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Pollard, Stuart vie for open 28th District Senate seat Date published: 10/27/2007
BY CHELYEN DAVIS
When Debe Fults starts telling Richard Stuart the problems children with disabilities face in public schools, he knows exactly what she's talking about. Stuart, running as a Republican for the open 28th state Senate seat, has a child with special needs and, as a prosecutor, has seen others come through the court system after they lash out from frustration and misunderstanding. So a campaign stop at the disAbility Resource Center in Fredericksburg, less than two weeks before Election Day, is a personal stop as well. Stuart talks passionately to Fults, the center's director, about the frustrations he has with schools and how they often take the wrong approach with special-needs children. "You have to deal with those children differently," Stuart adds. "It's a different approach. You pay now or pay later. "Hopefully I'll be in the Senate and able to [help]," he adds on his way out the door. "I'm obviously a supporter of what you all do." POLLARD MAKES HOMETOWN CONNECTIONSOn the other end of the district, earlier on the same day, Democrat Albert Pollard Jr.'s stops at the Lancashire Convalescent and Rehabilitation Center. It's full of the chatter everyone from a small town has heard before: Who were your people? I remember you as a kid. Where did you grow up? Do you know so-and-so? "If you're a Gaskins, you can't run too far from Weems," Pollard tells one woman, who was a Gaskins, from Weems. Some residents recognize him from campaign mailers, others remember him or his family from years ago. One woman even got a call from Pollard earlier that morning--he was calling voters his campaign had identified as undecided. "I'm the one who said we liked you," the woman reassures him. Earlier, in the Southern States store in Kilmarnock to buy ties to fasten campaign signs, hometown connections are also evident. Everyone wants to talk about the drought or the new, just-opened Wal-Mart. Pollard greets Orrie Lee Smith, who has been a waterman for 57 years, and who had urged Pollard to introduce his first bill back when Pollard was a state delegate.
Date published: 10/27/2007
It's incredible that people attempt to discredit someone by suggesting that the eye isn't seeing something sincere. Mr. Stuart is by "All" accounts a caring person for anyone in need. He has shown these qualities throughout is life and this campaign. We need more people like him in government.
The first photo of Stuart looks like one of Bush's staged photos. Was he afraid to actually touch the individual in the bed? Maybe next time he should wait to have the picture snapped after he has actually entered the room or did he enter the room at all?
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