'Fighting 9th' fights back

Virginia’s 9th Congressional District took center stage on the first day of the Republican National Convention. Kevin Triplett, the Republican challenger to long-time congressman, Rick Boucher, spoke to the assembled delegates about his race for the House of Representatives.

Triplett’s appearance at the Convention is the second visible sign that the folks running the national Republican Party think he has a chance to defeat Boucher. In April, Vice President Dick Cheney stopped in Roanoke to speak at a fund-raising luncheon for the first time congressional candidate. Cheney is one of the GOP’s most effective and most sought-after fund-raisers. His agreement to spend time with Triplett is proof that Triplett has a chance to win.

And the vice president signaled his confidence in Triplett again on Monday. After Triplett’s speech to the convention, he was invited to sit in Cheney’s box, where he had the chance to speak with the vice president at some length.

There are other reasons, much closer to home, for believing in Triplett’s chances. Rick Boucher himself provides most of them. Boucher has insisted that he has time for only one televised debate between now and the election. Most elected officials are only too glad for opportunities to tout their own accomplishments, and Boucher is not reluctant to do so. Both his congressional Web page and his campaign Web page are filled with what he calls accomplishments.

Of course, except for an e-mail to his staff, there is no way to respond to words on an Internet page, or on a press release. The only way for Boucher’s constituents to get a fair and balanced view of his 22 year career in Congress is to hear both him and Kevin Triplett. In this uncontrolled, public arena that Boucher gets a bit shy and, perhaps, afraid.

Boucher was not always so reluctant to take part in multiple debates. When he was the challenger in 1982, he criticized then-incumbent William Wampler for limiting himself to only one televised debate. As Boucher said at the time, “my opponent is afraid to discuss the critical issues of this campaign.”

Triplett believes that these critical issues revolve around economic development for the 9th District. Of the 14 issues that Triplett lists on his Web page (www.kevintrplett.com), seven are directly related to the region’s economic problems. The core of Triplett’s campaign is that when Boucher was first elected, he ran on a platform of economic development, responding to the region’s then 11 percent unemployment rate. Today, for all of Boucher’s alleged efforts, the region’s unemployment rate is not much better, and is the highest in Virginia.

The challenger also takes issue with Boucher’s stand against Second Amendment rights, against an amendment to protect the American flag, against an amendment to define the family, against the Laci-Conner Law, and in favor of partial birth abortion. Indeed, Boucher often seems to be little more than a clone of John Kerry.

Triplett is much more of an independent Republican. He has two potentially significant disagreements with President Bush. Triplett firmly opposes any attempt to “privatize” Social Security. And since many 9th District residents blame some of their economic distress on free trade policies, a Rep. Triplett may find it hard to follow Bush’s lead on trade policy as well. Taking issue with a sitting president on two such important issues demonstrates Triplett’s political courage as well as his independence.

But in the 9th District, economic development issues will be in the forefront. Boucher’s record on economic matters has been inconsistent. This inconsistency has an explanation, and it is one that Boucher’s constituents ought to consider very carefully. On the one hand, Boucher opposes national tax policies that will bring more economic development. For eight of the past nine years, Boucher has gotten an “F” rating from the National Taxpayers Union. (In 1996, he got a “D.”)

At the same time, the congressman takes credit for practically every new business that opens in the 9th District, as well as for every dollar of federal money that is spent in the district. Put differently, he takes credit for hand-carrying economic development to the region. It is reasonable to conclude that Boucher does not want to see economic growth if he cannot take credit for it.

Boucher knows that Virginians in his district are pro-life, pro-family, and pro-Second Amendment. They support the War on Terror, the flag, and a strong national defense. But they depend on Rick Boucher to bring home the bacon from Washington. The trouble is, Boucher knows too that his only appeal to his conservative district is his access to deep pockets. He has no interest in a prosperous, vibrant 9th District. Such a district would not need him anymore.

The election this year is a chance for voters in the 9th district to leave the Boucher plantation. Kevin Triplett is at the gate, prying it open.