Over the next few weeks outgoing Roanoke City Mayor David Bowers will be doing perhaps what he enjoys most: he will be out meeting potential supporters, taking their temperature ahead of a possible run for Congress in the 9th District this November.
Bowers, who will leave his current position as Mayor this spring, may challenge incumbent Republican Morgan Griffith – if he feels there is enough support from people in the district – and if they are okay with the fact that he doesn’t currently live within the 9th District boundaries.
In fact, Bowers lives at the foot of Mill Mountain in the 6th District – home to another entrenched GOP incumbent, Bob Goodlatte. Bowers ran against him for Congress in 1998 and was beaten soundly. He notes that Griffith didn’t live in the 6th District when he first ran for Congress, although redistricting later put him within those boundaries.
“[Voters] may prefer to have someone who lives in the district,” said Bowers, who adds that Republicans have gerrymandered the 6th and 9th Districts to keep their parties ensconced, something he calls a “constitutional atrocity.” (Harry Griego, who lost a bid for the Republican nomination against delegate Chris Head last year now says he will challenge Goodlatte in a GOP primary for his seat this spring.)
The Mayor isn’t sure either if he must reside in the 9th if he wins in November – assuming he wins the Democratic nomination (at least one other person has expressed an interest he says) and then upsets Griffith this fall. It will be an uphill battle concedes Bowers, who jokingly refers to it as “David versus Griff-liath.”
So Bowers is undertaking what he calls a listening tour in the outer reaches of the 9th District, away from Roanoke where he figures many in the immediate area “may have followed my career over the last quarter century.” Away from the Roanoke Valley some may not know who he is – although Bowers certainly gained some national and even international notoriety for the statement he released regarding Syrian refugees and the internment camps imposed on the Japanese during World War II.
Bowers later apologized for releasing that statement on letterhead from the Mayor’s office, something that rankled other City Council members, but he doesn’t back away from his belief that Roanoke should take a pause from accepting Syrian refugees until the vetting system is improved – to make sure no potential terrorists are slipping through the cracks and landing here – as may have happened in Paris.
Bowers believes his stance on Syrian refugees may sit well with voters in a more conservative, Republican-leaning district and he says a majority of governors nationwide also support a more cautious approach to taking in Syrian refugees for the time being. “That’s a view I still hold to,” said Bowers; “I think there’s a lot of people that are concerned about what’s going on in the Middle East – and how we are handling it.”
As for his political views: “I’m not a White House Democrat, I’m a court house Democrat,” says the veteran attorney, “the kind that used to get elected in this part of Virginia. I’m just not as liberal as some of the Democrats.”
Bowers says he agrees with some of the views Republicans hold on issues nationally, while in other cases Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, seem to make sense. The Mayor sees himself as “pro-life … and I tend to be pro-gun -more of a moderate, conservative Democrat.” Perhaps even an “old fashioned Democrat … not a knee-jerk liberal.”
Bowers would have to pick up Republican votes to win and that perhaps means portraying Griffith as an extremist: “The question is how far to the right ([like] the Tea Party) are the people of Southwest Virginia and the 9th District wanting us to go?” Drawing moderate Republican voters will be key, said Bowers – who knows a thing or two about getting elected.
“It’s going to be an enormous decision and I have not yet made a decision, that’s the honest truth,” said Bowers. That decision, he says, should come by May at the latest – when he could face a primary challenge. “The clock is ticking.”
By Gene Marrano
