Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 9, 1994 TAG: 9411090090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY AND PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Was she proud her son earned a seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives? "Why of course, and I'm prejudiced, too," said 70-year-old Dorothy Boucher, who practices law in Abingdon.
Her 48-year-old son appeared at 9:40 p.m., an hour after the first media projections of a win, to thank a crowd of about 200 supporters and campaign workers gathered at his headquarters in a former dime store in downtown Abingdon. His mother was one of the first to greet him.
"I told him, 'Give Momma a hug,''' she said.
Boucher praised Sen. Charles Robb's victory over Republican Oliver North.
"I have never been prouder to say that I am a Virginian than I am tonight," Boucher said. "Because we together as Democrats were able to turn aside the forces of fear ... and turn aside those forces that would drive us apart rather than bring us together."
Boucher won 59 percent of the vote Tuesday to 41 percent for Fast. With all but seven of the district's 285 precincts reporting, Boucher carried all of the 9th District's 19 counties and four cities except Carroll County. Carroll is a traditionally Republican enclave that rejoined the 9th District three years ago.
For Boucher, an Abingdon lawyer and fourth-generation politician, the victory means continuation of an 18-year political career that began in the state Senate at age 29.
For Fast, the defeat sank his maiden political voyage, which set sail nine months ago with four news conferences across the vast district covering all of Southwest Virginia south of Salem and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Fast staked his race on two factors, counting on outbursts of anti-incumbency and widespread support for North.
Though Fast lost the battle, the war might not be over: He may be laying the groundwork for a challenge next year to state Sen. Jack Reasor, D-Tazewell.
Asked Tuesday night if he might challenge Reasor, Fast said only that it was too soon to speculate on his plans. Reasor criticized Fast in July for having supporters among a radical gun-rights group that included three men later indicted on federal firearms conspiracy charges.
Fast criticized Reasor's vote against a bill that would have required parental consent for abortions. ``He voted against Gov. George Allen's parental consent bill, and he needs to go.''
As in 1988, Boucher was able to win without ever debating his Republican opponent. The one time time they did appear on the same stage wasn't in the 9th District - or even in Virginia - but at a business group's candidates' forum in Bluefield, W.Va.
Privately, the Boucher camp regarded the 33-year-old Fast as a second-tier candidate who lacked the experience to make a convincing run for office. Publicly, they said they were taking nothing for granted. Fast, of Tazewell, took leave from his job as assistant professor of mathematics at Baptist-affiliated Bluefield College to run.
By the traditional start of the 9th District race on Labor Day, political analysts gave Fast little chance to win unless he found a wedge issue on which to attack Boucher, or unless he had incredible success raising money.
Boucher held the upper hand in that regard from the beginning with $480,000 in the bank even before Fast announced his challenge. Since then, he nearly doubled his money. By mid-October, Boucher had spent $490,000, or 30 percent more than median campaign spending for incumbent House Democrats.
That spending went to buy television advertising time in the three markets in the district - Roanoke, Bristol and Bluefield - and to fund a direct-mail campaign featuring fliers customized by locality. Boucher also took away what could have been a critical wedge issue in August when he voted against President Clinton's crime bill because of its restrictions on assault weapons. He also managed to mute Fast's criticism that he wasn't doing enough to help the district's tobacco farmers in the face of now-dead proposals to finance health-care reform with new tobacco taxes.
Fast, meanwhile, had to run a shoestring campaign.
Though he brought in several big-name Republicans for fund-raising events - Jack Kemp, Jim Miller, Gov. George Allen - Fast still had gathered less than $200,000 by last month. Most political observers say $250,000 is the minimum necessary to make a longtime incumbent sweat.
In Tazewell on Tuesday night, Fast told about 50 Republicans gathered at the Fincastle Motor Inn: ``The war is not lost. Just this one battle, just this one time. At the proper time, we will be prepared to answer the call again. That is the price of liberty. Thank you, and God bless you.''
Fast said after his speech that he did not necessarily mean that he would be running again in two years, but he said he would play some part in any campaign against Boucher.
In the New River Valley, Boucher carried Montgomery County with 59 percent of the vote; Pulaski County with 61 percent; Radford, 64 percent; Giles County, 62 percent; and Floyd, 53.5 percent.
Fast, whose face was slightly sunburned Tuesday from campaigning outdoors, was accompanied by his wife and family. He said he warned his sons that he might lose.
He said one replied, ``Well, yeah, we figured that.'' Another was more encouraging: ``That's OK, Dad, because at least we've got you back.''
Keywords:
ELECTION
by CNB