COVERING the local delegates' races this year made me long for the 2000 race. Not because 2000 was a cliffhanger, but because the two candidates clearly engaged each other on the issues.
In the race for the 58th District House of Delegates seat, however, this didn't seem to happen this year. Republican Rob Bell and Democrat Charles Martin campaigned like two ships in the night. The fact that the candidates pursued divergent issues made this election a test of party strength, not viewpoints.
The 58th district was an entirely new creation this election year, made of pieces of Albemarle, Green, Fluvanna and Orange Counties. Although there was no past record of voter behavior as a district, the General Assembly put together Republican pieces of other districts, making it most likely Republican.
Paul Harris, a Republican Delegate, was expected to become the member from this district until he received an opportunity to go to Washington as a federal court appointee and decided to make the move. This situation left an open seat without even a presumptive incumbent, thus introducing some uncertainty.
The Republican candidate who eventually declared victory, Orange County prosecutor Rob Bell, emphasized low taxes as the centerpiece issue of his campaign. Bell specifically has run as opposing a raise in property taxes by the Albermarle County Board of Supervisors. According to Bell's campaign coordinator, Chris Winslow, the campaign chose taxes as an issue both because of the weak economy and because they felt the Albemarle issue was a winner.
In a state where taxes always have been an issue, this makes sense. Yet there also are weaknesses in this issue that the Democratic candidate Charles Martin did not exploit. Winslow admits that phasing out the car tax could become a problem for Republicans in the next legislative session, but Martin's campaign literature only mentions "ending gridlock in Washington."
Kisha Petticolas, the campaign manager for Martin, admitted, "taxes are always a hot button issue," but felt it more important to stay on message because she didn't see taxes as critical. Though staying on message is important, if Martin didn't plan to raise taxes, and he doesn't seem to, then it doesn't hurt to just throw the line out to pacify a Republican district.
On the other hand, Bell did not devote much time to Martin's key issue, education. Petticolas points out that education has polled well as an issue with both parties. This might seem like party bias, except that Earley also made education an important part of his gubernatorial campaign, suggesting that this issue probably had some mileage with Republicans.
Bell may have backed off the education issue because Martin, a five-year veteran of the Albemarle School Board and 10-year veteran of the county Board of Supervisors, had more experience on the issue. But the fact that Virginians are discussing education on the state level makes the issue an important one to discuss.
The voters of the 58th district deserved to hear a substantive debate about education. Martin agreed with Warner's objective of strengthening vocational education, arguing that many Virginians will never go to college and shouldn't "get the short end of the stick," in Petticolas' words. This is a particularly important issue for rural Central Virginians, no matter what their party affiliation.
If Bell felt that he needed to emphasize the tax issue, he still could have done so in the context of education. Bell could have come up with plans to help education without large budget increases, or he could have endorsed Earley's plan outright.
Because the candidates didn't directly address each other's issues, voters were left with choices of party affiliation or choosing candidates based merely on whether or not they addressed certain issues, not the specific positions on those issues. Although there is nothing wrong with people deciding to vote a straight party ticket, this should happen because a person feels one party has the right positions on important issues.
A party should not win votes just by pronouncing magic words like "taxes" or "education." Candidates who want to set themselves up as consensus builders don't need to shy away from potentially charged issues. Instead, they need to show they can tackle hot-button issues for the other party.
Bell won not because he won a clash of issues with Martin, but because he brought out Republican voters who responded to the tax issue. When two candidates don't clash on the issues, the electorate suffers from the lack of debate. As a result, Bell will enter the House of Delegates with an unclear mandate for action.
(Elizabeth Managan's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at emanagan@cavalierdaily.com.)
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