ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996 TAG: 9609230042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
THE VIRGINIA INDEPENDENT PARTY asked the Patrick County college instructor to throw his hat into the congressional ring after the previous candidate quit in the middle of the campaign.
George "Tex" Wood says it's never too late to be in a hurry.
And, with that, he's laced up his walking shoes and entered the 5th District Congressional race six weeks before Election Day.
He's got some catching up to do: The other two candidates, Democrat Virgil Goode and Republican George Landrith, have been on the campaign trail for months, and both have name recognition and a wad of cash to spend.
Wood, a sharp-witted college instructor from Patrick County, accepted an offer from the Virginia Independent Party to run as its candidate after Gary Thomas of Gretna quit his campaign last month.
Because the VIP - an offshoot of presidential candidate Ross Perot's Reform Party - now has an official spot on the state ballot with Democrats and Republicans, it was given the opportunity to replace Thomas by Sept. 25.
The party's state chairman, Louis Herrink of King George County, said Wood was a logical choice.
He unsuccessfully sought the VIP's nomination to run for U.S. Senate, but had strong support from party members in the 5th District, which runs from Charlottesville to Danville and includes Bedford and Franklin counties. He also has name recognition from his Senate run and his publicized victory this spring in U.S. Federal Court, in which he convinced a judge that Virginia's ballot-access deadlines are unconstitutional.
Herrink said he knew Wood wasn't too happy after being denied the party's U.S. Senate nomination.
However, the VIP's central committee met recently and decided to try to smooth over any differences it had with Wood and offer him the 5th District nomination.
"Tex knows now that it wasn't anything against him, we just didn't want to field a candidate for Senate this year," Herrink said.
Wood said he took a day to think about it.
"So here I am," he said at a news conference in front of the Poff Federal Building in Roanoke Friday afternoon. "I just got here. I'm new to the game. The menu has changed - it's not the same old hash that's been served."
Wood is definitely not your run-of-the-mill candidate.
Here's what he had to say about the need to protect the American worker:
"Instead, we see government shut down, hear weeks of pompous debates over a (for the love of Pete) constitutional amendment against flag burning because some jackass in Texas burned one, listen to weeks of debate over a constitutional amendment to balance the budget when we don't even have a budget in any business sense of the word, find out from both conservative and liberal think tanks that we spend far more on wealthfare than welfare, listen to fairy horror tales about the EPA, see the Fourth Amendment voted down as a rider on a crime bill, ad nauseam."
Wood says he's hanging his campaign on what he sees as an important issue locally: the country's trade deficit and its impact on workers.
Instead of just generally waving the flag and "simultaneously looking patriotic and constipated," Woods said, if elected, he will work to gut the federal trade agreements known as NAFTA and GATT; institute a period of Internal Revenue Service amnesty; obliterate federal laws that require "us to give away for pennies on the dollar our resources to foreign companies''; cut the number of work hours for an employee to be considered part-time to 25 a week; and fight against tobacco regulations.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File/April 1996. George "Tex" Wood seeks the 5thby CNBDistrict congressional seat. KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESS