Election salvos start already

It didn’t take long for the 2010 congressional campaign to get started.
Soon after U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Albemarle, was sworn in last month, the National Republican Campaign Committee started cranking out anti-Perriello press releases.
Now less than two months after Mr. Perriello took office, the NRCC has aired its first television commercial — in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market — accusing Perriello of “stretching the truth” on the stimulus bill.
Mr. Perriello has been targeted early because he is considered politically vulnerable.

When Mr. Perriello beat 5th District incumbent Virgil Goode by a mere 727 votes last November, Mark Warner won his Senate seat with 65 percent of the vote and Barack Obama became the first Democrat to carry Virginia in a presidential election since 1964.
In 2010, Mr. Perriello won’t have those long coattails to ride.
At the same time, some people in the 5th District are angry with him for beating Republican Goode, and they are waiting for the chance to vote against him in 2010. To those people, it doesn’t matter what Mr. Perriello does between now and then.
Mr. Goode hasn’t said he will run for his old seat next year.
But the 5th District was drawn by the General Assembly to help a Republican win a seat in Congress. So even if Mr. Goode declines to run, someone else will surely challenge Mr. Perriello.

Americans are worried about the stimulus bill Mr. Perriello supported, because they’re not sure it will work — and they’re not sold on how it’s supposed to work. For their part, Republicans wanted less government spending and more tax cuts to kick-start the economy.
The problem for Republicans is that when they controlled Congress, we got tax cuts and more government spending. In fact, Mr. Goode’s final earmarks for the 5th District are just now coming through the legislative process.
If it was OK for Mr. Goode to get federal money for projects in the 5th District, is it wrong for Mr. Perriello to do the same thing?

Call them earmarks, pork, pet projects, boondoggles, investments or whatever you want — spending taxpayer money is still spending taxpayer money…

 
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