Hartke merits support from Culpeper voters

The people of Culpeper are privileged to have one of our own of the caliber of Anita Hartke running to represent us in the U.S. House of Representatives.

By now, her profile is hopefully becoming familiar to area voters: A daughter of a U.S. senator who made his mark standing foursquare for peace, investment in the education and health of young people, advocate for veterans, seniors, and others without their fair share of influence.

She takes this legacy seriously. I’ve experienced this before. When I was growing up my family was close to the Johnstons of South Carolina. Another U.S. Senator, another daughter who felt the call to public service.

Family-based commitments to public service, I’ve witnessed, are real, meaningful, constructive, and productive. Anita Hartke’s background is a distinct and resounding plus in her favor, not a trivial-pursuit factoid or a resting on one’s laurels.

But there is much more to her than a public family. She is an expert in her own right on the current problems facing the housing and mortgage industries. She has her own creative and imaginative positions-new ideas — on the many opportunities lost to the enormous cost of the Iraq war and how they should be reclaimed, on the environment, on health care, on the nation’s obsolescent infrastructure, and on a number of other matters that are, or should be, troubling our citizens.

Her candidacy deserves the discerning scrutiny of all 7th Congressional District voters.