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AMERICA--the nation and its parts--suffers mightily from "constellation politics." Just as by a star or two the sky watcher can surmise every twinkling world in Orion or Taurus, so by a position or two the citizen often can predict a politician's views on every issue. The practical result of this linkage is partisan warfare on all fronts and the overbittering of political life. Thus, voters generally should favor candidates whose stars shoot into unexpected directions. On Tuesday that would be Democrats Edd Houck and Albert Pollard.
As it happens, Sen. Houck of Spotsylvania and Del. Pollard of White Stone are the only two candidates for state office in the region with serious competition. (Del. Mark Cole of Spotsylvania, a conservative Republican in a district of the same persuasion, should win in a walk.) Mr. Houck, a 20-year Senate veteran, faces the hurdle of a GOP redistricting plan that made him a stranger to one of every three voters in reconfigured Senate District 17. Mr. Pollard, mean-while, surprised the experts by winning, in a Republican year (1999), the seat for House District 99. However, given the district's leanings--Mr. Pollard is just the third Democrat since the 1970s whom the 99th has anointed for state or national office--he can never set his re-election campaign on cruise control.
While Mr. Houck is no closet Republican--he believes in the power of government to make life better for the mass of citizens, and he has used his position to boost both the public schools and, locally, Mary Washington College--he is off the Democratic reservation in several areas. Although sensibly advocating, along with GOP Sen. John Chichester of Stafford County, a freeze on the phaseout of the car tax until Virginia's economy rebounds, he broke with Democratic Gov. Mark Warner to vote to repeal the estate tax--a patently unfair levy on the already-taxed assets of the dead.
On social issues, Mr. Houck often pitches his bedroll in the Republican camp. He no doubt offended some civil libertarians by sponsoring Virginia's Sex Offender Registry after the horrible Silva-Lisk abduction-murders in his county. His supporters include the NRA, which, unlike many Democrats, he seldom disappoints. The senator even favors legislation that would allow law-abiding Virginians to carry concealed weapons into bars (as a colleague notes, this may be the only way to get an honest drink in some watering holes).
Also, Mr. Houck has served on the board of Dr. Rosario Guanzon-Laserna's excellent abstinence-based pregnancy-prevention program, and, regarding abortion, he has voted against the ghastly "partial birth" method condemned by the American Medical Association and for parental-consent legislation. Edd Houck, in short, is no wind-up ideologue.
Nor is Albert Pollard. In fact, as bridge builders go, he deserves the Golden Gate Award. A committed friend of nature--he is a former Sierra Club director--and of the men and women who draw their sustenance from it, Mr. Pollard has authored bills to sensibly ease harvesting restrictions on oystermen and protect Virginia charter-boat captains from unfair competition by Maryland skippers. Environmental groups and business organizations alike have sung his praises.
Mr. Pollard respects the folkways and values of the Northern Neck and of rural Caroline County--habits of mind that don't fit neatly into the basket of a Beltway politico. While voting against the 2003 state budget because he believed it would have hurt schools, Mr. Pollard also favored the measure allowing holders of concealed-weapons permits to pack heat in restaurants that serve alcohol. Although pro-choice on abortion, he clearly is no enthusiast for the grim procedure: The Virginia Society for Human Life gives him a 75 percent approval rating.
In the political firmament, Mr. Pollard and Mr. Houck are constellations of one. For this reason alone, we endorse them for re-election on Tuesday.
