Perriello: Lower unemployment key to re-election

“For all the discussion of other issues, I think the thing that affects people most is whether they have jobs,” he said in an interview with The News & Advance editorial board last Tuesday. “If we’ve
stopped the bleeding and people believe that we’ve put us on a path to
rehabilitation, I think people will appreciate that. If they feel we’ve
missed the chance to do that, I think they’ll send us packing.”

Perriello, considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the upcoming mid-term elections, said it was time for Congress to pass a jobs bill and hoped the Massachusetts election would be a “wake up
call” for Washington.

“It seems to me when you’re losing working-class Democrats, it’s not because of their views about health care reform, it’s because they’re scared as can be about the economy and they don’t see us doing enough
on that,” he said. “I think that’s a pretty decent litmus test for
judging us right now in the midst of a great recession.”

“Both political parties, in my mind, have been too close to the financial lending institutions and feel like, if we just shore those guys up, then somehow everything else will solve itself. That’s not an
economic development strategy. It’s not a jobs strategy.”

Tuesday’s election of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to the Senate seat long held by liberal lion Ted Kennedy has been interpreted by many as a vote against the health care reform bill. Perriello’s vote
last year in favor of the House version of the bill has drawn ire from
the conservative swaths of his district and made him a target of local
Tea Party coalitions.

There are now seven people jockeying for the Republican nomination to challenge Perriello in November, along with a smattering of possible third-party candidates.

State Sen. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, appears to be the frontrunner for the Republican nomination although many grassroots activists complain he’s not conservative enough. Hurt, a former state delegate, was one of
17 Republicans who broke ranks in 2004 and voted for the tax increase
that ended that session’s budget stalemate.

Perriello, who said last week he didn’t care who he ended up facing in November, said he felt his Republican opponents were grappling with a very real sense of “civil war or strife.”

“I will say it’s a lot more enjoyable to be on the side of the campaign where I basically get to focus on doing my job,” he said. “That’s not to be naive, because obviously I have to raise money and
all that, but the better I do my job the better my chances are.”

He said he hoped his constituents saw him as a representative who has worked hard, delivered results and been an independent voice in Congress.

Perriello, who was appointed to serve on the House Democratic Caucus’s job creation task force last month, said it was time for Congress to pass a jobs bill. He said a good bill would rely on
existing money rather than borrowing; provide for direct or expedited
lending to small business; and make a significant investment in
infrastructure with a focus on “game-changers” that will give
communities new competitive edges.

Perriello said he’d like to see the unemployment rate driven back below 10 percent, but couldn’t hazard a guess as to how likely that was to occur.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “I’m not even trying to be coy. I would say it’s probably a coin flip.”

“But I think it’s not unrelated to what we do over the next few months,” he added. “I think if the president is willing to do something serious in the State of the Union about jobs, if we’re willing to start
getting the lending going one way or another, by hook or crook, then
Americans will do the rest. We really are that much better than other
people at innovating and entrepreneurship. But we’ve got to get that
out there.”

The 5th District was averaging about 16 percent unemployment in November 2009, the most recent period for which data is available, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Joblessness among the 22 different localities that make up the district ranged from a low of 4.6 percent in Albemarle County to a high of 20 percent in Martinsville.