Virginia Lawyers Weekly

Roanoke lawyer John P. Fishwick Jr. has announced that he has formed a campaign committee to explore a run for the 2009 Democratic nomination for Attorney General.

In a primary, he would face Del. Steve Shannon, D-Fairfax, the only other Democrat currently seeking the party’s nod for AG. Shannon has said he will make a formal announcement of his candidacy in November; he has been busy raising money and has nearly a half-million dollars in the bank.

Fishwick said in a statement that he will spend the next few weeks on a listening tour across the state, meeting and talking with people.

Echoing his party’s presidential standard-bearer, Sen. Barack Obama, Fishwick asserted, “It is time for a change in Richmond.”
And Fishwick seeks to position himself as a candidate who will fight for the middle class in times of economic uncertainty.

In an interview, he noted, “My campaign focus will be the failure to protect the middle class by previous attorney generals.” The past four AGs all have been Republicans.

He pointed to his own record as a plaintiff’s trial attorney successfully representing middle-class citizens and small business owners against corporations. He cited in particular his work on behalf of an 81-year-old who successfully fought Virginia’s “abusive driver” statutes, which have since been repealed. He cited other work on behalf of clients “unfairly treated by the government.”

Fishwick has long been active in local Democratic politics. The campaign would mark his first foray into statewide politics as a candidate. He was a Virginia co-chair of Rep. Dick Gephardt’s 2004 presidential campaign. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Congress in the Sixth congressional district in 1992.

While Shannon has been piling up cash over the summer, Fishwick acknowledged that currently he has no war chest.

But his campaign is young. “I just got back from making a deposit into the account. This is our second day,” he said.

A 1983 graduate of the Washington and Lee University law school, he earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College. He and his wife Jeanne have two sons, 11 and 10.

With reporting by Peter Vieth.

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