Jeff Frederick runs for state Senate, and redemption

Jeff Frederick comes to the door in khaki shorts and sneakers, his baby face bereft of whiskers, clipboard in hand, and you're tempted to ask how many tins of popcorn he needs to sell to earn his merit badge.

But Frederick, who just turned 36, isn't looking for money, though he could use some. After a two-year hiatus from public life, the former three-term member of the House of Delegates — ousted as state Republican Party chairman in 2009 after serving just one year — is looking for votes and, perhaps, a second chance.

"I believe God has a plan for my life — he opens doors and he closes doors for a reason," says the boyish and married father of three, adding later: "I think I can have an impact."

On this day, Frederick is canvassing for votes in Virginia's 36th Senatorial District, where Sen. Linda T. "Toddy" Puller, D-Fairfax, has held sway for the past 12 years.

"Who are you?" asks Sara Parry from behind the partially opened door of her handsome riverfront home on Mill Street.

"My name is Jeff Frederick, and I'm running for Senate," the candidate says in a slightly squeaky, unassuming voice.

"Oh," Parry says, somewhat disarmed, but no longer wary. She steps outside, and after five minutes, Frederick seems to have her support.

"First house of the day — I'm a little rusty," he says, moving on.

With the Nov. 8 election less than 50 days away, Frederick has been spending every available hour canvassing 55 to 60 houses of likely voters a day in the redrawn district, which covers roughly 200,000 voters over parts of Fairfax, Prince William and Stafford counties.

The 36th Senate District includes nearly the entire Prince William House district that Frederick represented as a delegate. But there are large parts, such as Occoquan, where he is a newcomer.

"Sixty percent don't know me; 40 percent don't know her," he says, referring to Puller.

For Frederick, it is unclear which of those constituencies may present the biggest challenge to winning.

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A Springfield native who moved to Florida as a boy before returning to Northern Virginia in his 20s, Frederick burst on the statewide Virginia political scene in 2003 after defeating Del. John A. Rollison III, R-Prince William, in a GOP primary.

Unlike many newcomers to the legislature, Frederick did not wait his turn as a "back-bencher" in the 100-member chamber, and he introduced a slew of bills. Ironically, one of the bills of which he is most proud was legislation that Puller co-sponsored in the Senate. It expanded the number of tests given to newborns to detect genetic disorders.

Frederick made no secret of his conservative stances on social issues ranging from opposition to abortion to his belief, expressed in a Feb. 12, 2009, speech on the House floor — the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth — that Darwin's theory of evolution "was used by atheists to explain away the belief in God."

But he arguably drew the most fire during his flameout as state party chairman. Frederick mounted a grass-roots campaign at the state party convention to wrest the post from former Lt. Gov. John Hager in 2008. Once in the post, Frederick clashed with old-line party bosses over his management and party fundraising.

In one notable misstep during the 2008 presidential campaign, Frederick told campaign volunteers who were preparing to knock on doors that Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden "both have friends that bombed the Pentagon. That is scary."

The Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, repudiated the comment, and Bob McDonnell, then a candidate for governor, called Frederick's remarks "highly inappropriate and wrong."

After the Virginia GOP lost the state's electoral votes for the first time in 44 years, dropped a U.S. Senate seat and three U.S. House seats, party leaders, with McDonnell's backing, engineered Frederick's ouster in April 2009. They replaced him with Pat Mullins, a former GOP chairman in Fairfax and Louisa counties who insures racehorses for a living.

"From the second I got involved in politics, I was challenging the status quo, and there was a lot in the status quo that didn't like that," Frederick says now.

"When I became chairman, I thought I could be the cheerleader I needed to be, but as I found out, with some of the gaffes and things like that, it was a very uncomfortable place for me," he adds. "I very rarely made mistakes when I was a delegate in the press and the public. When I became chairman, everything just fell apart."

Frederick returned to the private sector, sticking to his promise not to run for re-election to his old House seat and focusing more attention on developing his technology business. He and his wife, Amy, had a third child.

But when the new Senate district boundaries, largely drawn by Senate Democrats, were approved, Frederick felt obligated to run.

"I didn't look for this. I didn't plan this," he says. "But the way they did the redistricting almost invited me to do it. Of course, I'm sure if they'd thought I'd be doing it, they'd have changed the way they did it."

Now the candidate — and party leaders who orchestrated his ouster — are in the peculiar position of needing each other. Democrats cling to a 22-18 edge in the state Senate. Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a Republican, presides over the Senate and can break tie votes. That means a net gain of just two seats would give Republicans the chance to green-light McDonnell's agenda through the legislature in his last two years in office.

In challenging Puller, Frederick is taking on a seasoned legislator who was in the public eye long before she held public office.

In the late 1960s, she married Lewis B. Puller Jr., son of Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, the most decorated Marine in history. Her husband headed to Vietnam, where he was nearly killed by a booby trap, losing both of his legs and six of his fingers.

In 1992, Lewis Puller Jr. won a Pulitzer Prize for his autobiography, "Fortunate Son: The Healing of a Vietnam Vet." His struggles included an addiction to alcohol.

In 1994, Puller was in Richmond for the annual veto session when she learned that her husband had taken his life. She said in a statement: "To the list of names of victims of the Vietnam War, add the name of Lewis Puller. He suffered terrible wounds that never really healed."

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Despite its Democratic leaning, the 36th is one of about a half-dozen Senate districts where Republicans think they could pick up seats in November.

"It's going to be a competitive race — it's a competitive district," says Mike McDonald, a professor of politics at George Mason University. "The Democrats shifted the boundaries some, but they didn't change the political character that much."

As of Aug. 31, Frederick had roughly $74,000 in cash on hand versus $143,000 for Puller, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in state politics. While he has yet to see significant financial backing, GOP officials pledge to help get Frederick elected.

"He's our nominee, he's got our support and we're going to be sure he has what he needs to win," says Garren Shipley, a state GOP spokesman.

Frederick, however, is making no promises to his party.

"I'm not afraid to stand up to whomever," he says. "The minute that my campaign promises and the interests of the people who elected me conflict with my party, I'm going to come down real fast and real hard on the side of my principles and my promises to the people I represent."

If Democrats are worried about Frederick, they aren't showing it. At a recent media briefing, the party labeled Frederick and a handful of other GOP Senate nominees as part of the "most radical extreme slate in the history of the commonwealth." Earlier this year, the Democratic Party produced a scathing video clip of Frederick gaffes from his tenure in the House and as party chairman.

"Welcome back Jeff," the video ends. "We missed you."

"Toddy Puller is a long-running community servant who puts her constituents first, and she's running against a tea-party extremist … who has a long record of views and positions and rhetoric way outside of the mainstream of Virginia," says Brian Coy, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Virginia.

During canvassing, Frederick doesn't bring up social issues. Instead, he mildly preaches a simple message: no new taxes, and doing something — not simply commissioning studies — to restore vitality to a congested and blighted U.S. 1 corridor. Referring to detailed information for each likely voter, he is quick to remind some of his support for the Second Amendment and endorsement by the National Rifle Association.

"I was just exercising those rights," one homeowner tells him. At another door, he greets a man wearing a T-shirt that reads "10 Things you need to know about Chuck Norris."

"Think you'll go for president someday?" asks Ryan Dunphy, 22.

Frederick is taken aback. "My wife would kill me," he quips with a smile.

Others may doubt his return, but Frederick is convinced he is on the right path.

"I feel like this is where we've been led and this is the door that has been opened," he says over lunch. "Of course, if we lose, it will be more reflection to figure out why we were led down this path, to have the door slammed in our face."

On this day in Occoquan, no doors get slammed. Those who aren't home when he stops by receive a handwritten Post-it note on their door with some literature.

Whether he is known by them or not, Jeff Frederick is going to keep knocking.