Rob Wittman for Re-election

Less than one year ago, the 1st District Republicans held a convention to nominate a successor to the late Jo Ann Davis.  That convention nominated then-Delegate Rob Wittman.  I was not happy.  Wittman’s only vote of substance at the time was a vote (actually, three votes) in favor of HB3202, the transporation tax hike of 2007.  It was a sign to me that in Washington, he would tend to follow the leadershihp even when it was making mistakes, and pay little attention to the size of government and the burden it placed on the Virginia taxpayer.

Well, this week, the House voted not once, but twice on a massive bailout that was largely driven by a panic on Wall Street that infected Henry Paulson; Paulson spread the contagion throughout all Washington, including in the Congressional GOP leadership.

If you had asked me and my fellow Wittman critics at that convention to predict how he would have voted on this, it would have taken any of us fifteen seconds to give you an answer – and that’s only if I or they paused to take a breath.  We would have been certain that Wittman would have followed the leadership.

Well, we would have been (and I was) 100% wrong.  Much to my pleasant surprise (shock, really), Wittman opposed the bailout, not once, but twice.

The Paulson bailout was HB3202 times a thousand (almost literally).  It was easily the most important series of votes Wittman has ever cast as an office-holder, and it will likely be the most important series of votes on economic issues that he will ever cast.  He sent a signal to each and every one of us – and it wasn’t the signal I had expected.

He told us he listened; he told us he had learned; he had (truly, not in the faux-lefty way the Dems use this term) grown.

I live in Spotsylvania County, which is shared by Wittman and Eric Cantor.  If you were to tell me last week that I’d be far, far happier to be on the 1st District side than the 7th District side, I’d have laughed bitterly.  Yet when push came to shove, Cantor had compromised himself (for whatever reasons, some even understandable) while Rob Wittman had staked out the high ground.

As I said when Wittman cast his first no vote, Monday was the first day since Mrs. Davis died that I was proud of my Member of Congress.  Today, Wittman reinforced that pride, and that trust.

For that reason, because he did the right thing, and refused to buckle – even as more than two-dozen of his fellow Republicans did - I hereby endorse Rob Wittman for re-election.

Rob Wittman has earned the privilege of another term representing me.  I sincerely hope my fellow Virginians in the 1st District feel the same way, and from now on, I’ll make the effort to convince them.