Perriello: Lower unemployment key to re-election

Editor's note: This article was updated on Feb. 22 to correct an error regarding the 5th District unemployment rate.

U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th District, said the direction of the unemployment rate will be the single most important barometer of his chance for re-election this year.

“For all the discussion of other issues, I think the thing that affects people most is whether they have jobs,” he said in an interview with The News & Advance editorial board last Tuesday. “If we’ve stopped the bleeding and people believe that we’ve put us on a path to rehabilitation, I think people will appreciate that. If they feel we’ve missed the chance to do that, I think they’ll send us packing.”

Perriello, considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the upcoming mid-term elections, said it was time for Congress to pass a jobs bill and hoped the Massachusetts election would be a “wake up call” for Washington.

“It seems to me when you’re losing working-class Democrats, it’s not because of their views about health care reform, it’s because they’re scared as can be about the economy and they don’t see us doing enough on that,” he said. “I think that’s a pretty decent litmus test for judging us right now in the midst of a great recession.”

“Both political parties, in my mind, have been too close to the financial lending institutions and feel like, if we just shore those guys up, then somehow everything else will solve itself. That’s not an economic development strategy. It’s not a jobs strategy.”

Tuesday’s election of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to the Senate seat long held by liberal lion Ted Kennedy has been interpreted by many as a vote against the health care reform bill. Perriello’s vote last year in favor of the House version of the bill has drawn ire from the conservative swaths of his district and made him a target of local Tea Party coalitions.

There are now seven people jockeying for the Republican nomination to challenge Perriello in November, along with a smattering of possible third-party candidates.

State Sen. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, appears to be the frontrunner for the Republican nomination although many grassroots activists complain he’s not conservative enough. Hurt, a former state delegate, was one of 17 Republicans who broke ranks in 2004 and voted for the tax increase that ended that session’s budget stalemate.

Perriello, who said last week he didn’t care who he ended up facing in November, said he felt his Republican opponents were grappling with a very real sense of “civil war or strife.”

“I will say it’s a lot more enjoyable to be on the side of the campaign where I basically get to focus on doing my job,” he said. “That’s not to be naive, because obviously I have to raise money and all that, but the better I do my job the better my chances are.”

He said he hoped his constituents saw him as a representative who has worked hard, delivered results and been an independent voice in Congress.

Perriello, who was appointed to serve on the House Democratic Caucus’s job creation task force last month, said it was time for Congress to pass a jobs bill. He said a good bill would rely on existing money rather than borrowing; provide for direct or expedited lending to small business; and make a significant investment in infrastructure with a focus on “game-changers” that will give communities new competitive edges.

Perriello said he’d like to see the unemployment rate driven back below 10 percent, but couldn’t hazard a guess as to how likely that was to occur.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “I’m not even trying to be coy. I would say it’s probably a coin flip.”

“But I think it’s not unrelated to what we do over the next few months,” he added. “I think if the president is willing to do something serious in the State of the Union about jobs, if we’re willing to start getting the lending going one way or another, by hook or crook, then Americans will do the rest. We really are that much better than other people at innovating and entrepreneurship. But we’ve got to get that out there.”

The 5th District was experiencing 8.2 percent unemployment in November 2009, according to the Virginia Employment Commission. Joblessness among the 22 different localities that make up the district ranged from a low of 4.6 percent in Albemarle County to a high of 20 percent in Martinsville.