Culpeper’s Hartke pounding pavement in race vs. Cantor

By Allison Brophy Champion

Published: August 13, 2008

On Wednesday she was in the town of Orange for a covered-dish picnic sponsored by the Orange County Democratic Committee.

Tonight, congressional candidate Anita Hartke, a Democrat from Culpeper County, hosts a reception at the historic Jefferson Hotel in Richmond from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. Hartke, a first-time candidate, is vying to unseat Seventh District U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, a Richmond Republican, in the November election.

The daughter of the late Vance Hartke, a three-term senator from Indiana, Hartke, 48, recently weighed in on an issue everyone is talking about — energy solutions and gas prices.

“Mr. Cantor is calling for offshore drilling as the solution to our energy crisis,” Hartke wrote in a news release last week.

“I do not believe my fellow Virginians want to go to Virginia Beach for vacations and look at oil rigs off the coast,” she said. “Nor do I believe they want oil spills to destroy those beaches. Drilling is not the only answer to this energy problem.”

Instead, Hartke said, she supports tax incentives for renewable energy sources like solar and wind and the formation of an emergency energy task force, “a massive national effort” to research and develop “clean renewable energies.”

Hartke also said she would support a $1,000 tax credit to help offset pain at the pump for low- and middle-income families. She supports the creation of an oversight board of oil companies and the creation of “green-collar jobs” by investing in alternative energy.

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or