Candidates Trip The Light Fantastic

Less than a month remains before Virginia's June 14 major party primaries and, by gosh, we have candidates who have something to say.

Let's see. We have a "conservative leadership for the future of Virginia," and we have a "progressive leadership, traditional values." One candidate promises, for reasons unspecified, that he's "uniting all Virginia." Then there are the details.

Virginia spends too much, seems to be the thrust of Warrenton Mayor George B. Fitch's bid to snatch the Republican nomination for governor from the well-funded favorite, former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore.

"Did you know," Fitch declares on his campaign Web site, "that spending in Virginia has increased 50 percent in the past four years?" To learn more, the Web site says, "Click here."

So the visitor clicks and then reads, "Did you know: Spending has increased by 50 percent in the last five years?" Four years, five years -- what's the diff, right?

Fitch then makes his pitch to do something about this situation and offers "My Solution." First on his list: "Eliminate all programs that are no longer relevant, e.g., Department of Mattresses, and save $10 million."

Now that sounds like mighty fine cost-cutting. Only one thing: This department doesn't exist.

The state Department of Health does include a Bedding and Upholstered Furniture Inspection program, created by the legislature in 1946 in the cause of bedbug-free stuffed stuff. But the program is a fee-based, self-supporting enterprise, according to state health officials.

Fitch's $10 million, by the way, comes out to $232,000 in actual money spent per year, and 60 percent to 80 percent of that, officials estimate, is paid by out-of-state firms.

Fitch's heart is in the right place, you might say. You might say that about all the candidates. If only their brains would join in the festivities.

It may be a little unfair to resurrect golden oldies, but Kilgore has done as much in a new TV ad. The announcer, who has one of those voices familiar from every campaign cycle, sonorously states, "It's about experience, the experience to take a stand on tough issues -- abolishing parole for violent criminals . . ."

Okay, stop right there. Tough stands. Abolishing parole. Violent criminals. That's a throwback to George Allen's administration, in which Kilgore was secretary of public safety.