Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 13, 1995 TAG: 9501130076
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"There is a major shift taking place in Richmond," Weddle said. "Southwest Virginia needs to be a part of that tide."
Weddle, 34, is the first Republican to enter the contest for the 39th District nomination. The district includes Montgomery, Grayson, Smyth and parts of Pulaski and Carroll counties.
Radford lawyer Jimmy Turk is expected to launch his campaign next week. Montgomery County GOP Chairman Pat Cupp also is pondering a run.
Marye, 69, a folksy, experienced legislator, is waiting until after the General Assembly session to announce his plans. But given the potential for a GOP takeover of both chambers of the legislature, Democratic officials are said to be urging older incumbents to delay their retirements.
Weddle's message seemed aimed at Marye and Turk, the better known of his GOP rivals. Baby-boomer Weddle stressed that a new generation of leadership was about to take over, a remark seemingly pointed at Marye, who served in the Army in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Weddle twice referred to the need for "a strong, proactive leader" to represent the district.
Weddle also highlighted his four years of experience on the Radford City Council, which he left last year after declining to run for re-election. That's a none-too-subtle poke at Turk, 38, who has never held elected office. As his political experience, Turk cites service as an intern to two congressmen and one U.S. senator and as a U.S. Senate door keeper.
"If you really want to look at how someone will serve you in the General Assembly, you need to look at how that person has served you in the local community," Weddle said.
His resume includes 12 examples of community service over the past decade, ranging from the board of directors of a local United Way campaign, to the presidency of the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance.
The latter post tied in with what Weddle described as the first of his four priorities: economic development. A Radford native raised in Blacksburg, Weddle said he has many childhood friends who would love to live and work in Southwest Virginia, but cannot because of the lack of job opportunities.
"The decisions made in Richmond greatly affect economic development efforts here," Weddle said.
His other three themes include education, "elevating Southwest Virginia's status" and returning authority to local governments by doing away with unfunded mandates from the state.
On education, he pledged to address educational disparities between Southwest Virginia and elsewhere by working to revise the formula for the distribution of state money for local schools. He also pledged to support Virginia Tech and Radford University, and said if he were in the legislature now, he would not support all of Republican Gov. George Allen's proposed budget cuts to Tech's Cooperative Extension Service and agricultural programs.
Yet for the most part, Weddle saluted Allen's agenda. He backed the governor's call to borrow $400 million and cut another $403 million in current spending to pay for new prisons, all the while launching a five-year, $2.1 billion tax cut. "We have all the money we need to run a good, efficient state government."
Weddle, who made a longshot challenge to Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, in 1992 and didn't win any of the 23 counties and cities in the 9th District, bristled at the suggestion that Republicans might be hesitant to back him because of that defeat.
"I don't know that I'd agree I was soundly defeated," he said. "Seventy-eight thousand people voted for Gary Weddle," more than for any Republican since 1984, when Boucher was narrowly re-elected for the first time, he said. Boucher won 63 percent of the vote to Weddle's 37 percent in 1992, which was also a presidential election year and therefore had a higher than usual turnout.
Weddle was hampered in 1992 by a lack of money, something he pledged would not happen again. "We'll raise enough money in this race to win it."
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB