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Kay Slaughter
The reelection rate among incumbents in Congress is alarmingly high, so voters of the 7th Congressional District in Virginia may be making a choice next month we could be stuck with for a long time. We frankly don’t buy claims by both Republican George Allen and Democrat Kay Slaughter that they support term limitations. It’s a populist issue that sounds like the kind of campaign promise politicians were born to break. We’re not even convinced that term limitations would make for a better legislature and not simply an entrenched bureaucracy.
Mr. Allen is the heavy favorite, being a Republican in a conservative district, but recent polls suggest more strength for Ms. Slaughter than one might have thought. Some of that is name confusion with the retiring incumbent, some is support from the silent Prochoice majority, and some, we think, is because she is simply a better candidate.
Voters in this district ought to be focused on the environment, for if we fail to preserve our uniquely beautiful countryside, later generations will never forgive us. Ms. Slaughter is an environmental advocate, no newcomer on the save-the-Earth bandwagon. Mr. Allen’s weaknesses on environmental issues stands in marked contrast to Ms. Slaughter’s solid record. The last thing the Capitol needs is another friend of big business who would fight long-due clean-up efforts in the name of The Economy. The cost of doing nothing would be paid right here in places like Rappahannock, Fauquier and Madison, and we have watched more than one Republican politician sit idly by while natural resources are exploited. Mr. Allen gives us no reason to think he would be different.
The campaign has hardly been, in our view, conducted with much grace. Both camps have resorted to negative campaigning, most recently taking the moronic “Taxpayers’ Pledge” that they won’t raise taxes. In general, Mr. Allen’s campaign has engaged in more name calling, sloganeering and other negative tactics. But we don’t exonerate Ms. Slaughter. Both candidates seem to be getting some poor political advice, and we wish we had more time to examine their supporters in greater depth. With the lickety-split nature of this campaign, however, that hasn’t been possible. That issue is a wash.
On taxes, Mr. Allen has lost much of his natural advantage as a conservative because Ms. Slaughter’s record during one term on the Charlottesville City Council has been marked
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