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Local What’s Up, Dog?
‘Fed Up With All of You’
CANINE MARINE MASCOT Lance Cpl.
A bellwether district in Va. is chock full of disaffected voters
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MIKE LICHT (FOR EXPRESS)
Rich Anderson, a Republican who represents 80,000 residents of Prince William County in the Virginia legislature, knocks on doors seven days a week. Knock-knock: “I’m fed up with all of you,” says Tony Smathers, a retired research physicist at the Naval Research Lab. Knock-knock: “It must really suck to be a Republican right now,” says a federal worker who, truth be told, is a Republican herself. These voters will help choose a new governor in two weeks, and they are gearing up to send a message about the most recent horror show in Washington. At many doors, voters tell Anderson that they plan to hold his party and its candidate for governor, Ken Cuccinelli, accountable for the D.C. follies. Anderson winces and explains that Virginia does business differently from the jokers in Washington. At some doors, there’s a grudging nod, maybe even a thin smile. But at many, this genial state delegate is the convenient guy to vent at. Thirty-five miles from downtown D.C., Anderson’s turf includes Virginia’s most reliable political barometer: the Coles Magisterial District, which voted for the winning candidate, no matter his party or philosophy, in a dozen statewide elections in a row. People here voted for Barack Obama, twice, for George W. Bush, twice, for gubernatorial candidates Bob McDonnell, Timothy Kaine, Mark Warner and James Gilmore, and for Senate candidates Kaine, James Webb, Mark Warner and John Warner. So the men who want to be governor — Cuccinelli, the state attorney general, and his opponent, Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman — need to know: What
DAYNA SMITH (FOR THE WASHINGTON POST)
Pr. William County, Va.
Chesty XIV enjoys the weather last month during the 2013 Barracks Row Fall Festival on Capitol Hill .
Rich Anderson talks to Terri Hoerer, who is so fed up with the gubernatorial candidates she plans to vote for the independent — whose name she couldn’t recall.
“We’re looking at the governor’s race, and we’re going ‘Yuck! What? Those are the choices?’ ” — SHEIL A MITCHELL , A RESIDENT OF THE COLES DISTRICT
are they thinking in Coles? Answer: They cannot stand you. In interviews with more than 40 voters in Prince William’s Coles District, one — one — expressed actual enthusiasm for either candidate. What unites Coles residents now is their desire to send a message that the elected representatives in Washington don’t represent them. “We will vote, but we will cringe,” says Sheila Mitchell. Four years ago, when McAuliffe first ran for governor, Mitchell looked him over. “I thought, ‘God, he doesn’t look like you can trust him,’ ” she
says. “Since then, research has shown I don’t think I can trust him. But then I look at Cuccinelli, and it’s, ‘Gosh, you don’t like women much, do you?’ ” As Anderson moved from door to door, reminding constituents that he, too, is on next month’s ballot — running against Democrat Reed Heddleston, a financial consultant and retired Air Force colonel — he did hear about the economy. But mostly people wanted to talk about the dysfunction in Washington. At Tony Smathers’ door, Anderson hears an earful about the shutdown and about Cuccinelli’s criticism of a university professor’s research on global warming. Anderson replies: “This is a moderate district, and I’m a moderate guy. I believe when the majority has spoken, the issue is settled. We’ve got to find a civil way forward.” Smathers isn’t hearing it. “You’re still one of them,” he says. MARC FISHER (THE WASHINGTON POST )
Backstory Voters in the Coles Magisterial District in Prince William County are people of all walks, living in all kinds of settings. The county is part winding rural byways, part densely packed townhouse clusters, part cookie-cutter estate homes. As more northerners, Asians, Hispanics and blacks have moved into new developments in Coles, the pattern of picking winners has persisted, a reflection of Virginia’s overall shift toward a more ethnically and politically diverse electorate. That change has turned a solidly Republican state into one with two Democrats in the U.S. Senate and two Democrats among the last three governors. (T WP)
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