It
is time for the 9th District of Virginia to have a congressman who stands with Southwest Virginia.
It is time for the 9th District of Virginia to have a congressman who will put his constituents before his party. And it is time for the 9th District of Virginia to have a congressman who represents the values of Southwest Virginia. The district’s current representative, Democrat Rick Boucher, is not that person.
This November, I am supporting Republican Morgan Griffith for Congress. I know he will be the congressman Southwest Virginia so desperately needs. I have lived in Southwest Virginia my entire life and I’ve seen firsthand the economic disadvantages this region has faced.
Actually, even though columnist Brandon Carroll has written I simply “claim” to be from Southwest Virginia, I couldn’t be prouder to say I’m from this region. I love this area and it will always be my home, and I also want a congressman who will stand up for it in Washington. Boucher doesn’t do that.
How does Boucher fail to truly represent this district? For starters, he has voted with President Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi’s agenda 96.4 percent of the time, according to the Washington Times. Boucher represents a district where only 39.6 percent of the vote went to Obama in 2008, and yet he has consistently voted with his party while ignoring the wishes of his constituents.
He voted for the “stimulus bill,” which promised to create jobs and keep unemployment below 8 percent when it still rose above the 10 percent mark. He also voted for, and helped write, the cap-and-trade legislation that will cause Virginia to lose as many as 56,000 jobs while crippling the coal industry, a lifeline for Southwest Virginia.
My family owns two small businesses that operate in Southwest Virginia, one of them manufacturing equipment for coal mines. This isn’t me being against Boucher’s economic policies because I’m a Republican and he’s a Democrat; this is me being against his economic policies because they are wrong for this region.
As a congressman, Boucher’s record is unimpressive. As Brandon Carroll has pointed out in the past, Boucher is credited with creating 5,000 jobs in the district. Carroll, and other Boucher supporters, fail to see the whole picture.
A version of this article appeared in the Oct 29 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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All these Boucher-Griffith ads and articles about jobs crack me up. Since when is it the job of federal congressmen to give us jobs? Translation - "bring home the pork." Hilarious. You guys basically want to elect the guy who is going to bring home the bacon. Principles don't matter any more. It's just me me me me me me me me money money money me me money money.
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The "5,000 jobs" claim are jobs created through Showcasing Southwest Virginia, where Rick Boucher invites corporations to the district, trying to convince them to create jobs here. Rick has secured over 23,000 jobs for the district as Congressman in addition to the 5,000 created through Showcasing Southwest Virginia.
Of course Southwest Virginia is going to have a higher unemployment rate than the rest of the Commonwealth. The district is largely rural and undeveloped, a sharp contrast to the massive population growth that has occurred in the rest of Virginia. Keeping that in mind, Rick Boucher has done an outstanding job at bringing companies and jobs to the region, and has done his best to reduce the effects of the recession: Of the 22 counties in the 9th district, 18 showed a decrease in unemployment rates in the past year, faring much better than eastern Virginia or other Appalachian areas, such as rural West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
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What a dumb comment. The states with the lowest unemployment rates (seasonally adjusted September 2010) are 1) North Dakota 2) South Dakota 3) Nebraska 4)New Hampshire 5) Vermont 6) Hawaii 7) Kansas 8) Iowa, Virginia, Wyoming (all tied). Each of these state's unemployment rates is less than or equal to Virginia's, and each state is also much more rural, with the possible exception of Hawaii. One could argue that Boucher was lousy and lost.
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North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, and Wyoming all have an active farming industry. New Hampshire, Vermont, and Hawaii have an active tourism industry and have large industrialized pockets. Southwest Virginia, being part of rural Appalachia, has only the coal industry native to the area. No matter who is in charge of development, SWVA is never going to get a large tourism industry, farming industry, large business headquarters, or mass urbanization.
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Democratic candidates are usually more prone to bringing home the "pork" as you put it.
As to Anonymous "The district is largely rural and undeveloped, a sharp contrast to the massive population growth that has occurred in the rest of Virginia."
Perhaps that is due to Boucher?
The entire West Coast was once rural and undeveloped. Should SW Va stay that way forever?
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There you go again, Matt. Griffith doesn't live in the 9th. Griffith will represent the national GOP party as he has in Richmond. He will not represent a district he doesn't even live in. You can't spin an outsider posing to be from rural Virginia when he actually lives in the city of Salem.
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