President of ‘Us’ winner thanks church votes

President of Us: Buddy Crews

President of Us: Jason Watson

See the vote totals and read all of the candidates’ positions here

In winning the President of Us mock election last week, Marvin “Buddy” Crews did what all successful politicians do — he appealed to his base.

“It was the churches that really made the difference,“ said Crews, a Brookneal resident who received 388 votes to 201 for runner-up Jason Watson in a two-candidate runoff. “Steve McNeely (Peakland Baptist) is a good friend of mine, and he helped a lot. I also had a lady tell me her church group had a special meeting about getting me votes.“

Last year, McNeely helped Crews become a minister himself, and Crews — who lost his job at an area textile plant when he contracted multiple sclerosis — has been doing volunteer work in area prisons.

“The prisoners couldn’t vote for me, though,“ he said.

Both Crews and Watson, director of the Patrick Henry Boys’ & Girls’ Plantation, proposed platforms that resonated comfortably with Central Virginia — informed by religion (Watson has a Master’s in theology) but nothing radical.

Not that everyone agreed with what they proposed.

“I’ve had all kinds of people come up to me — at church, in Sam’s Club, everywhere,“ Crews said. “I got a lot of flak for talking about a higher tax on alcohol. One guy who had obviously been drinking a bit told me: ‘You know what you are? You’re a stiff-necked liberal.’ I don’t think he understood what ‘liberal’ meant.

“I told him, ‘Hey, it’s just a mock election. I don’t have the power to do anything.’”

Watson said he also received some feedback.

“A lot of people just made general comments like, “I really liked your positions” or something like that. But a few people were more specific. One person called to tell me that they agreed with me on everything except mandatory health insurance. She said that she remembered when auto insurance became mandatory and that the rates skyrocketed overnight.

“Also, my mother forwarded me some comments that someone had sent her after reading my positions saying that my positions were the first time someone told the truth about Social Security and the government’s pillaging of the Social Security trust fund.“

The contest was inspired by the frequent conversations many of us have about the federal government, and how we could probably do a better job running the country than whatever president happens to be in the office. With that in mind, Central Virginians were invited to submit platforms and run for “President of Us,” to be voted in or out by The News & Advance readers.

Initially, Junior Gallaher, of Lynchburg, finished second with 151 votes, but called to say he had discovered that some of those votes came as the result of a “computer glitch” and disavowed 100 of them, leaving him third. Phil Pantana, of Lynchburg, finished fourth with 49 votes and Lib Elder, of Gladys, fifth with 47. In all, 10 took us up on the offer. Besides the top five, others who put themselves on the line (and in the paper and on our Web site) included Belinda Bush, Jim McFarland, Charles Tanner III, Jim Batton and Joe Turk.

Crews made health care the centerpiece of his platform, based on his personal frustration with trying to pay for the myriad drugs he has to take for his condition.

“A lot of people have tried to get me to run for House of Delegates,“ he said, “but I don’t think my health would allow me to do it.“

Meanwhile, Watson — who majored in political science at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa — isn’t discounting the possibility that the President of Us election might one day prove a rehearsal for the real thing.

“Maybe I will run for elected office someday,“ he said. “I think about it quite a bit, especially when election season comes around. My wife always says she knows the day is coming eventually.

“I received an e-mail from someone I have been friends with since high school. She told me that she had been unable to vote for me in the first round because she had been in a foreign country without Internet access during that week (she is a missionary) and that, unfortunately, she had already mailed in her absentee ballot for the U.S. presidential elections or else she would have seriously considered writing in Jason Watson!“