Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
Toll Free: 800-234-6575
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Monday, June 16, 2008
By BULLETIN STAFF REPORTS -
Jim Gilmore’s communications director says the Republican U.S. Senate candidate was not snubbing Southside by not stopping in the region during a campaign kickoff tour of parts of the state last week.
However, a local Republican Party leader said he thinks Gilmore, Virginia’s governor from 1998 to 2002, has a long row to hoe to win over Southside voters.
Gilmore is running for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring longtime Republican Sen. John Warner. Gilmore is being challenged by Democrat Mark Warner, who was governor from 2002 to 2006 and has developed a strong following in the Henry County-Martinsville area, largely due to his reputation for helping the area recover from economic troubles.
Mark Warner visited the community frequently while he was governor and has made several visits since then. Ana Gamonal, Gilmore’s communications director, on Friday did not know when Gilmore last visited the area.
Still, “there is no question that (Southside) is terribly important to him,” Gamonal said, and he plans to visit the region while touring the state.
Don Lawson, chairman of the Henry County Republican Party, said he has talked to Gilmore about the need to campaign in Southside and learned the candidate plans “lots of visits to this area.”
Yet “there is work to be done” by Gilmore to garner support in Southside, Lawson said. “I feel he realizes that.”
Gilmore began a “Fly Around for Working Families” tour last week with stops in Richmond, Norfolk and Manassas. Gamonal indicated those three cities were chosen based largely on the schedules of other dignitaries who accompanied Gilmore and a desire to “go to major media markets to get the word out.”
The lack of a Southside stop on Gilmore’s tour was not lost on Warner’s campaign. His staff issued a release claiming that “it’s no surprise that he wouldn’t want to bring his so-called ‘crusade for the working families’ here. In 2000, Gilmore gave 3,300 laid-off Tultex workers the cold shoulder.”
“When Tultex closed here in the Martinsville area, Gov. Gilmore couldn’t even be bothered to come down and talk to his constituents in their hour of need,” Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Collinsville, was quoted in the release. “It’s no wonder he doesn’t dare bring his ‘working families’ message to Southside. He left our working families behind.”
Armstrong noted in the release that Gilmore “took the extreme step of vetoing legislation that would have provided short-term transitional benefits” for the displaced workers. Gilmore later claimed that he could not have done anything to help the workers, the release states.
In an interview last week, Armstrong said area residents remember those days. He said he was in the hospital visiting a patient recently and a nurse, who was involved in the Tultex issue, came up and thanked him for his efforts on behalf of the workers at that time.
As a result, “Gilmore’s strategy is to avoid Southside at all costs,” Armstrong said. In contrast, “Mark Warner on the second day of his announcement tour was here.”
He added that he expects Warner to come here throughout the campaign. “He’s been here twice in the last 30 days. That’s more than Gilmore’s been here in the last two years,” he added.
Gamonal said Gilmore plans to visit 40 cities and 40 counties in both urban and rural areas in two-day intervals before the Nov. 4 election.
Locations and dates have not yet been determined, she said, so she could not specify the locations in Southside that Gilmore will visit or when.
“Obviously, the governor (Gilmore) believes he has a chance of winning the entire commonwealth of Virginia,” she added.
Armstrong said he believes Warner will carry Southside.
“The only problem I anticipate is complacency. ... All I have to say is ‘George Allen.’ I don’t think Mark Warner would make a ‘macaca’ comment,” Armstrong said, referring to a slur Allen, then a U.S. senator running for re-election, made about someone at a campaign rally. The comment began Allen’s slide and subsequent loss to Democrat Jim Webb.
“But,” Armstrong said, “I didn’t think George Allen would, either.” |
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