Virginia Democrat Tom Perriello: Trying to Fight His Way Out of Trouble

It's still a little more than eight weeks to Election Day, a long time in modern politics, and the outcome is far from certain -- but polls out this week have Democrats plenty worried. Among the most concerned is first-term Virginia congressman Tom Perriello, who already knew he was running uphill.

Two years of recession have made it a tough environment for any Democrat in a swing state. But Virginia's 5th Congressional District went Democratic in the 2008 Obama tide by a mere 727 votes -- and so in January 2009, as Tom Perriello took the oath of office, Republicans were already plotting how to recapture a district they had held for six terms.

A new survey released Thursday shows that if the election were held today, Perriello would lose -- and not by a few hundred votes. The poll, sponsored by a Roanoke television station, finds Perriello trails Republican Robert Hurt 61 to 35 percent, a whopping margin that has grown in the six weeks since the previous survey.

Even if this number is artificially high, which one Republican House campaign source told Politics Daily is likely, it is an ominous sign for Virginia Democrats -- and comes at a time when support for Democrats appears to be waning generally around the country. An AP-GfK poll released earlier in the week showed that more Americans with an intense interest in issues such as the economy, unemployment, health care, and the budget deficit strongly disapprove of President Obama's policies. A majority of them say they will vote for the Republican candidate in their local House race.

Just 35 percent of those questioned think the country is headed in the right direction. A Gallup poll released Monday showed Republicans with a 10-point lead over Democrats among registered voters in the upcoming congressional elections. That's the biggest lead for the GOP at this point in a midterm election year since Gallup started doing the poll in 1942 and it's five points higher than in 1994 when the Republicans last took back the House from the Democrats.

Among the most endangered of the Democratic House members is Perriello, and to give himself a fighting chance, he's attempting to keep his distance from the Obama administration. In town hall meetings -- and in a session with a Charlottesville Tea Party group last week -- he stressed his independence from the White House. Recently, in fact, he has been calling for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and chief Obama economic adviser Lawrence Summers to be fired.

Perriello told the 100 Tea Party members gathered at an Arby's restaurant, "My confidence in this team is not there . . . we should shake that up." Replacing Bush administration Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson with Geithner has not really altered economic policy, according to Perriello, but rather, "it's just changing the nameplate on the door."

In an interview following the Tea Party session, Perriello said, "I haven't grandstanded about it, but I have no confidence in them, and Geithner and Summers should go." Perriello says he especially disagrees with Obama administration policy on trade issues. "How f***ing out of touch do you have to be as an economic team?" Perriello asked rhetorically about Geithner and Summers.

The Yale-educated -- both for undergrad and law school -- 35-year-old loves to talk about big ideas, including trade, competitiveness, America's role in the world and the future. Washingtonian magazine's September "Best and Worst of Congress" poll of Democratic congressional staffers ranks the freshman Perriello as the No. 1 "Surprise Standout" in the House.

While he does have a predictably progressive and pro-leadership voting record, he has diverged on votes that are important in his district. He backs gun rights, tobacco, and farming support and voted for the anti-abortion Stupak Amendment to the health care bill.

Perriello, whose Republican challenger is Virginia State Sen. Robert Hurt, says the national media focuses on the stimulus, health care and cap-and-trade votes, all of which he supported, when there are a lot more things that define a member of Congress.

But Brad Todd, a Republican political consultant, says those are exactly the votes that have angered many Americans and could cost members like Perriello their seats. Todd said that internal GOP polling shows the Republican advantage is actually five to 10 points higher than national polling indicates in the most contested districts.

Republicans want to make this a national wave election and referendum on Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Democrats hope their fundraising advantage -- which can buy more television ads -- and emphasis on local issues and strong candidates will help them hold the majority in the House.

Perriello doesn't mention President Obama much these days, but instead points to former President Bill Clinton as a positive model for balancing the budget and offering a road map for how to move forward in the 21st Century.

He calls himself "a Perot Democrat" and says Ross Perot "may have been nuts in the '90's, but he got a lot of things right. I'm not sure we would have a balanced budget without his charts."

"He was also right about the great sucking sound" when it comes to jobs leaving the United States. Like all economic populists, including Perot, Perriello is extremely critical of NAFTA and other free trade agreements which he says have cost U.S. jobs, including employment in his district.

Virginia's 5th District is extremely diverse from the highly educated and relatively affluent Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia and many wealthy retirees, to extremely poor rural towns like Martinsville, which has lost 12,000 jobs over the past few decades and has a 20 percent unemployment rate.

"One of the great questions of our time is – will we save the middle class," Perriello maintains. "If we don't have manufacturing and construction and agriculture we're going to start looking like a Central American economy of the 1980s."

Like every candidate running this year, the two things Perriello hears about on the campaign trail are a fear about jobs, and concern over the budget deficit and growth of government under the Obama administration.

"There are a lot of good people out there who want to support their family and don't have a job. Jobs tops everything, but the deficit is a serious second," he says. He also senses a deep anxiety among his constituents about the country's future and the feeling that America may not be great anymore.

"We've been spending money we don't have for 20 years."