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Del. Steve Shannon (left), Democratic candidate for attorney general, speaks Sunday with the Rev. Thurman Echols of Moral Hill Missionary Baptist Church. Shannon spoke at the church during a campaign swing through the region. (Bulletin photo) |
Monday, October 12, 2009
By GINNY WRAY - Bulletin Staff Writer
Although a Sunday poll raises the prospect of a Republican sweep of the top state races Nov. 3, Democratic attorney general candidate Steve Shannon believes voters might split their tickets, as they have in the past.
Shannon, a delegate from Vienna, said his internal polls show he and Republican Ken Cuccinelli are running neck-and-neck in the attorney general’s race. They are within one or two points of each other, which is within the polls’ margin of error, he said Sunday during a stop in Martinsville.
“Virginia voters are sophisticated,” he said, and have not voted straight party tickets for the last two gubernatorial elections.
He was referring to 2001, when Democrat Mark Warner was elected governor and Tim Kaine was chosen lieutenant governor, but Republican Jerry Kilgore was elected attorney general. Four years later, Kaine won the governor’s race against Kilgore, Republican Bill Bolling was elected lieutenant governor and the GOP’s Bob McDonnell was elected attorney general.
Now, McDonnell is running for governor and Bolling is seeking re-election. A Mason-Dixon Virginia Poll released Sunday gave McDonnell an 8 point lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds in the governor’s race. Last week, a Washington Post poll gave McDonnell a 9 point edge.
Mason-Dixon’s poll released today has Bolling leading Democrat Jody Wagner 44-31 percent, with 25 percent undecided. Cuccinelli leads Shannon 37-30 percent with 33 percent undecided, according to Mason-Dixon.
Shannon said he believes Virginians see the attorney general’s race differently from the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s races.
“People understand they are voting for the state’s top law enforcement officer, a prosecutor,” said the former Fairfax County prosecutor. He added that if elected, he would prosecute cases, especially those involving crimes against children.
Such crimes dominated Shannon’s conversation over coffee at The Sirloin House on Sunday morning before he attended a worship service at Moral Hill Missionary Baptist Church. It was part of a campaign sweep that had him in Pittsylvania County, Franklin County and Vinton, as well as the Virginia Tech game in Blacksburg, on Saturday, and was to take him to Danville and Lynchburg later Sunday.
Shannon explained how he and his wife, Abby, co-founded the AMBER Alert system in Northern Virginia. That system alerts the media — and therefore the public — when a child is abducted.
The goal, he said, is to find a child within the first three hours of an abduction. Research has shown that after that period, an abducted child is more likely to be murdered, he said.
Prosecuting crimes against children is tough in terms of evidence and emotions, Shannon said, but it taught him the value of fighting for a child and independent judgment.
“There’s nothing worse than telling a child that the man who hurt him has been found not guilty,” added Shannon, who has three children ranging in age from 4 months to 6 years.
In 2003, Shannon said he ran for the House of Delegates “to make Virginia safer for all families and kids.” His reason for running for attorney general is the same.
His emphasis on public safety also includes battling gangs and computer trading of child pornography.
“There are 19,357 computers in Virginia actively trading child pornography,” he said, adding that they have been identified by the Internet Crime Against Children Centers, which can document the transfers of pornography.
Last year, there were more than 400 prosecutions of those cases, Shannon said, calling that “great with our limited resources” but insufficient.
Shannon’s Web site also details what he calls his strategies for fighting drugs, gangs, drunken driving, public corruption and crimes against children.
To combat illegal immigration, Shannon said he believes when anyone is arrested, the local police should check the person’s background. If the person is not in this country legally, the police should contact the federal government to deport the person, he said.
Some of Shannon’s proposals would cost money, but many do not, he said, recognizing the state’s budget shortfalls.
For instance, he said the state should pool its resources with the federal government on efforts in drug-infested areas. He would like to see Virginia join the ranks of states that ban registered sex offenders from Internet chat rooms. Also, he would work against gangs on a regional basis, rather than each locality on its own, and include the schools, after-school programs and mentors, he said, among other ideas.
Getting his message out about those ideas is the key to Shannon’s strategy for the three weeks before the election. He said he wants people to know he is “not running to promote a personal political agenda,” but rather to “push a common sense agenda.” |
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