Culpeper candidategrew up on politics: Cantor's opponent comes from a family with political history

By Chelyen Davis

CULPEPER, Apr. 13, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) --
The deadline for 7th Congressional District Democrats to file to run has passed with only one candidate having filed.

Culpeper real-estate broker Anita Hartke is, therefore, the Democratic candidate challenging four-term Republican Rep. Eric Cantor in November's election. She filed the required voter signatures last month.

Talking before a Culpeper Democratic fundraiser that featured Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, Hartke, 48, said her impetus to run comes from a family history of public service -- her late father, Vance Hartke, was a U.S. senator from Indiana. She was born in Georgetown and raised on campaigning.

"Grass-roots politics, that's the way I grew up," Hartke said. "It was an exciting life. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Politics pretty much runs in our family."

A divorced mother of three, Hartke has lived in the Culpeper area for nearly four years, moving there from Northern Virginia with her mother after her father's death in 2003. She is chairwoman of the Culpeper County Democratic Committee. She has been a delegate to national political conventions, but this is her first run for political office.

Hartke said she knows her name recognition in the district, which stretches to Richmond, is much lower than Cantor's.

"The Hartke name is a political family name but at the same time I need to get known," Hartke said. "Exposure is my main goal right now."

Besides her political upbringing, though, Hartke said she's motivated by a belief that she can address the needs of constituents better than Cantor has.

As a Realtor, she's very interested in the mortgage and credit crises, and says the government should help those who've been encouraged to borrow beyond their means. She also supports more oversight over financial institutions.

She has a proposal for helping overextended home-owners weather the crisis, basically by allowing them to postpone a few payments until the end of their mortgage term. She believes the government should take steps to stop predatory lending practices.

"This will throw us into a complete depression if we don't stop it," Hartke said, adding that foreclosures can lead to a host of social problems, including stressed families breaking up. "It's a humanity issue."

She thinks Cantor is out of touch with such problems of regular people.

"Eric Cantor has lost sight of it. He isn't dealing with 'Can I make the mortgage payment?' in the morning," Hartke said.

She has personal experience with that sort of thing, Hartke said -- she's currently taking her chances with having no health insurance.

"It's expensive. You make choices," Hartke said.

She wants health care to be more affordable, she said, especially for the elderly, for whom basics such as hearing aids and glasses are often necessities but can be out of reach financially.

"We're one of the wealthiest countries, we're supposed to be powerful and intelligent, and what do we do? We neglect our own," Hartke said. "Elderly people should be able to have the things that make life decent."

Hartke also supports an "orderly" departure of U.S. troops from Iraq, saying that for what the U.S. is spending on the war there, many problems -- such as the mortgage crisis and health care -- could be solved here.

"It's way too much money to be throwing over there when we could be using it here," she said.

And she thinks immigration reform needs to be addressed without oversimplifying what she and campaign coordinator John Huss said is one of the most complicated social issues of the time.

Hartke said she believes the federal immigration laws don't so much need changing as they need funding for enforcement.

"No wonder we have problems. We set this up and then we don't enforce it," she said. "We have to deal with it humanely. These are people. You can't end up with this vigilante, inhumane way of dealing with people."

Hartke believes her populist message, plus an upswing in voter interest in Democratic candidates thanks to the presidential campaigns, will help her bid to unseat Cantor.

"We're on a Democratic wave," she said. "And I intend to have a very strong grass-roots campaign."

Cantor, however, has repeatedly won re-election in the district handily, garnering better than 60 percent of the vote in the past three elections. He is deputy minority whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, is well-known particularly in the more populous Henrico and Chesterfield parts of the district, and has more than $500,000 in his campaign account as of his last filing at the end of 2007.

Nevertheless, Hartke is optimistic.

"I think we can beat him," she said. "I'm in this to win. I'm not a sacrificial lamb."

The 7th District includes Page, Rappahannock, Madison, Culpeper, Orange, Louisa, Goochland, Hanover and parts of Henrico, Spotsylvania and Chesterfield counties, as well as the city of Richmond.

hartkeforcongress.com ericcantor.com



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