Election 2012: Wayne Powell sees duty to serve.
Richmond --
Wayne Powell knows he is in enemy territory:
He's a first-time candidate running for Congress against House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-7th, the six-time incumbent. And he's a Democrat running in a reflexively Republican district that hasn't sent a Democrat to Washington in more than 40 years.
But Powell's been in this situation before.
He tells the story of being a 22-year-old U.S. Army soldier stationed along the border between East Germany and West Germany in 1973 during the Cold War.
"When I was sitting on top of a mountain getting frostbite overlooking the border, I wasn't thinking about whether I was a Republican or a Democrat," the lawyer and retired colonel explains. "I was thinking about how I could help defend my country in case the Russians crossed the Fulda Gap, and that's the way the people have to think."
Powell thinks the country is under threat again — not from the outside but from within, falling victim to a partisan political culture in Washington, in which politicians feed the big-dollar special interests that back them and shuts out the needs of working people.
Cantor, Powell says, is part of that problem. And Powell says it's his duty to serve again.
"My country is in trouble and I love my country," he says, also noting his son's military service as a major in Afghanistan.
"I believe in this country and I believe the best in this country, which means we clean up all the corruption and all the money that's polluting the country and the political system."
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http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/sep/30/tdmain01-powell-sees-duty-to-serve-ar-2245276/
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