Gilmore energetic in Culpeper stop

By Allison Brophy Champion

Published: July 30, 2008

A dozen supporters greeted U.S. Senate candidate Jim Gilmore at the final stop of his most recent “Working Families Tour” Wednesday night at Pepper’s Grill.

Virginia’s former governor seemed upbeat and energetic in Culpeper, arriving from Shenandoah Springs Farm in adjoining Madison County, his father’s “home country,” after three days on the road.

“The campaign is going absolutely great,” said Gilmore, not standing at the podium but next to a table in the conference room between his son Ashton, a student at the University of Virginia, and Bill Chase, chairman of the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors.

“We have made tremendous progress,” he said of his race against former Democratic Governor Mark Warner.

Gilmore, 58, took questions from reporters before finishing out the hour talking and interacting with the small crowd.

From the beginning, he focused on the issue he’s been hearing about most: gas prices.

“I’ve had young mothers working second jobs (tell me), ’I’m having to put $75 a week in my gas tank, I can’t do it.’ What needs to be done is a broad-based program that frees the United States from being subject to foreign influences and oil speculators.”

The program should include investments in hybrid and electric cars as well as wind and solar power as “useful adds-on” to the energy grid, Gilmore said. But “the heart” of the solution to American energy independence is development of clean-burning coal technologies and digging for oil off the coasts, in Alaska and the Dakotas, he said.

It won’t take 10 years tap into domestic oil sources as others have claimed, Gilmore said, and “oil prices would drop immediately” if such policies were implemented. He said his opponent, on the other hand, opposes drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge.

In addition, when Mark Warner was governor, Gilmore said, he vetoed a bill that would have encouraged drilling off of Virginia’s coast. Gilmore also took on Al Gore, saying, “Last week, he said we shouldn’t use any fossil fuels. It’s just unrealistic.”

It’s also unrealistic to think the American taxpayer should provide financial aid to besieged mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Gilmore said of a foreclosure crisis bill President Bush signed Wednesday morning.

“I’m worried that the United States taxpayer is rapidly becoming a guarantor for everybody’s business decisions,” he said, “no matter how reckless.”

However, Gilmore said, he supports the portion of the bill allowing government aid for unsuspecting homeowners who were “lured into the market” by “people wearing nice business suits” and ended up in “a house they really couldn’t afford.”

Asked about the war in Iraq, Gilmore, a former military intelligence officer, shifted focus to the larger Middle East and the “major crisis challenge ahead of us that’s going to last awhile” in countries like Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.

The former governor, who’s visited all those countries, said he supports “open-ended funding of protecting the American interests globally,” including making sure Iraq doesn’t become a province of Iran or threaten Israel.

“I think a lot of progress has been made. I think everyone’s of the consensus it would be better to disengage so we’re in a position to watch the other areas as well.”

After briefly talking up gun rights, mentioning his association with the NRA and saying Mark Warner, who he described as a “a very, very rich man,” can’t be trusted to represent Virginia in D.C., Gilmore took a couple of questions from the audience and offered refreshments.

Audience member Stephanie Choc, 20, of Culpeper said she came to the Gilmore event with her husband in response to a campaign call she received earlier.

“If he will try to lower the gas prices, that’s what I’m interested in,” she said, later asking him about immigration policy.

Culpeper resident Beth Orndorff, also in attendance Wednesday night, said she strongly supports Gilmore now and when he was governor from 1998 to 2002, mentioning the car tax reductions he implemented during that time.

“A car is not a luxury,” said Orndorff, a Web designer. “I really think it is important for us to be less dependent on foreign oil.”

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