Perriello For Congress

By MEGAN HARRIS
FARMVILLE - Tom Perriello, the Fifth District Democratic candidate for Congress, made a stop in the area on Wednesday, March 12 to share his campaign issues and meet with the people.

Perriello, a national security analyst who has spent time in areas such as Darfur and Afghanistan, has been campaigning since Labor Day and offi-cially locked up the nomination in recent days.

“Like many people of my generation, I felt called by my faith from a very early age to go into direct service work,” said Perriello who is running against Republican incumbent Virgil Goode. “So, we went right into teaching in schools and working on humanitarian efforts…For myself, I started working on issues related to jobs and the en-vironment and felt called to move to West Africa.”

Perriello said that he wasn’t sure at first how he would make a difference overseas.

“Peace is a good thing, but justice is what we wanted,” said Perriello regarding his time spent working in other countries.

When he came back to the United States he was immediately struck by the potential to solve problems here.

“If we can solve problems in places like Sierra Leone,” Perriello described, “we sure as heck be able to find a solution to a jobs crisis and part of what I started to do here was getting people to start talking to each other. We had stopped talking to each other. So I started doing a lot of faith-based organizing…to talk about issues. To talk about how we could find moral and economic solutions to some of these problems.”

Perriello explained that cur-rently there is “a moment” in American politics where voters aren’t concerned about “if you have a D or an R after your name but if you are somebody that can solve problems.”

“The biggest division right now in our politics is results versus partisanship,” Perriello noted. “…It doesn’t come along that often but I think this is just one of those chances where we can do it better.”

In regards to economic development in the surrounding ru-ral counties, Perriello said, “We’ve gotten our priorities a little backwards. I think we’ve thought about what works for the people who are already benefiting the most before we think about how we can create opportunities for those who are struggling.”

He later went on to add, “…I think one of the mistakes that we’ve made in the past is assuming that we are one factory away from solving all of our problems. We need to invest in our work force.”
According to Perriello, the rural areas need to be aware that the new energy economy is the future.

“It is happening now in Europe, India, and China and we’ve been asleep at the switch,” he noted. “…This is going to be the job engine particularly for rural areas in the future to come.”

Perriello also supports healthcare improvements, education, job training, national security, and oil independence.

“When you look at the health care crisis it is not just the 47 million Americans that don’t have health care it is the 300 million of us who are part of a broken system where we are paying too much and waiting too long…,” he explained.

In regards to the geographically large Fifth District, some people feel their voice is not heard amongst larger counties, towns and cities.

Perriello touched on that concern and said, “If we can’t figure out a way to convince Farmville, Martinsville, Char-lottesville, and Danville that we’re going to rise and fall to-gether then we sure as heck aren’t going to be able to do that across our whole country…We can step up and compete in the global economy, it is not as difficult as defeating Fascism.”

The diverse district is “sacred” to Perriello, he said.

“Waking up in an area where people are struggling and have been struggling for generations, talking to former factory workers, talking to farmers who are trying to find the next crop, and then you are meeting with the chamber of commerce and peo-ple who are doing real well, then you are talking to folks who are trying to fix our schools and have incredibly brilliant ideas, and then in the next instance you are talking to frustrated parents who are complaining about the education their kids aren’t getting. In a district this diverse, the range of problems that we have to solve, that we can solve, is just tremendous. I think that is why we need a new generation coming in…,” he described.

Also, a popular subject such as automobile gasoline affects the campaign trail as well.

“Gas prices are very real,” said Perriello who travels anywhere from 500-700 miles a week...”

He has visited 17 counties in the last three weeks. “Farmers need to serve as freedom fight-ers from foreign oil.”

Perriello also believes that the Baby Boomer Generation can be a large opportunity for local school systems.

“There is a large number of people retiring that are potentially ready for another career and can consider a second career in teaching. It is going to take some out-of-the-box thinking but the support is there to do it,” he noted.

Rural counties need voca-tional technology opportunities, he also explained in regards to education for those who aren’t afforded the opportunity to go to college.

After Perriello received his law degree from Yale University he began working in Liberia and Sierra Leone, which were rav-ished with civil wars. There he worked with amputees and pro-democracy groups and played a significant role in the peace process.

Later, he became a special advisor for the International Prosecutor when the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor was forced from power.

“Without firing a shot,” said Perriello regarding the process that was mainly due to open communication. “When you get people together to talk to each other, often you find the solutions are there, if they would just sit down and talk with each other.”

The Perriello campaign already has offices located in Franklin County and Charlottesville with one opening soon in Danville.

He told The Herald on Wednesday, that an office in Farmville is also on the radar and should be opening this summer as well as the imple-mentation of a fellowship program in different counties to involve universities and colleges in the campaigning process and voter education.