Coalfield Election

Tomorrow (January 3rd) is the special election in the 3rd Legislative district of Virginia, which encompasses part of Russell County, part of Tazewell County, and all of Buchanan County. The Democrat, Dan Bowling (pictured above), is a great candidate. He works at SVCC as an Engineering Professor. He's on the Tazewell County Board of Supervisors. He wants to fund the fiber optic line in order to attract new, high-tech jobs to the area. He will fight to build the Coalfields Expressway and work to make teachers' salaries more on the level with the rest of the country and to increase school funding.

The Republican, Shea Cook (pictured above), is running a coattails campaign. The only strange thing, however, is that he's not running on the coattails of Jerry Kilgore, George Allen, John Warner, or George W. Bush. He's running on Jackie Stump's coattails. I've heard radio ads over and over on WMEV 93.9 out of Marion saying "Shea Cook will continue to uphold Jackie's conservative principles," or something similar to that (By the way, I take issue with the ad because he seems to have hired people with fake oe slightly exaggerated accents to read the lines).

He says he wants to cut the "red tape" to help businesses grow. That's likely a way of saying he won't support unions (like the UMWA) that need to strike to guarantee fair wages and safe condidtions. Real nice, Mr. Cook. Real nice.

But, getting back to what I was planning on saying; It's a pretty bad sign when the Republican running in an open-seat election has to try to connect himself to the outgoing Democrat. Could it be because he know's he couldn't win if he preaches the anti-union, anti-worker idealogy of the Virginia Republican Party? Nothing disgusts me more than people who don't support unions, and, in turn, don't support the working man.

I'm not sure how many people in Tazewell/Russell/Buchanan Counties read this site, but I encourage all who do to get out and vote for Dan Bowling for House of Delegates!

-Neal