Ex-NASCAR official eyes Boucher race (Triplett considers 9th District driv)

Tyler Whitley ^ | Jul 11, 2003 | TYLER WHITLEY

[jern]

Southwest Virginia Republicans may be turning to NASCAR to try to wrest the 9th District congressional seat from 21-year Democratic incumbent Rick Boucher.

Kevin Triplett of Abingdon said he is exploring a candidacy and said, if he runs, he will bring NASCAR principles to the congressional race.

[Quicksilver]

SW Virginia BUMP!

[fieldmarshaldj]

The 9th VA has been frustrating for a number of years. The seat trended towards the GOP in the '50s and '60s and sent Bill Wampler until his defeat in '82 (by Boucher) when the 'Rats watched the VA delegation go to 9-1 Republican in 1980 (and the lone 'Rat was more Conservative than nearly all the Republicans) and gerrymandered the seats to take them back. Cross the border into TN-1 and it is uber-Republican, so the 9th remains an aberration held solely due to the appeal of Boucher (and he is WAY too leftist for that seat). We have run promising, but ultimately weak candidates for the seat. The lines drawn by the legislature for the Congressional seats are a disappointment, and Boucher should've been a major target. The delegation ought to be 10-1 GOP (with Bobby Scott being the lone 'Rat). Moran and Boucher have both got to go...

[Kuksool]

In 2001, Rep. Tom Davis (VA-11) floated the idea of putting Oliver North into Boucher's district. After examining their options, VA Pubbies found they could not do that without disrupting the districts of Tom Davis (VA-11) and Frank Wolf (VA-10). In the end, VA Pubbies just made the districts of Tom Davis and Randy Forbes more GOP-friendly.

[fieldmarshaldj]

If Davis, who despite being a RINO, from what I understand has a rather keen mind on redistricting issues, had been bold, he could've drawn himself in with Moran and beaten him (and Davis has strong crossover appeal) and gotten creative with other seats, but he chose to just shore up what they had. I must admit, though, that the North idea seemed a bit far-fetched. I'm not sure how you could've drawn a seat stretching from Northern VA (DC suburbs) where North resides clear to the Cumberland Gap without making it look like some absurd long snake.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"And Scott's seat is winnable also, if we run the right black candidate, like Winsome Earll-Sears. She is receiving high marks from her overwhelmingly Democratic district, that is also majority-minority. If she has such popularity in an urban, black district, she could possibly defeat the anti-American trash, Bobby Scott."

One BIG problem here. Del. Sears chose not to run for a 2nd term (she beat a troubled incumbent) and we won't even HAVE a Republican candidate for her seat to succeed her. Until we could see her capacity to win a 2nd term outright in a Black 'Rat leaning-seat, we'll never know what she is capable of. I think if she runs against Scott, she'll maybe only do a few points better than any other Republican, but probably can't win. Her decision to retire was a serious letdown. :-(

[Old Professer]

Triplett is a former sportswriter for the Bristol Herald Courier and a former publicist for the late driver Dale Earnhardt.

I had me one of them Earnhard battrys a while back; must've left my lights on a hundertt times or more, just couldn't seem to kill that thing; then one day it just up and died.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"In 2001, Rep. Tom Davis (VA-11) floated the idea of putting Oliver North into Boucher's district. After examining their options, VA Pubbies found they could not do that without disrupting the districts of Tom Davis (VA-11) and Frank Wolf (VA-10)."

---

Kuksool, another way of putting would be "VA Republicans got scared and didn't dare try to change Boucher's district. If you take Boucher's district and split it up into three parts, with the southeastern portion being appended with Virgil Goode's district (which, after placing Charlottesville in Cantor's district, would still be strongly Republican), and the central part (around Roanoke) being appended to Goodlatte's district, you could then connect the northwestern portion of Boucher's district with counties on the WV border all the way up to the DC exurbs and create a district that Ollie North could easily win (although I think he would have had to move a bit further away from DC). Since Boucher's base would be split 3 ways, and he would not have represented as much as 40% of the constituents of any of the three GOP districts, he would face insurmountable odds in running for reelection. Creating such districts would in no way endanger Frank Wolf, who would still have a very Republican district. And the way to protect Tom Davis is exactly the way they did it, trading RAT portions of his districts for more Republican portions of Moran's district (which unfortunately would make it almost impossible to defeat Moran or especially a less anti-Semitic RAT replacement, but creating two RAT districts is the only way to create 7 safe GOP districts). So don't believe the VA GOP's canard that "we created as many GOP districts as possible"; what they actually did was adopt an incumbency protection plan, just as was done in New Jersey, Wisconsin and California. Now we're stuck with Boucher until at least 2012, unless we can run a superstar who will wake up southwestern Virginians to the fact that Boucher is way too liberal for his district.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"I'm not sure how you could've drawn a seat stretching from Northern VA (DC suburbs) where North resides clear to the Cumberland Gap without making it look like some absurd long snake."

---

The answer is you can't; the district I described in the previous post does resemble an absurdly long snake. But it would retire Boucher and send Ollie North to Congress, and as such it seems to me to be quite a beneficial snake.

[Corin Stormhands]

Now we're stuck with Boucher until at least 2012, unless we can run a superstar who will wake up southwestern Virginians to the fact that Boucher is way too liberal for his district.

I grew up in that district and worked for the first challenger against Boucher in '84. He's a liberal, but he does take care of his constituents.

And he does it well enough that the coal miners and the rednecks overlook his (lack of) marital status (if you get what I'm saying...)

[AppyPappy]

He's a pro-gun Democrat. That's gold around here.

[Gopher Broke]

Yes, a pro-gun Democrat that is also pro-abortion, pro-high taxes, pro-big govt., pro-homosexual and strongly supports all the other liberal positions..he just happens to be right on 1 issue.

[JohnnyZ]

Her decision to retire was a serious letdown. :-(

Take it up with God. He told her to.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Deja Vu"

Que pasa ?

[fieldmarshaldj]

That is truly annoying that we blew such opportunities. We should've absolutely stuck it to the 'Rats in states where the GOP could draw the lines (especially to offset states like mine, MD, etc.). I still think we could've put Davis and Moran together and created a new DC suburban district entirely. Some 'Rats I spoke to a few years ago said that they actually wouldn't have minded swapping the two.

I'd be mighty surprised if Boucher stays there until 2013, especially if the GOP remains in control of the House. I always kinda hoped that Bill Wampler, Jr. (son of the man Boucher defeated in '82) would avenge his dad's loss. Wampler is currently a State Senator from Bristol.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I wonder whether North would really be interested in a House seat, though. The whole proposition sounded like a bit of a stunt.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Take it up with God. He told her to."

Y'know, I love religiously-grounded pols, truly I do, but is it just me, but when a candidate says our Lord commanded them personally to enter or exit politics, don't you kinda worry ? Well, at least she didn't say He called her on the phone.

[Impy]

She decided to retire because God told her to?

.........
On another note I was suprised that Jay Katzen did so poorly againt Boucher.