Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Embattled Boucher attacks Griffith in TV ad
The new ad against Griffith points out that he lives outside the 9th Congressional District.
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The latest from our Blue Ridge Caucus politics blog
From today's paper
RICHMOND -- Veteran United States Rep. Rick Boucher has won most of his elections so convincingly that he didn't need to mention his opponents in campaign ads -- and didn't.
But after taking hits in recent weeks from his Republican challenger and a third-party interest group, the Abingdon Democrat is going on the attack.
Boucher takes aim at Republican challenger Morgan Griffith of Salem in a new television ad that highlights the fact that Griffith lives outside the sprawling 9th Congressional District. The spot began airing over the weekend in the Roanoke and Bristol markets.
"Morgan Griffith: He's not from here ... and it shows," a female announcer says at the end of Boucher's new 30-second ad.
It is the first time in the campaign that Boucher, a 28-year incumbent, has gone up with an ad that identifies Griffith and criticizes the Republican. The Boucher ad depicts Griffith as voting against Southwest Virginia's interests this year on school funding and electricity rates. Griffith said the ad distorts his positions on both issues.
Boucher is punching back after being the target of two negative ads last week. A Griffith campaign ad featured footage of President Obama declaring "I love Rick Boucher." And a Republican-leaning independent group bankrolled another spot linking Boucher to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"Morgan Griffith and his friends in Washington are attacking Congressman Rick Boucher," Boucher's new ad begins. "What they don't say is that Morgan Griffith has never lived in the 9th District."
Griffith, the House majority leader in the state legislature, lives just beyond the 9th District's border in Salem (law allows candidates to run in a district in which they don't reside). But the district, Griffith said, "wraps around my little neighborhood." And that neighborhood probably will become part of the 9th District when state lawmakers reapportion districts next year, he said.
"In the end, people care about where you stand and not where you sleep," Griffith said in a conference call Monday.
Griffith said the ad could be a sign that his campaign is gaining momentum, but added, "We don't have the money to do as many polls as he does."
Boucher spokeswoman Courtney Lamie said the new ad is a response to negative spots aimed at Boucher "by his opponent and his opponent's out-of-state friends."
"This ad does not indicate any change in the race," Lamie said.
Griffith also took exception to the Boucher ad's assertions that he voted against the region's interest in supporting the lifting of a proposed freeze on the state's local composite index, which measures a locality's ability to pay for its public schools.
Lifting the freeze for the current two-year budget steered more money to Northern Virginia, but the budget also includes a "hold harmless" payment to localities hurt by the change. Griffith said the local composite index usually helps rural and less affluent localities. If lawmakers refused to adjust the index when it helps Northern Virginia, legislators from that region could muster the votes to retaliate, he said.
"I felt and feel that -- long term -- tinkering with a 30-year-old formula which has served Southwest Virginia, the Highlands, Southside and everything outside the urban crescent ... and has served them well, was making a mistake," Griffith said.
The Boucher ad also accuses Griffith of blocking electricity rate reform in a year when Southwest Virginia residents faced skyrocketing electric bills. Boucher's campaign cited Griffith's opposition to procedural moves by Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Henry County, to bypass its normal House committee process and have floor votes on a bill that would put more restrictive regulations on Appalachian Power Co. The House defeated Armstrong's move both times he attempted it in the 2010 legislative session.
Griffith supported legislation that suspended an interim rate charge Appalachian had imposed during the winter months. The Republican leader voted against a 1999 bill to deregulate electric utilities and a 2007 law that created a new hybrid regulatory scheme for electric utilities, a law Armstrong has blamed for recent Appalachian rate increases.
Griffith said Armstrong's ploy was simply a "political maneuver" with no evidence it would lower rates.
"That was more like Washington governance where you just pass something and find out what it does later," Griffith said.
