"Democrat Al Weed walked down Gretna’s Main Street on Thursday afternoon and went into Western Auto Hardware Store to take a break from the midday heat and do some shopping.

“I love hardware stores,” said Weed, who is campaigning to unseat U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., in November.

The Nelson County vintner chatted with Jack Dalton - who grows burpless hybrid cucumbers in tomato cages - and other people in the store about life on a farm.

“He knows what he’s talking about, especially when it comes to lawn mowers,” said Western Auto’s Bob Haynes, who sold Weed two blades and a shaft for his Murray lawn mower.

Though he usually votes Democratic, Haynes said he was more concerned about the man running for office than anything else. His top issues for this election were the War in Iraq and how to best handle the threat posed by North Korea.

“If you get elected, you’re going to have your hands full,” Haynes told Weed, adding he was tired of the constant fighting between Democrats and Republicans in Washington D.C.

He said politicians should come together on the issues rather than hurl insults at each other. Haynes said this type of teamwork is what gave the Gretna Hawks High School Football Team a 38-game winning streak that included two state championships in 2003 and 2004.

“We’re just not getting enough out of Washington right now,” Weed said, adding if he were elected to office he planned to put Southside Virginia before politics.

Weed’s visit to Western Auto was part of a series of stops he made in a Thursday tour of Danville and Pittsylvania County. He traveled to Ringgold for the Cherrystone Missionary Baptist Church Association’s annual gathering.

Weed also threw out the first pitch at Legion Field as the Danville Braves prepared to play the Bluefield Orioles. Later in the evening, he rode along with a Danville Police officer.

But before any of this, Weed had lunch at Gretna’s Napoli’s Restaurant, where he met with Acie Brumfield and a few other Pittsylvania County Democrats.

“I think he has some great ideas that would do the Fifth District good,” said Brumfield, whose top issues were energy prices, illegal immigration and the War in Iraq.

Weed promised not to authorize a single dollar in Iraq spending without a clear plan for getting American soldiers out of the conflict.

He also said the key to fighting illegal immigration was a mixture of improving border security and better enforcing the laws against businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

Brumfield was impressed with these ideas and promised to mobilize the “good Democrats” who lived in Gretna but hadn’t come out to the polls in the past two elections.

“It’s time for a change,” he said. “If we can get these people out to vote, then we’re going to make this election interesting.”" (Mac McLean, Danville Register & Bee, July 14, 2006)