"A pair of Democrats seeking to challenge 5th District Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, this year disagreed Wednesday over how to end American involvement in the war in Iraq and over the recent revision of the Patriot Act.

Former Roanoke City Manager Bern Ewert told University of Virginia Democrats that he probably would have supported the Patriot Act revision and would phase out American troops from Iraq over the next 20 months in favor of an international armed force.

“I would vote against the Patriot Act,” countered Nelson County Democrat Al Weed, who is vying with Ewert for the Democratic Party nomination and wants a second straight nomination to oppose Goode, a 10-year veteran of Congress, in a district that stretches from Greene County to Danville.

Weed said he opposes the Patriot Act because “a lot of things were rolled into [it] that should have been considered separately and in separate bills on their own.” Repeal of the Patriot Act would force Congress to consider portions that members were uncomfortable with and that are not needed for law enforcement, he said.

“I was the only candidate calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops in 2004,” Weed said. Americans should start planning for troop withdrawal now and get them out of Iraq as quickly as the nation can, he insisted.

Weed called President Bush’s announcement Tuesday that he will not withdraw all troops before 2009 “a big mistake” and said that 87 percent of Iraqis want them out.

Ewert, who is running as a more moderate Democrat and claiming to be more electable, said he announced his candidacy for Congress on Dec. 3 with a plan to draw down troops over a 24-month period and have them “replaced by an international force. … That’s now 20 months.”

“As we draw down out of Iraq into an international force, we need to ensure that we don’t make a bad situation worse,” Ewert said. “In that 20-month period, it needs to be clear to the Iraqis that we are leaving so that they can plan and take responsibility for their country. We cannot save them from civil war.”

Ewert and Weed are trying to generate large turnouts of supporters to late April Democratic Party mass meetings in each city and county in the 5th District that will elect delegates to the party’s May 20 nominating convention at Buckingham County High School.

Charlottesville and Albemarle County Democrats will gather for separate mass meetings at 7:30 p.m. on April 24, said Fred Hudson, 5th District Democratic Party chairman. The Charlottesville meeting will be at Buford Middle School and the Albemarle meeting will be at Monticello High School.

Ewert told several dozen UVa Democrats plus a smattering of other community residents that the race against Goode is going to be won or lost in Southside Virginia. He said that as a former Roanoke city manager who was on television in that market 3,000 times over 13 years he is the stronger candidate in Southside.

Weed said that as a former challenger to Goode he is the stronger candidate who knows the people and the issues throughout the district as well or better than any Democrat.

Goode ran 13,863 votes ahead of his GOP running mate, President Bush, in the 5th District in 2004 and ran 74,194 votes ahead of Weed, who finished with 36 percent of the votes in the congressional race.

Both Ewert and Weed said Goode’s strong ties to former troubled federal defense contractor MZM Inc. makes the congressman somewhat more vulnerable, although the November election is likely to turn on economic issues.

MZM and some of its employees gave Goode $90,000 of the $995,000 he raised in a three-year period beginning in 2002 and Goode helped MZM gain a Pentagon contract in a budget earmark. Goode gave away the MZM donations late last year and said this year he was unaware that MZM money came to him as illegal campaign contributions.

“MZM is just a clean and clear example of the corrupt mess that’s going on in Washington and he’s a part of it,” Ewert said.

Both Democrats said they would support stronger ethics reform than Republicans are proposing to curb lobbying and ethical abuses in Congress." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, March 23, 2006)