is money."
Fast, who lives with his wife, Judy, and their four children in Tazewell, has taken a leave through the fall semester from his job teaching math at Bluefield College. They plan to make it through the campaign by not taking a vacation this summer, by foregoing major purchases and by relying on their savings.
"It's not easy," he said. "September, October, November and December will be kind of lean."
Fast will be hitting the campaign trail next week with Mike Farris, last year's Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, GOP senatorial candidate Oliver North and state Secretary of Public Safety Jerry Kilgore, a former 9th District GOP chairman.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB