Tom Herbert (D-72nd) In the RT-D

By: bherring
Published On: 10/1/2007 8:24:09 PM

I totally dropped the ball on this and missed it when it came out, but on Tuesday, Sept. 25 the Times-Dispatch, specifically Tyler Whitley, profiled the race for the 72nd legislative district between Democrat Tom Herbert and Crazy Person Jimmie Massie.  The bent of the piece is certainly that the 72nd is an uphill struggle for any Democrat, Bush winning with 63% and Allen winning in 2006 with 59, but for the Times-Dispatch it was very balanced. 
Whitley reports Massie claims he "would increase classroom spending by $393 million a year without raising taxes," a staggering claim defying logic, unless of course Massie intends to implement an "abuser fee" on bad students.  Massie doesn't explain how he could achieve this, and it appears Whitley didn't pursue it. 

And then, like any discussion of Virginia politics, it moves to the abuser fees, which is one of Massie's (many) serious weaknesses.

Herbert would vote to abolish the controversial new driver fees, which authorize up to $3,000 in penalties for bad driving. Massie said out-of-state drivers need to be penalized and other refinements can be made to the plan, but he would not abolish the fees.

Massie's work with the Family Foundation of Virginia, which he has been actively trying to distance himself from, comes off as fairly benign in the piece.  He's said to be "proud" of his "assocation" (meaning directorship) of the "conservative organization that promotes family values."  It does mention their work promoting their discrimination act that passed last year banning gay marriage that Herbert "opposed... believing it was based on fear rather than reality."  (True that.)  Not surprisingly, Whitley doesn't go into their new campaign to eliminate no-fault divorce, trapping spouses in loveless marriages that can only be ended by mutual consent, based ostensibly on their "Christian" values.

Anyway, check out the article.  It's nice to see the local paper actually starting to report on local issues that matter.  Not just cleavage.

And then take my poll below.  We all know that the opinion page of the RT-D is VERY conservative, but how biased do you think the NEWS coverage is?


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