ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 22, 1996 TAG: 9607220120
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON AND DAN CASEY STAFF WRITERS
MANY VOTERS in the 6th Congressional District, which stretches from Roanoke to Harrisonburg, are surprised to learn they have a choice this fall. Actually, they have three.
A common grumble these days is all politicians look and sound alike. But take a look at the three-way field in Virginia's 6th District race for Congress:
Two-term incumbent Bob Goodlatte is a close ally of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and has nearly 20 years of GOP politicking under his belt. The Roanoke lawyer campaigns tirelessly, has strong backing from business leaders and rakes in campaign dough at a $3,000-a-day clip.
While Goodlatte worked the corridors of Congress in a conservative business suit the past four years, his Democratic challenger, Jeff Grey of Rockbridge County, was putting on blue jeans and a hard hat and climbing 360-foot steel towers as a communication technician for a gas company. Making his first bid for office, the 31-year-old Navy veteran and union leader is a virtual unknown. He raised less campaign money in four months than Goodlatte can lasso in a week.
Then there's Libertarian Jay Rutledge, a self-employed software writer from Roanoke. The 52-year-old onetime anti-war protester says government tyranny is the big issue: among other things, he'd do away with the Food and Drug Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. As an aside, Rutledge hints darkly of conspiracy and cover-up in the suicide of White House adviser Vincent Foster.
Goodlatte, who won the seat with 60 percent of the vote in 1992 and ran unopposed in 1994, is a clear favorite to hang on to what may be Virginia's most Republican district.
"The conventional wisdom is that it's not even a race - Goodlatte's not going to have any problem," said Robert Roberts, a James Madison University political scientist.
"God knows we don't need another term of Goodlatte," said Roanoke Vice Mayor Linda Wyatt, a diehard Democrat. "But Grey has a real uphill battle."
Even Rutledge refers to Goodlatte - only partly tongue in cheek - as "unbeatable Bob." He said he is in the race less to win than to "acquaint the people with the Libertarian Party alternative. New Libertarians mean more to me than votes."
The 6th District - which stretches from Roanoke to Harrisonburg - has long been solid GOP territory.
Beyond that, Goodlatte starts the race with the power of incumbency - such as free mailing privileges to communicate with his constituents and the ability to take credit for steering federal dollars into the district.
Most important of all, perhaps, is name recognition. Grey doesn't seem to have it, even on his home turf of Lexington. For instance, of 10 voters interviewed at random in that city recently, only four had heard of Grey - and two of those were Goodlatte partisans.
"I'm surprised that I don't know [Grey]," said Tammy Scruggs of Covington, who was shopping in Lexington. She considers herself politically attuned, especially in Democratic Party politics.
By contrast, eight of the 10 voters recognized Goodlatte, although Lexington is 50 miles from the congressman's hometown of Roanoke.
Then there's money, which can buy name recognition. Grey had raised less than $10,000 as of July1.
Goodlatte raised many times that - $85,000 - in just one Hotel Roanoke fund-raising breakfast attended by Gingrich this spring. As of July 1, Goodlatte was sitting on a $455,000 war chest.
Rutledge, meanwhile, hasn't filed a fund-raising report because he has yet to raise the $5,000 minimum necessary.
Grey promises his fund raising will pick up soon as his still-new campaign gets rolling; in the past three weeks, his campaign doubled its fund-raising total for the previous three months. And Grey is working hard, traveling around the district, to get his name before the voters.
In his efforts, Grey can rely on the support of Jim Olin - a popular retired business leader who confounded conventional wisdom by holding the congressional seat as a Democrat from 1982 to 1992.
But Grey says his biggest advantage is Goodlatte's voting record.
"He tries to come across as moderate, but you look closely at his votes and it shows what an extremist he is," Grey said. "Over 93 percent of the time, he votes with Newt Gingrich."
That will be a big theme in his campaign - tying Goodlatte to Gingrich and the Republican revolution. Goodlatte was billed as a key lieutenant in the heady days after the Republicans took power in Congress in early 1995. More recently, public opinion polls found a growing public disenchantment with Gingrich and the GOP Congress.
"I think that the Newt Gingrich-Bob Goodlatte coalition ... made it the right time for someone like me to run," Grey said.
He charges that Goodlatte has worked to cut environmental protection and undermine public education and programs for the elderly.
At the same time, Grey plays up his blue-collar credentials, trying to paint Goodlatte as a prototypical political insider - a lawyer who is more beholden to corporate America than to average citizens. Rutledge, too, emphasizes the fact that he is not a "professional politician."
Dan Welsh, a co-worker of Grey's at Columbia Gas Systems, said he's pleased that an "average guy" like Grey is running. "You don't have to be a lawyer to be in the legislature," said Welsh, who also works a small cattle farm. "A lot of people who run for public office, especially higher public office - U.S. Congress, the Senate - don't really live in the real world. ... They're a little bit out of touch with the grass roots."
Goodlatte and his supporters disagree. They say he's very much in touch, and he's worked hard for the district the past four years. "I can't imagine anyone running against him," said Elaine Finestone, a retired history professor from Clifton Forge. "He's got lots of support at the grass roots. He's constant. He makes his phone calls. And he appears."
And while some Republicans are distancing themselves from Gingrich during the election season, Goodlatte says he will not.
Goodlatte demurs, however, at the characterization that he's one of Gingrich's key lieutenants: "That wasn't my term. That was your newspaper's term." He says he has disagreed with Gingrich - and incurred his displeasure - from time to time. But "I am definitely in agreement with the direction" the House speaker and other GOP leaders are taking the country.
"I think it helps to have respect in the Congress," Goodlatte said. "In terms of whether I'm sitting at the right hand of the speaker, no, I'm not part of the leadership and I'm not in those meetings."
Goodlatte says it's simply a misrepresentation to say that he has attacked environmental protection, public schools or other vital government programs. Rather, he says, he has worked to rein in unnecessary government regulations and reduce the spiraling costs of programs such as Medicare.
While Goodlatte and Grey will spend most of their time slugging it out with each other, Rutledge will focus his words on both his opponents - and on the two major parties, which Rutledge contends have created "a government verging on being out of control."
"The two old parties," he said, "have no vision of government for the 21st century."
Rutledge would like to dramatically reduce the power of government, bringing an end to the war on drugs and virtually any regulation of economic matters. He sees government as more of a referee of private disputes than anything else.
As it is, "too many Americans are afraid of the federal government," Rutledge said. "Too many Americans are afraid it will seize their property or take their liberty."
Every now and then, Rutledge veers into the territory of conspiracy. After successfully collecting more that 2,000 signatures on a petition to put his name on the ballot, Rutledge sent reporters covering the congressional campaign a copy of a small booklet, "Who Murdered Vincent Foster?" The conspiracy-filled volume alleges that an organized crime cabal murdered the White house aide, despite findings by a coroner and two special prosecutors that a depressed Foster killed himself.
"How many frequent flier miles did [Foster] rack up back and forth to Switzerland in the months before his death?" Rutledge asked. "It was reported to be a lot."
Want more information? Check out our on-line voters' guide at: http://www.infi.net/roatimes/ WHAT THEY'RE RUNNING ON
Here are some of the issues the three 6th District congressional candidates say they'll be talking about in the coming months:
DEMOCRAT
JEFF GREY
Campaign headquarters:
(540) 464-5167
Minimum Wage: Sees it as crucial to hard-working people, young and old, trying to support themselves or their children; says Goodlatte's vote against the recent 90-cent increase shows the incumbent's "extremist point of view." (Goodlatte says the minimum wage costs jobs and "is simply an artificial adjustment in the ecomony.")
Workplace safety: Will fight what he says are Republican efforts to gut the federal job safety enforcement, a program "our working families depend on."
Corporate responsiblity: "Multinational corporations have no loyalty to the United States." Says he supports free trade, but not at the expense of driving down American living standards to exploiting cheap foreign labor and lax environmental laws.
Social Security and Medicare: Claims Goodlatte and the Republicans are attacking these programs for the elderly. Criticizes Goodlatte for voting to cut $270 billion in future Medicare increases.
LIBERTARIAN
JAY RUTLEDGE
Campaign headquarters:
(540) 981-9213
The Federal government: The government should use incentives rather than coercion to achieve its goals. For example, Americans "should not be forced to pay for troops in Arabia just to have fuel to go to work." Instead the government should offer a prize for anyone who invents a way to convert natural gas to an auto fuel.
Justice system: Says "money power" dominates America's courtrooms. Says fines in criminal and civil cases should be commensurate with the wrongdoers wealth; An individual or small company shouldn't have to pay the same fine a huge corporation would pay.
Crime: Says the "insane war on drugs" has created a black market that has led to crime and corruption, which he says does far more harm than the actual use of drugs.
Welfare: Says the federal government has no role in welfare; it should be left to the states. But it's "morally wrong" to kick people off welfare "when work is regulated and controlled as it is now" by job-killing government red tape.
REPUBLICAN
BOB GOODLATTE
Campaign headquarters:
(540) 389-1170
Welfare: Federal government should give states the flexibility to set up programs that encourage people to work.
Health insurance: Wants to give smaller companies the ability to form larger insurance pools, encourage companies to insure pre-existing conditions when someone moves from one job to another and increase the tax deduction for people who buy their own insurance.
Medicare: Says the GOP is being unfairly criticized for trying to save a system that will go bankrupt by 2001 if something is not done; says Republicans simply want to slow the annual spending increase from 11 percent to 7 percent a year.
Budget deficit: Wants to eliminate the federal deficit by 2002; says "all sectors" of government spending "needed to be carefully reviewed."
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE
the candidates talking about? Let us know so we can follow up. Call our election hotline: In Roanoke: 981-0100. Press category 7821.
What would you like to see the candidates talking about? Let us know so we can follow up. Call our election hotline:
In Roanoke: 981-0100 In New River: 382-0200
Press category 7821
LENGTH: Long : 229 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) Goodlatte, Grey, Rutledge. color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESSby CNB