In 9th District, Boucher faces serious challenger

WYTHEVILLE — Rick Boucher is a Democratic congressman in a Republican-leaning district. And he has been there for a long time.

Boucher has represented South-west Virginia’s vast, rural 9th District since 1983. None of his opponents has topped 40 percent of the vote since 1994.

But now Boucher faces a fight in this bastion of populist politics known since Reconstruction as the “Fighting Ninth.”

Political observers say Republican H. Morgan Griffith, a Salem lawyer and majority leader in the Virginia House of Delegates, poses the first credible challenge to Boucher in years.

Seizing on the anti-Washington mood, a limping economy and fears over the impact of the federal health-care overhaul, the GOP hopes to pick up enough seats in the midterm elections to win back a majority in Congress. And several seats in Virginia, including Boucher’s, are on the GOP’s wish list.

“Now more than ever, we need to do our part to get Congress turned around,” said Sharon Brockman, standing outside her front door on Main Street in downtown Christiansburg one recent evening. A 4-by-6-foot Griffith campaign sign was anchored prominently on her front lawn.

The home-schooling mother of three boys said she is concerned about the expansion of government under President Barack Obama’s administration.

“They’re not going to inherit the country we did,” she said, referring to her children. “We need a change.”

. . .

As Labor Day signals the homestretch of Virginia’s congressional contests, Boucher leads Griffith by 10 percentage points, according to a SurveyUSA poll released Friday. Boucher had 50 percent of the vote to 40 percent for Griffith and 5 percent for Jeremiah Heaton, an independent from Washington County.

Boucher also boasts a healthy financial edge. As of June 30, he had $2 million in cash on hand, to $297,000 for Griffith.

“I am focused on the needs of this district, and I have the seniority and the effectiveness to address those needs in a thorough, comprehensive and efficient manner,” Boucher said. “And that’s what I’ve been doing for 28 years.”

But in this graying, 93 percent white district of resilient small towns and picturesque mountains and valleys, demographics — and economic uncertainty — fuel optimism among Republicans.

“I think Washington needs to be changed, and I’m a fighter and I’m willing to take risks,” said Griffith, a father of three who grew up in Salem. “If people decide they’re fed up with Washington, then we win.”

Griffith spent Friday afternoon strolling through the massive Labor Day Flea Market and Gun Show in Hillsville. He spoke with prospective voters who were selling everything from firearms to lemonade.

“I hope you kick his [expletive],” said gun dealer Randy Winters, 58, from Atkins, as Griffith stopped by his counter to peruse his collection of handguns and firearms for sale.

Earlier Friday, during a volunteer breakfast at a Shoney’s restaurant in Wytheville, Boucher told about two dozen supporters to be wary of overconfidence.

“We are very confident in this campaign, but given the challenge of this year we are taking nothing for granted,” he said. “So let’s not rest on our laurels.”

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Boucher has prospered in a district that often votes Republican in other contests. In 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, carried the district with 59 percent of the vote to Obama’s 39 percent.

In last year’s governor’s race, Republican Bob McDonnell carried the district with 66 percent of the vote over Democratic nominee R. Creigh Deeds, a state senator from Bath County.

Counties in the western half of the sprawling district — which runs from just west of Roanoke to Virginia’s borders with West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina — also are among the poorest in the state.

The 9th District’s median household income of $36,453 is well below the national average of $52,175, and 17.8 percent of its residents live in poverty, compared with a national average of 13.2 percent, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics for 2006-08.

The number of Medicare beneficiaries is more than 30 percent above the national average.

Twenty percent of the district’s residents live in mobile homes; nearly one-quarter never finished high school. Double-digit unemployment in parts of the district surpasses the nation’s 9.6 percent jobless rate.

Griffith says Boucher has failed “to do the job on jobs,” which has led to the graying of the district because “we don’t have jobs for younger people.”

Voters in the district’s western, coal-producing counties also worry that tougher restrictions on greenhouse gases — whether through Environmental Protection Agency regulations or through cap-and-trade legislation — will choke an industry that fuels the local economy.

Boucher, who voted for the cap-and-trade bill, said it was better for Congress to exercise control over greenhouse-gas regulation than cede the authority to the EPA. He said that would be worse for the coal industry and consumers.

“Everything I did was to protect coal and protect jobs,” he said.

Griffith called Boucher’s reasoning “poppycock” and said Boucher should have used his power to persuade a handful of other representatives to defeat the measure.

This year, Boucher was one of 34 House Democrats who broke with Obama and voted against the health-care overhaul. He said the bill would require cuts of $450 billion in Medicare funding over 10 years and that two-thirds of his constituents opposed the measure.

But Boucher backed Obama on the stimulus bill.

“The Republicans think certainly there are some wedge issues that Morgan might play,” said Robert Denton, a political analyst at Virginia Tech.

“Cap and trade, [Boucher’s] voting support of Obama — those are opportunities, they think. But voters have had very strong support of Boucher over the years.”

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And Boucher, they say, has delivered, especially in constituent service. During breakfast in Wytheville, he ticked off examples of federal dollars corralled for the district:

Upgrades of $5 million to the Rural Retreat water system. A veterans outpatient clinic, investments in broadband infrastructure, and $7.5 million for a veterans cemetery.

“I think if you look at his record of service to the district, you see a general respect and care of the people that live here,” said David Manley, a fourth-generation farmer whose four-year-old winery, West Wind Farm, was launched through an economic-development loan secured by the congressman.

“He’s been an effective advocate for the needs of Southwest Virginia.”

So far, Boucher has remained characteristically low-key and has kept a limited public campaign schedule.

Griffith, meanwhile, has been a road warrior. He has crisscrossed the district to build credibility as a standard-bearer of anti-Washington sentiment.

On Friday, he spent several hours glad-handing at the flea market in Hillsville before he ventured back into Boucher’s home turf to attend a football game at Abingdon High School.

In trying to unseat Boucher, Griffith faces an unusual challenge. He doesn’t live in the 9th District. The district’s border actually ends at his neighbor’s yard in Salem.

“Why would you want to vote for somebody who can’t vote for himself?” Wythe County Democratic Party Chairman Robert Kegley asked.

Griffith jokes that the groundhog that has invaded his yard from his neighbor’s property is from the 9th District. He says the district’s voters care “more about where you stand than where you sleep.”

Griffith’s border trouble is likely to vanish next time around. During redistricting next year, state lawmakers will redraw the 9th District. Its boundaries must expand to add about 65,000 residents to keep pace with other districts.

Even if he falls short this November, Griffith could be positioning himself for a rematch against Boucher in 2012.

But Boucher will not be easy to defeat this time or next, Denton said. The GOP might be a little too optimistic in its hopes for the 9th, especially given that the national party has yet to dump a chunk of money into Griffith’s campaign coffers, he said.

“I think Boucher simply needs to remind them that he’s been a friend for them in Washington over the years,” Denton said.

“There is the issue of trust — that’s what Morgan is trying to build. Do we really know you? In places like Bristol and Dickenson, they like to know people.”

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