NORTON, Va. – Vowing to listen to the people of Main Street, 9th District congressional challenger Morgan Griffith kicked off a regional campaign tour in the pouring rain Wednesday.
Visiting downtown Norton and Wise, he shook hands with some Main Street business owners. He also passed up some storefronts, including a labor union and at least one business that would not allow a television camera.
In a news conference that highlighted leading issues of the campaign season, Griffith said he plans to visit every town in the district, a 22-county region that stretches from Covington to the Cumberland Gap and is larger than the state of New Jersey.
In what’s become his standard stump speech, Griffith said the incumbent, U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, is too closely aligned with the national Democratic leadership and is out of touch with Southwest Virginia voters.
He said the policies of President Barack Obama and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are likely to drive business overseas with too many taxes and regulations. He also said they will hurt Southwest Virginia’s leading industry by allowing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “to make coal almost illegal.”
Here in coal country, it’s an issue on many people’s minds.
“We depend on coal whether it’s good or not … and I think it’s terrible no one can get a permit around here anymore,” said Margaret Bolling, owner of the Keepsake Frame and Art Gallery in Norton, one of the businesses Griffith visited Wednesday. “When no one’s working in the coalfields, we have no customers.”
Several coal industry leaders have contributed financially to Griffith’s campaign, though there are also those who support Boucher.
Boucher, who said he is not commenting on the day-to-day political activities of other candidates, has many times defended his support of federal cap-and-trade legislation to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
Because the burning of coal releases carbon dioxide, the bill is of particular concern to the coal industry. Boucher has said the regulation is inevitable, and that his role in crafting the legislation has been to mitigate its impact on the region.
He said Wednesday that his work for the region, in helping to bring federally funded infrastructure projects and create jobs through the Showcasing Southwest Virginia program, speaks for his commitment to serving Southwest Virginians’ priorities.
Independent challenger Jeremiah Heaton, meanwhile, embarked Wednesday on a different kind of campaign tour: a trip to the U.S.-Mexican border to learn about immigration issues in Arizona.
Seeking to learn firsthand about an issue he said is troubling many Southwest Virginia voters he’s spoken with, Heaton said he’s already made the kind of Southwest Virginia tour that Griffith began Wednesday.
“He’s about three months behind me,” Heaton said, “so I’m glad he’s finally getting around to the idea of something I’ve already done.”
He said Boucher, too, should take a tour of the district.
“I think that Rick [Boucher] could probably stand to do a Main Street tour,” Heaton said. “With Morgan Griffith doing his now, I’d say that it wouldn’t hurt for Rick to get back in touch with the people in the district for the last few months of his term.”
Griffith, who will be in the spotlight Friday as honorary starter of the Food City 250 race at Bristol Motor Speedway, said Boucher is a nice guy.
But, Griffith said, “Sometimes no matter how nice the person is, it’s time to make a change.”
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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