This letter to the editor by an Arlington resident was published on The Washington Post‘s website today:

You call that an endorsement of Jim Moran?

Regarding the Oct. 9 editorial “For the House in Virginia”:

Having been told all my life that competition breeds success, I found the comments about Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.) unsettling.

As a future voter in the 8th Congressional District who has grown up surrounded by like-minded Democratic Arlingtonians, I realize that there is little to no chance that a Republican candidate will ever get elected to the House here. But when the strongest endorsement the region’s leading newspaper can give a candidate is that “his opposition in this election, as in past contests, is weak,” I worry about the state of democracy in Northern Virginia.

When I get to vote in the congressional election in 2014, I would like to choose a candidate who will represent my views in Congress. I don’t want someone who is just the lesser of two evils. If Mr. Moran’s reelection every two years is as much of a guarantee as it is in 2012, I think it’s time for a change in the 8th District.

Gordon Hart, Arlington