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LOCATION OFF I-40 IS CONVENIENT FOR CONSTIUTENTS FROM WESTERN COUNTIES IN DISTRICT

CLEMMONS JOURNAL
By Paul Garber

In the Republican primary runoff last August -the contest that effectively decided the race in the GOP-dominated 5th District - U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx fell just short of winning Forsyth County.

She defeated Vernon Robinson, a member of the Winston-Salem City Council, in the August runoff before winning the general election in November against Democrat Jim Harrell Jr.

In the primary runoff, Robinson won most of the precincts in Forsyth, but Foxx had a strong showing in the western part of the county, including precincts at Clemmons Elementary School and the village's civic center.

So it makes sense that she would put her local congressional district office in a place where she did well. But that was not the reason that she put her office in Clemmons, Foxx said. "It had absolutely nothing to do with politics," Foxx said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week. "It was chosen purely on the basis of convenience."

The office is in Meadowbrook Mall, just off Interstate 40. Foxx said she chose the location because the highway provides quick access to the office for people coming from western counties within the 5th District, such as Davie, Iredell and Alexander.

"I'm geographically challenged," Foxx said. Yet Robinson last year cited geography as one of her main advantages in her campaign.

Foxx, a former state senator, had at one time or another represented seven of the district's 12 counties while she served in the N.C. General Assembly. She won seven of those counties to Robinson's five, and was particularly strong in the western part of the district.

Foxx said she gave a lot of thought after the election to where to put her local office. She considered the area where Sen. Richard Burr had his congressional office when he was the representative of the 5th District. That office is near the five- points intersection on West First Street in Winston-Salem.

But Foxx decided against the area when Burr decided to keep his local office there after he won his senate seat last year.

"I probably would have gone there had he moved," she said. "But why would you want two federally elected officials right next to each other?"

The Clemmons office will have five staff members.

Ted Arrington, a political-science professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said that the location of the office is not nearly as important as the service given to constituents from that office.

Most of Foxx's challengers last year lived in Winston-Salem, including Robinson, Ed Broyhill and Jay Helvey.

But putting an office in Winston-Salem would not do much to ward off challengers, Arrington said.

Arrington said he expects that Foxx will have a GOP challenger in 2006, but he believes that the power of incumbency will make her hard to beat.

"If she's scandal-free, I wouldn't bet against her," he said. "The Republican leadership likes to groom women. I think the leadership would give her enough money to squelch anyone who would have the audacity to run against her."

The office is Foxx's third. She has her congressional offices in Washington and Boone. Her home is in Banner Elk.