"Nelson County Democrat Al Weed on Monday launched his second straight challenge to 5th District Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, hoping to climb from the 36 percent showing he made in last year’s election to win Goode’s seat in Congress next Nov. 7.

“I’m building on name recognition. I’m building on some organization that we were able to develop,” said Weed, a Nelson County farmer who owns and operates Mountain Cove Vineyards. “I’ve got a better understanding of how to articulate the ideas that I have.”

“Even NASCAR winners and world-class orchestras benefit from practice and training,” said Weed, who is a combat veteran of Vietnam and served more than 42 years in the military, retiring as a U.S. Army Special Forces command sergeant major.

Weed, 63, said he is expecting at least one more Democrat, former Roanoke City Manager Bern Ewert of Charlottesville, to also seek the Democratic Party nomination.

Ewert said he plans to announce his candidacy on Dec. 3 in Charlottesville, Bedford and Danville.

Goode, 59, said Monday that he would not have any comment on his potential opponents “until I know who the participants are.”

Neither Goode nor Weed knew of another Democratic Party challenger, but, Weed added, “I would be surprised if that didn’t happen, primarily because everyone is saying this year the Republicans are vulnerable.”

Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said more Republican members of Congress may be considered somewhat vulnerable in the coming year but that Goode’s five elections to the House of Representatives might not leave him an easy target.

“Every Republican congressman has to worry a bit more about 2006, at least as it is shaping up a year out,” Sabato said. “Maybe conditions will change, but right now Democrats are having considerable success in recruiting candidates around the nation.”

No one has had success challenging Goode, a former Democrat who served 23 years in the Virginia Senate right out of the UVa School of Law in 1973 before winning the congressional seat in 1996. The last three Democrats to challenge Goode received 31 percent, 36 percent and 36 percent of the votes cast.

“Goode is not especially vulnerable on the long list of GOP targets, at least not yet,” Sabato said. “His margin may shrink, and that could be a problem for [other Republicans], but he has been well over 60 percent so he has a lot of excess votes to lose before he gets into trouble. Neither Weed nor Ewert has the public office background to start off as a big threat to Goode.”

One way that Goode could be vulnerable is his strong ties to the former troubled federal defense contractor MZM Inc., Weed said. MZM and some of its employees have been Goode’s biggest campaign contributors the past three years, giving Goode nearly $90,000 of the $995,000 he raised since 2002.

Goode helped MZM gain a Pentagon contract that the military had not sought and helped MZM move a facility to Martinsville in the job-starved Southside region of the 5th District in 2003. Weed said he finds the timing of those actions and the nearly $90,000 donated by MZM and its employees to Goode “interesting.”

“Those contributions fully complied with FEC [Federal Election Commission] regulations and no one gave over the maximum allowed by the FEC,” Goode said Monday. He said he sent letters last summer asking the MZM employee donors if they wished their contributions to be returned.

“Two persons sent me a letter” asking for their contributions back, Goode said. “The two totaled $600,” which was returned about two months ago, the congressman said.

As to whether the MZM contributions are likely to be an issue in his re-election contest, Goode said: “That’s up to the voters.”" (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, November 15, 2005)

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