Independent faces uphill battle in race
By MICHAEL NEIBAUER
Journal staff writer
Frank Creel is fighting the good fight, and losing.
The Arlington resident is an independent candidate running on the Constitution Party's ticket against four-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-11th District. Davis defeated his Democratic challenger two years ago by 28 percentage points, but has no major party opponent this year.
``I think it's going as well as can be expected," Creel, 61, said Tuesday. ``He's got a lot of money in his war chest, universal name recognition and I think he's a pretty effective campaigner. People don't take my campaign seriously."
A political novice, Creel estimates 90 percent of district residents don't know he's a candidate. He doesn't live in the 11th District, has raised a couple hundred dollars and has only a few volunteers, mostly high school students he said are ``just doing their homework."
And if taking on a popular congressman wasn't difficult enough, Creel also is playing tug of war for attention in the year of the sales tax referendum, a ballot question he vehemently opposes, but Davis supports.
Creel had no intention of raising the referendum, a regional half-cent sales tax increase for transportation, as an issue during the campaign until Davis endorsed it.
``I think it's Tom Davis who's acting like the political novice, not I," he said. ``It's not even a federal issue, and he federalized it."
Raising the sales tax, Creel said, will create new bureaucracy but not fix Northern Virginia's transportation mess. The answer lies in smarter growth, staggered work hours and strengthened local government zoning power.
``I have a chance," Creel said. ``I think this is going to demonstrate the power of single-issue politics."
Larry J. Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, said the referendum might be Creel's only opportunity to garner some name recognition and send a message. If he can connect with the anti-referendum forces, he could, at least, get some votes.
``He has absolutely zero chance of winning, or even coming close," Sabato said. ``If you're a third-party candidate in this kind of environment, you better try to ride a wave to shore. And the biggest wave in Northern Virginia is the tax referendum."
Creel follows the Constitution Party's credos, which are pro-life and include unconditional gun ownership, limited government and elimination of the federal income tax.
Under his proposal, the personal income tax would be phased out over 10 years and replaced with a corporate income tax. The corporate tax would then be eliminated after another decade and substituted with ``the original constitutional order," a reliance on custom duties and apportionment to the states.
It is a workable proposal, Creel said, as long as it is accomplished in conjunction with a forced downsizing of the federal government.
``I'm an incrementalist," he said. ``I understand you can't administer shocks to the economy."
Creel also opposes a war with Iraq. He said it would have ``long-term catastrophic political consequences" and domino into a war with the Middle East, one the United States might be locked into for 100 years.
He retired two years ago from the Department of Commerce after a 27-year career. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkey and served in Vietnam as a rifle platoon leader, for which he earned a Bronze Star.
Davis' campaign, meanwhile, says it is not taking Creel's challenge lightly.
``We're taking our race extremely seriously as we always do," said John Gibson, Davis' campaign manager. ``We have opposition on the ballot, but even if we had no opposition on the ballot, we'd still do mailings."
Davis met Creel once, at last month's Centreville Day Parade. The challenger has asked Davis to debate, but has not yet received a response.
``Tom is a strong believer that once you stop working," Gibson said, ``people take you for granted."
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