In the article on the Virginia governor's race, the captions for photos of Fairfax County residents Jeff Murphy and Alan Norris were transposed.
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Va. Voters Seek Jobs, Candor
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Fuller said he is going to finish college in Alabama as soon as he sells his $40,000 home. Robert Tomlinson, 61, said that's a shame, but all too common.
Tomlinson is a history professor at Southwest Virginia Community College. He said the candidates for governor this year should address the region's need for help with jobs and education.
"When you compare to the opportunities [for] students in other areas of the state, there's a growing disparity," he said. "It's almost the rich versus the poor. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."
Karen Hudson, a grant writer for the college, said she is frustrated by the dramatic differences in the breadth and quality of schools in the state, especially when the southwest region is compared with Northern Virginia.
"We have children who are very, very bright, who need to be taking higher-level classes, and our high schools just can't offer them," she said. "Take a look at Thomas Jefferson High School [for Science and Technology in Fairfax County]. Do you want to talk about how many different levels of chemistry they offer? How many different levels of just geometry they offer? Our kids get geometry. Our kids get chemistry. Our kids get AP biology, but no lab."
Tazewell County is far from Northern Virginia's suburbs, and deep inside the part of the state politicians consider conservative and religious. Sherman Walker, 61, a farmer and businessman, said a customer told him last year that the race between President George W. Bush and Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry was "the Lord voting against the devil."
But Walker and others in Tazewell said that both of the major-party candidates for governor appear to be men of faith. And, so far, they see little difference between them on such issues as capital punishment, abortion and guns.
"It's not an issue like the presidential election was last year," Walker said of religion.
Fuller seized on the issue of guns. "Yeah, don't mess with my right to own guns," he said. "Don't mess with it." But he quickly added that he hasn't noticed much of a difference between the positions of the two major candidates.
"Both candidates are taking that stance. They are not messing with that right," he said. "In Virginia, I think regulations are right where they ought to be."
