Just Elected, Wittman Must Defend His Seat

By Kristen Mack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 30, 2008

Ten-month congressman Robert J. "Rob" Wittman (R) has been running for office virtually nonstop for nearly two years.

Wittman won the 1st District seat in December in a rare 30-day special election after Rep. Jo Ann S. Davis (R) died of breast cancer in October 2007.

"It has been constant motion," Wittman said of entering the special election a month after being reelected to the House of Delegates and now seeking a full congressional term.

"We've gone all over the district to get to know folks. I'm working hard to understand these . . . distinct areas, which have lots of things in common but are still unique," he said of the far-flung district, which includes all or part of 18 counties, including Prince William and Fauquier, and five cities.

He faces Democratic businessman Bill S. Day and Libertarian accountant Nathan D. Larson.

Wittman, 49, a former shellfish sanitation field director for the state Health Department, has held elective offices for more than two decades, starting in Westmoreland County. He won 61 percent of the vote in the reliably Republican district last year.

Most of Wittman's bills that have passed during his abbreviated congressional tenure have been admittedly ceremonial, he said. But he has drafted legislation on issues important to the district, such as reconstituting the transportation trust fund and cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.

"Being in the minority, we don't get to have our bills heard with the frequency the majority does," said Wittman, who serves on the Armed Services and Natural Resources committees. "But we are greasing the skids to get those things going."

The biggest vote he has taken was on the $700 billion package to stabilize banks and financial markets. The plan calls for buying bad assets from faltering financial institutions. Although many lawmakers changed their no vote after the initial legislation failed in the House, Wittman voted against it twice.

"I had a number of concerns about it," he said. "We had other opportunities to address this without having to buy securities and place that risk on taxpayers. It didn't go far enough to hold companies accountable."

Day said he would have voted for the second version of the bill while "holding my nose, because of the $130 billion worth of sweeteners," referring to tax breaks that were extended to special interests, including Puerto Rican rum makers and the manufacturers of children's wooden arrows.

During his block walking, Day said he finds that 98 percent of the time, people say the issue most important to them is the economy. That cuts across party lines, he said.

Even though the 1st District is one of Virginia's most conservative, Day said he hopes the momentum from the races at the top of the ticket -- Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and U.S. Senate candidate Mark R. Warner -- will help his chances.

Day, 56, did not get into the race until this summer, after Democrat Keith Hummel of Montross withdrew from the campaign amid questions about his personal finances.

"The infrastructure was in place from the coordinated Obama-Warner campaigns," Day said. "They had 12 offices [in the district] when I stepped in. What they didn't have was a congressional candidate. With that kind of field program, I didn't lose a bit of time."

Day, who has a master's in business administration from Harvard, was a home builder in the 1970s and then a mental health counselor for 10 years and owns two office buildings in Prince William. He lives in Fauquier, just outside Warrenton.

One of his top priorities would be to reduce the federal budget deficit, starting with repealing tax breaks to people with incomes of more than $250,000 annually. That group includes him.

Day, who also has oil and gas holdings in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, said "giveaways" to oil and gas companies should be eliminated.

"We don't need tax breaks to give people the incentive to explore for oil and gas," he said. Instead, he would use some of the money to create incentives for alternative energy research.

Day ran unsuccessfully last year for the 31st District House of Delegates seat against Republican incumbent L. Scott Lingamfelter (R-Prince William). Day got 44 percent of the vote in that race.

Larson, 28, a self-employed certified public accountant, lives in Catlett.

He got his name on the ballot through a petition drive. Not working at the time, he stood in strip mall parking lots 10 hours a day for five weeks to collect enough valid signatures of registered voters.

"You pretty much lose all fear of rejection when you do that kind of thing," Larson said.

He's running, he said, because the "major parties don't have new ideas to turn the economy around" and because he thinks the private sector can provide better services than government.

"We should trust the capitalist system," he said, citing the potential to privatize highways and implement congestion pricing. He also said he wants to hire private police companies, defense agencies and dispute resolution organizations to do government's traditional job of protecting the public.

Larson did not support the government bailout. "If we bail these companies out once, we are setting them up to think we will bail them out again," he said. "We should allow the market to correct itself without interference. A capitalist system only works if businesses are allowed to fail. If we prop up the businesses that are supposed to fail, it sets the stage for another crisis."