"The 5th District congressional race of 2004 is already under way across the rural heart of Virginia from Stanardsville and Palmyra through Buckingham to Martinsville and Danville.

The contest pits a 61-year-old Nelson County grape farmer against a 57-year-old Franklin County lawyer who has spent 23 of the past 30 years as a member of the Virginia Senate and the last seven in Congress.

But Democrat Al Weed is no ordinary vineyard owner, if there is such a creature within 30 miles of Charlottesville, and Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, is no ordinary congressman. Each has a high political IQ and a passion for country store retail politics.

Goode’s history

Goode is about as conservative a politician as they make in Virginia, which is saying something. He has a 30-year history of providing constituent services and winning elections as a Democrat, an independent, and finally, as a Republican.

Just about everybody from Charlottesville to Danville who has cast votes in three or more of the past four congressional elections has voted for Goode at least once in light of his representation of two parties and no party.

Goode, whose colorful mountain twang and drawl mark him as a Franklin County native, spends as much time in his 5th District as he does inside the Beltway, which hardly hurts him in the district roughly the size of New Jersey.

He is viewed as a down-home straight arrow known more for serving constituents’ individual requests of a congressman than for dishing up legislation.

Pro-gun and anti-immigration, Goode plays all the visceral angles to win votes and has a growing reputation as pretty close to unbeatable. He’s a smart politician with no skeletons in his closet larger than his abandoned former party attire.

That reputation fails to deter Weed, who has a 42-year U.S. Army background and attended Yale University with President Bush and later Princeton University for a public affairs school masters degree in economic development and political modernization.

There are Democrats who would argue the 5th District could use more than a little economic development and political modernization.

They should know. Much of the district’s Democratic Party machinery qualifies as either antique or about as broken down, dying or abandoned as Southside Virginia’s textile and tobacco industries.

Weed’s battle

Weed knows he faces an uphill marathon and is willing to do it full-time, building a newer Democratic Party as he runs.

Weed wowed a moneyed crowd of 24 Democrats on Thursday evening at the Farmington home of David Carley, a consultant on health care and housing for the elderly who once worked as president and chief executive officer of the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Carley, who twice ran for governor of Wisconsin and served on the Democratic National Committee, said Weed is the real deal - a candidate with smarts and passion willing to take on an uphill climb as an energetic, happy warrior.

Carley wrote a four-figure check to Weed and is urging others to help the Democrat exceed his $500,000 fund-raising goal.

“I really think I can make an impact running for Congress,” Weed said in an earlier interview. “There are serious issues that are not being addressed.”

One he would like to tackle is health care. As a Spanish-speaking former Army Special Forces medical sergeant, Weed has been to job fairs and closed plants in Southside and spoken in both English and Spanish to workers afraid for their families’ well-being because they need health insurance for their children.

Health care “is a big factor in rural competitiveness,” said Weed, who speaks of men telling him that they don’t need a lot of money but do need medical insurance for their kids. “When people get laid off, they don’t have any health insurance and they’re scared.”

Weed also said that the way Bush is running the war in Iraq “the costs are just starting to come into clarity.” As a retired command sergeant major with service from Vietnam to Bosnia, Weed is critical of Bush’s use of reserve forces the way they are structured.

“Some 40 percent of our troop strength in Iraq after the first of the year is reserve component,” Weed said. Almost 30 percent of University of Virginia anesthesiology department physicians “have been mobilized,” he said. “It’s a serious cost.”

Weed said Goode has been a silent rubber stamp for Bush on the war.

Goode said he has no comment about Weed.

The 2004 congressional contest will be fought in the shadow of the presidential race and Goode will stand with Bush.

As for Weed, he has not endorsed a presidential candidate yet.

“I’ve been interested in [Howard] Dean from the very beginning,” Weed said. “I’m not endorsing anybody now.”

A Goode-Weed race is likely to feature as many differences between candidates as a Bush-Dean contest would. Look for Democratic Charlottesville to start sprouting Dean and Weed stickers on its vans and Volvos." (Bob Gibson, Daily Progress, December 21, 2003)