To the Editor:
Like a colossus, Jim Moran has strode over politics as Alexandria mayor, then as our member of Congress. Many mediocrities have swarmed into the void created by his retirement, desiring to replace him, including:
- A state legislator who partnered with the state legislature’s most ardent right-winger to compensate the “victims” of the normal mental health practices of former times, thereby contributing to a “victimization” mentality and creating an egregious precedent every time the standard mental health practice falls out of fashion, a cowardly formulation, condemning a proactive whose advocates are long dead and cannot speak in their defense.
- A mayor who refused citizens’ petition during a public hearing, whose interests he subordinated to lanners’ and developers’. How much empathy would he have as a member of Congress for citizen concerns? A mayor desperate to build a Metro station where it will actuate millions of additional square feet of development … except, alas, it would encroach on a parkland easement, which as a member of Congress, he could make go away with a rider slipped into some bill.
Only one candidate is truly well-suited to be our U.S. representative: A candidate successful in business, who practices the progressive employment policies he advocates in company consisting of numerous car dealerships; a former lieutenant governor — defeated for governor because he held to positions popular here but not in the rest of the state; a recent ambassador to a diplomatically significant country with four official languages.
Don Beyer is the only well-qualified candidate with a business background and domestic and foreign policy experience.
Dino Drudi
Alexandria