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28th senate race pollard vs. stuart Politics personal in Senate race candidates for 28th senate seat

October 27, 2007 12:36 am

When Debe Fults starts telling Richard Stuart the problems children with disabilities face in public schools, he knows exactly what she's talking about.

Stuart, running as a Republican for the open 28th state Senate seat, has a child with special needs and, as a prosecutor, has seen others come through the court system after they lash out from frustration and misunderstanding.

So a campaign stop at the disAbility Resource Center in Fredericksburg, less than two weeks before Election Day, is a personal stop as well.

Stuart talks passionately to Fults, the center's director, about the frustrations he has with schools and how they often take the wrong approach with special-needs children.

"You have to deal with those children differently," Stuart adds. "It's a different approach. You pay now or pay later.

"Hopefully I'll be in the Senate and able to [help]," he adds on his way out the door. "I'm obviously a supporter of what you all do."

On the other end of the district, earlier on the same day, Democrat Albert Pollard Jr.'s stops at the Lancashire Convalescent and Rehabilitation Center.

It's full of the chatter everyone from a small town has heard before: Who were your people? I remember you as a kid. Where did you grow up? Do you know so-and-so?

"If you're a Gaskins, you can't run too far from Weems," Pollard tells one woman, who was a Gaskins, from Weems.

Some residents recognize him from campaign mailers, others remember him or his family from years ago. One woman even got a call from Pollard earlier that morning--he was calling voters his campaign had identified as undecided.

"I'm the one who said we liked you," the woman reassures him.

Earlier, in the Southern States store in Kilmarnock to buy ties to fasten campaign signs, hometown connections are also evident. Everyone wants to talk about the drought or the new, just-opened Wal-Mart.

Pollard greets Orrie Lee Smith, who has been a waterman for 57 years, and who had urged Pollard to introduce his first bill back when Pollard was a state delegate.

He tells Pollard this is the worst year for crabbing that he's ever seen. His wife says farmers get drought assistance but watermen don't, even as their catch vanishes. They reminisce about a time when crabbing earned you more money, and they wish Pollard well.

Arthur Roberts, president of Bay Etching and Printing in Lancaster, has a story about Pollard.

Pollard was once a partner in the company, and at a trade show held at a hotel, he put a sample glass and a flier in front of every guest's door. Roberts says it was a risk he wouldn't have dared take, but it paid off in new orders, and it's an example of why he supports Pollard.

"Albert has the courage to do what needs to be done," Roberts says. "This is the first time I've ever felt it was necessary to personally get involved in a campaign."

A hundred-some miles away at Hilldrup Moving and Storage on U.S. 1 near Quantico, Charles McDaniel has invited Stuart to speak to his employees. But McDaniel also wants to speak to Stuart about business.

McDaniel wants a good business climate in Virginia, and some transportation solutions to help his trucks stuck in Northern Virginia traffic, which he says is "killing us."

He wants lawmakers with "common sense," McDaniel says, and he thinks Stuart will be one.

"We need people who can get things done," he adds. "If you get things done, come on back."

His son, Charles W. McDaniel, the company's president, agrees.

"It is a critical time to have the right people," he says. "We can't keep fighting. I'm sick and tired of it. I don't care whether they're Republican or Democrat."

Stuart thinks they're right. He says the state's problems aren't just Republican or Democrat and that it's important to work across party lines. He likens governing to marriage--you have to compromise.

"You've got a lot of folks in Richmond who believe it's their way or the highway," Stuart says. "Life doesn't work like that."

Bipartisan compromise is part of Pollard's campaign, as well. In fact, the two men aren't that far apart on a number of issues. Once upon a time, in fact, Stuart even donated to one of Pollard's delegate campaigns.

But now Pollard and Stuart are locked in one of the state's most hotly contested elections. The retirement of 30-year incumbent Sen. John Chichester makes the 28th an open seat, which would always make it a hard-fought election.

But other dynamics are at play as well; Republicans hold only a small majority in the state Senate, and Democrats see an opportunity to retake a majority by winning just a few more seats. This is one they've got their eye on, and one the Republicans don't want to lose. So thousands upon thousands of dollars have been pouring into Stuart's and Pollard's campaign accounts from the state parties and leadership PACs. A lot of that money has gone to pay for increasingly negative mail and ads from both sides.

But strident fliers and ads don't a victory make, especially in a district that stretches from part of Fauquier County all the way down the Northern Neck. It encompasses all of fast-growing Stafford County, where neither Stuart nor Pollard were well-known before this race, and the rural Northern Neck, where both men are from (Stuart from Westmoreland County, Pollard from Lancaster County).

So they're both campaigning hard, and driving a lot, to knock on doors that are well over 100 miles apart. Pollard says he bought a hybrid car at the end of March, expecting to be putting a lot of miles on it--it's got 17,839 miles on it now. Stuart notes he put 350 miles on his own car in just one day of campaigning. Pollard has been spending weeknights at the home of a volunteer campaign worker in Stafford to campaign in that county during the week, then comes home and campaigns on the Northern Neck on the weekends.

Stuart has been bouncing between the two ends of the district, often rising at 3:30 a.m. to campaign at VRE lots and slug lines, and not getting home till 11 p.m. He says he hasn't had a day off in a month.

"I want to win," Stuart said.

Pollard's polling indicates to him that he's doing well, he says.

"It feels pretty good out there," he tells Roberts at the engraving company.

Stuart says he doesn't poll the way Pollard does. But it feels pretty good out there to him, too.

"I go with what my gut tells me," Stuart says. "My gut tells me that we're doing really well."