Winchester Star - Delegate Comstock Points To Ties To Veteran Lawmaker

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By Sally Voth

It was while interning for Sen. Ted Kennedy many years ago that 10th District U.S. House of Representatives candidate Barbara Comstock realized she was more suited for the Republican Party.

On Nov. 4, she will face Democrat John Foust, a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, in the general election.

They are looking to succeed Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican who has held the seat for 17 terms.

Other candidates in the race are Libertarian William B. "Bill" Redpath, Independent Green Party candidate Dianne Blais and Independent Brad Eickholt.

The 10th District stretches from McLean west to the West Virginia border.

Comstock, who represents the 34th district in the Virginia House of Delegates, studied political science at Middlebury College in Vermont.

"I was always interested in politics," she said.

While an undergrad, the 55-year-old -- who came from a family of Massachusetts Democrats -- participated in a program for a semester in Washington, D.C., where she interned one day a week for Kennedy and attended committee hearings and visited various governmental agencies. She thinks she only met the Democrat once.

"Fairly quickly, [I] realized I was a Republican," Comstock said.

She worked on Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, and graduated from college in 1981. She returned to Washington to go to Georgetown University's law school.

Her then-fiance, Chip, moved up from Texas, and accepted a teaching job in McLean. They had met in high school.

Chip Comstock recently retired from Fairfax County Schools, where he was the assistant principal at Oakton High School. He is now working at an alternative school in Montgomery County, Md.

Comstock, who lives in McLean, worked at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the government affairs office while attending law school at night. She had her first two children while a law student.

"Once I had the kids, I stayed home and did jobs," Comstock said.

She would type students' papers and theses.

"I was a mom at home for about seven years while I was finishing law school at night," she said.

In 1984, Comstock began volunteering for Wolf's races. She went to work for the congressman after the 1990 election, by which time she was a mother of three.

Today, her children -- Danny, Peter and Caity -- are 31, 29 and 26, respectively.

From 1990 to 1995, Comstock worked on children, youth and family issues and health care in Wolf's office. She moved on to business issues and federal workers' issues before moving into appropriations work.

In early 1995, Comstock was recruited to serve as counsel on the House of Representatives' Government Reform Committee, which oversees the federal government on waste, fraud and abuse. She did that until 2000, when she joined the George W. Bush presidential campaign.

Comstock spent several years with the Justice Department, heading up public affairs.

These were in the post-Sept. 11 days, and corporate fraud was also being investigated, as well as the "D.C. Sniper" case, making for "a very grueling time at the Justice Department."

In 2003, Comstock went to a law firm, where she worked on governmental affairs and intellectual property cases.

She then started her own practice with some colleagues from the Justice Department, focusing largely on public affairs work.

Throughout her campaign, Comstock has stressed her links to Wolf. She said she shares his ability to form partnerships to combat problems such as gangs and drugs.

"I will in every way want to continue all the hard work he did on that," Comstock said. "I will be able to hit the ground running on day one to make sure we're working with all our state and local officials on common issues."

She said she's asked 42nd District Del. Dave Albo to conduct a meeting Oct. 1 in Winchester on the growing heroin problem.

It was Wolf who encouraged Comstock to seek her House of Delegates seat in 2009.

Among the issues she's worked on as a delegate are passing a research and development tax credit, and making sure state projects don't require labor to be done by unions.

"Jobs will always be our No. 1 priority, because the economy is just not where it should be," said Comstock, who accuses President Barack Obama's administration of killing jobs and harming the economy.

She also favors repealing and replacing the federal Affordable Care Act.

"Whether we talk to government workers or we talk to big businesses or small businesses or startups, the thing we hear all the time is the lack of certainty because of how Washington is doing things," Comstock said. "We need to have a tax code that's modernized."

She was also critical of Obama's foreign policy, particularly in light of Russia's aggression into Ukraine and the brutal expansion of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

Comstock noted that Wolf continuously took the House floor to talk about the Christian population in Iraq being wiped out.

"I, for one, am thrilled that Congressman Wolf is going to continue to work on this issue because nobody has better expertise on this," she said. "If the United States isn't a leader, it's a very dangerous world.

"You can't take things off the table when you're dealing with barbarians like this. This president has been so disengaged and I think that's sensed around the world."

Comstock has been able to integrate some of her passions into her political life. She started the House of Delegates Arts Caucus.

"I love travel and tourism," she said. "I guess that's my hobby."

Last summer, she went to Rome with the International Catholic Legislators Network.

Wolf had praise for his former volunteer and employee and fellow politician.

"I think very highly of her," he said. "She was an outstanding employee. She was really an outstanding member of the General Assembly. When she saw a problem, she sort of replicated what we've done in this office."

That is, to come up with a strategy to address it, such as how Wolf is trying to set up a statewide heroin task force to combat the drug epidemic.

"Barbara will do the same thing, when she sees a problem, she will weigh in and deal with it, bring people together and solve it," he said. "She's honest. She's decent. She's hard-working. She comes from a good family. She's very, very experienced. I think she will do an outstanding job for the people of the 10th District."

Comstock is expected to attend the Hob Nob in the Valley Friday at Lord Fairfax Community College.

Several other candidates in the race have also confirmed, according to Tony Baker, marketing and communications director for Top of Virginia Regional Chamber, which is hosting the event. They include Democratic Sen. Mark Warner and his opponents, Republican Ed Gillespie and Libertarian Robert Sarvis.

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