Obama praises Perriello for ‘political courage’

Obama said Perriello “went to Washington to do what’s hard. He went to do what is right. And now the lobbyists and the special interests are going after him.”
 
He specifically praised Perriello for voting to create jobs in Virginia — ostensibly alluding to last year’s economic stimulus plan — including the announcement in the last six months of “over 2,000 new jobs, including new clean energy jobs right here in the district.”
 
Obama said he was not there supporting Perriello — who won by less than 1,000 votes two years ago and is behind in recent polls to Republican challenger Robert Hurt — “because Tom votes with me on every issue. Sometimes he disagrees with me.”
 
But it is those votes on which Perriello sided with Obama that are landing him in hot water in his tough reelection fight against Hurt. This includes backing last year’s cap-and-trade bill when some others who voted for that measure in both parties have backed away from it on the campaign trail.
 
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) — who was one of only eight Republicans to support that bill — has said during his current campaign to occupy Obama’s old Senate seat that he wishes he could take back that vote.
 
“We make a lot of errors in Congress, not out of malice or corruption. It’s out of ignorance and lack of understanding of how a $14 trillion economy operates,” said Kirk at a town hall meeting Thursday, as quoted by the Chicago Tribune.
 
“As I traveled Illinois, I quickly saw the kind of damage that legislation would cause industries that were not heavily present in my congressional district: heavy manufacturing, agriculture, mining. I had to make a choice between higher employment in my state or sticking with the old vote.”
 
Obama did not reference last year’s cap-and-trade bill — or climate change at all —in his speech to the Perriello faithful.
 
The League of Conservation Voters and Sierra Club have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help Perriello so far in TV and radio ads and other assistance to try to stave off Republican attacks over his support for both the cap-and-trade and economic stimulus bills.
 
This includes a new “six-figure” TV buy from Sierra Club starting this week and running through Election Day that argues Perriello and Hurt differ on “clean” energy policies that would preserve jobs from being outsourced.

Recent polls have Perriello trailing Hurt, ranging from as little as one point to as many as eight points.