Kerry to speak at fundraiser for Hartke

By Allison Brophy Champion

Published: August 23, 2008

Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, speaks at a fund-raiser for Congressional candidate Anita Hartke of Culpeper Sept. 24 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Hartke, a Democrat, is seeking to unseat four-term Congressman Eric Cantor, R-Richmond, in November.

Kerry, a 2004 presidential candidate, maintained a friendship with Anita’s father, the late Sen. Vance Hartke of Indiana during the tumultuous Vietnam years. Sen. Hartke, a World War II veteran, served in Congress from 1959 to 1977 and was a lawyer.

He was one of the first congressmen to speak out against the Vietnam War and served as chairman of the first-ever Veterans’ Affairs Committee, created 1970.

Sen. Hartke was also there when Kerry, newly back from serving in Vietnam, gave his controversial speech before the Senate Relations Committee opposing the war.

“Sen. Kerry served in Vietnam and he was a hero,” said Ms. Hartke, who visited with the Massachusetts senator in his D.C. office about a month ago.

“When he came back, my father was a mentor for him.”

Likewise, she said, Kerry has been an adviser for her in this, her first political campaign.

“He knew I was running and he said I have guts,” Hartke said.

Kerry also agreed to headline her upcoming fund-raiser in the heart of the Nation’s Capital.

Hartke described Kerry as “a champion for peace,” a cause also championed by her father, who cosponsored legislation for a U.S. Institute for Peace, now under construction not far from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Ms. Hartke hopes to carry on her father’s dream of peace as a member of Congress.

“I want to convey to the people that I am following through, carrying the torch for peace,” she said, encouraging preparedness and diplomacy in world affairs and not the “knee-jerk reaction” that led to the war in Iraq.

As a woman and a mother, Hartke said, she is more apt to “think through what is good for children and what is good for generations to come” versus hasty military action.

“A robust discussion” before war can “buy time and save a lot of lives,” she said.

Running for national office without name recognition has proved “frightening,” said Hartke, in Richmond Friday filming a campaign commercial for WRIC-TV 8, but she is in it for the long haul.

“I want people to know I am out here and they have a choice,” she said.

Sen. Kerry, as recently recorded in the Congressional Record, said Sen. Hartke’s stand for peace was inspiring.

“William Butler Yeats famously wrote: ‘my glory was I had such friends.’ To know Vance Hartke as a cherished friend, as an ally to all who are not just unashamed but actually proud to seek peace, as a fellow Navy man, and particularly as a mentor, protector, and champion for those of us who returned from Vietnam to oppose the war — really, that was all the glory or honor any of us ever really need or deserve.”

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

Fundraiser next month in DC
Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, Vietnam veteran and 2004 presidential candidate, will be the keynote speaker for Congressional candidate Anita Hartke of Culpeper at a fund-raiser Sept. 24 at 6 in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. Hartke,
a Democrat, is seeking
to unseat four-term Congressman Eric Cantor,
R-Richmond, in November.
RSVP (540) 937-4231 or .