"Whether the two candidates like it or not, what happens in Iraq during the coming six months will help shape Virginia’s 5th District congressional race.

Democrat Al Weed, a Nelson County farmer, and Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, have plenty of significant issue differences that separate them without having to go to Iraq to find more.

But the American intervention in Iraq - from its evolving rationales for going in to its undetermined strategies for getting out - will dog this race every time voters pay attention to the news and think of their choices on Nov. 2.

Goode has married his political fortunes to those of President Bush, for better or for worse, which seems like a sound policy in the conservative Southside Virginia district that stretches from the tobacco farms of Pittsylvania County to the subdivisions of Albemarle, Greene and Fluvanna counties.

This is Bush country in its rural reaches and suburban stretches. There isn’t a great deal of Democrat John Kerry country in the 5th District outside of the leafy, speed-bumped streets of Charlottesville.

But President Bush has married his political fortunes to one of the biggest national gambles in American presidential history - that a U.S. president can spurn many of the nation’s traditional allies and largely go it alone in a military effort to invade, pacify, rebuild and bring democracy to a nation that doesn’t trust invaders.

Weed is no fan of the president, which in a normal congressional year would hurt him in the district far more than help him.

But 2004 may not be a normal political year, with a nation at war and terrorists at the door.

Weed, a retired Army Special Forces veteran who served in Vietnam and Bosnia, may gain some traction talking about an unpopular war if the next six months in Iraq don’t look better than the last month.

“The American public has never been asked if it’s willing to spend billions of dollars a month and hundreds of lives of young soldiers to build democracy in Iraq,” Weed said Friday.

If Goode is going to stay in lock step with Bush, he is going to have to address some of the president’s policies in Iraq, Weed said.

Average voters may start wondering aloud if America is any safer from terrorism as a result of the Bush gamble in Iraq.

A place like Iraq didn’t used to matter much in the political equations of Pittsylvania and Franklin counties, but tie it inextricably to this nation’s war on terrorism and start sending sons and daughters there for extended stays in hostile territory and it might matter more and more.

Bush may have figured wrong when he thought he could tie himself for domestic political reasons to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and not have the calculus backfire throughout the Islamic world while American troops are under fire.

Bush may have thought he had a beautiful campaign commercial in the can when he appeared on an aircraft carrier off San Diego under the huge banner reading “Mission Accomplished.”

Now the Democrats may consider using the image as a sign of self-labeling hubris for a president whose gamble has six more painful months to unravel. Four of those months are coming after Bush has turned over sovereignty to Iraqis while leaving enough troops in place to give the impression that sovereignty is a political sham.

Iraq never mattered much in the politics of Goode’s district. The congressman probably is wishing that events there do not matter as much as they might from now until Nov. 2." (Bob Gibson, May 2, 2004)

Contact Bob Gibson at (434) 978-7243 or bgibson@dailyprogress.com.