2010 was the year of the Tea Party, and ultimately it won Republicans control of the House, where the GOP has been busy trying to dictate what women can do with their vaginas by attacking Planned Parenthood, and have had Tea Party governors like Bob "Governor Ultrasound" McDonnell busy attacking women's rights to make medical decisions for themselves, and the Republicans have been busy with at least 35 tries to restore insurance companies being able to deny pre-existing conditions, not let families keep their children on their health insurance until 26, and they have tried at least 35 times to have health care costs return to going in the wrong direction, and tried 35 times to restore lifetime limits on health coverage. Meanwhile, they cannot even pass a Farm bill, something that hasn't happened in 50 years! while the country faces the worst drought since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. And of course, Republicans won't do anything that actually creates real jobs, because they think that would only help Obama.
Now it's 2012, and we have a chance to have it be the year of the 99%, and the race in Virginia's 7th Congression District could be a microcosm of our fight for the middle class rather than the 1% that the Republicans unapologetically serve. VA-07's congressman is Eric Cantor, who is the second most senior-ranking Republican in the House, and this race is winnable. We have a great candidate in Wayne Powell, who has served his country and who has spent his whole adult life standing up for the people in his district. What better message that the middle class matters than to oust Cantor and replace him with a good Democrat.
Winning in Virginia's 7th Congressional District will be challenging as it has gone Republican in each Presidental race since 1996, and went Republican several times in other important election cycles since 1996, and hasn't had a Democrat in that district since 1971. However, Eric Cantor's record on reproductive rights puts him against the views of the majority of his district, according to a poll done in June, which said
In the poll from from Harrison Hickman obtained exclusively by ThinkProgress, voters say they would support a pro-choice candidate over a candidate who is pro-life by an unexpectedly large margin, 68 percent to 23 percent. The finding comes after intense media coverage of efforts by state Republicans to mandate transvaginal ultrasounds prior to obtaining an abortion, a procedure described by critics as “state-sponsored rape.”
The ThinkProgress article also notes that Cantor has a
100% rating from the National Right to Life Committee.
A PPP poll done in May also shows that Cantor only has a 27% favorable rating among Virginians.
The Democratic challenger to Cantor is Wayne Powell, who is a retired Army Colonel and a lawyer that sticks up for the community. This is what Powell has to say on reproductive rights on his Issues page
Here in Virginia, Cantor’s cronies in the General Assembly have spent the entire year restricting women’s rights, trying to mandate invasive trans-vaginal ultrasounds and the “personhood” amendment that could ban common forms of birth control. I am proud to stand with citizens across Virginia to oppose these ideologically motivated attacks on women’s rights.
As a member of Congress, I will tirelessly fight for women’s rights. Women must be free to make their own health care decisions and they must have access to affordable, accessible medical care such as contraception, without government interference.
It's always nice when a Democrat so clearly makes it known that they wholeheartedly believe in a woman's right to make medical decisions for herself, and speaks out strongly against those who would try to regulate a woman's vagina but hate to regulate banks or gun sales. Given the Harrison Hickman poll, Powell has room to gain support if the people of the Virginia 7th know that he is a pro-choice candidate.
Of course, the people of the Virginia 7th including those around Richmond may also want to know that Eric Cantor supports people making baseless accusations against Muslims. That's right, unlike Speaker Boehner or Senator McCain, Cantor doesn't see anything wrong with what Bachmann is doing. Here is what he told Charlie Rose of CBS News:
ROSE: Do you think Congresswoman Bachmann was out of line? I mean, it does not square with this?
CANTOR: Well, again, I think that if you read some of the reports that have covered the story, I think that her concern was about the security of the country. So that’s about all I know.
So either Cantor is really ignorant of what Bachmann has been alleging, and he's been under a rock and missed all the news coverage of Bachmann or he supports slandering Muslims to the degree where they need to get police protection because some nutjobs threaten them. That is quite shameful.
There are of course other reasons other than the examples that I have given why Powell is a huge improvement over Cantor. Powell on his Issues page speaks for publicly funded elections, eliminating the incentives for corporations to outsource American jobs in addition to his strong support for reproductive rights. Powell also supports doing immigration reform.
There are a few areas where I'd like to hear more like how Powell try to address the very real problem of climate change, and I would like to hear his views on the future of the American space program. From what I've seen, he's a good Democrat, and we should work to see him have a chance to get elected.
Eric Cantor seems to think that government except for the Department of Defense needs to be reduced to nothing. He loves the 1%, and he probably would be more suited to the private sector. Come November, let's make sure he leaves for the the private sector and let's let the government work be done by someone who actually believes that government works well. Let's get Wayne Powell elected to the Virginia 7th.
Wayne Powell's ActBlue page
Direct donation page for Wayne Powell