Letters to the Editor for Sunday, January 31, 2010
Published: January 31, 2010
Writer: GOP must be united to down Perriello
On Jan. 19, conservatives of all political stripes united in Massachusetts to elect Scott Brown as their next United States senator, and voters in the Fifth District will soon have the opportunity for a repeat here.
As a graduate of Liberty University who recently completed a Legislative Fellowship with one of the most conservative United States Senators and an attendee at the House Call on D.C. this past November, I am writing to proudly support state Sen. Robert Hurt’s bid for Congress from the Fifth District.
This November, the voters of the district deserve a strong conservative who is capable of running a formidable campaign against a newly elected congressman who successfully defeated a popular incumbent who elections never received less than 59 percent of the vote in six previous elections.
The voters deserve a conservative focused on defeating our current congressman — who voted for the stimulus bill, cap and trade Bill, and the health care reform bill — instead of a candidate too preoccupied with bashing Republican competitors to realize that all seven primary candidates should be sharing the same goal.
As a delegate and state senator, Hurt received an A rating from the Family Foundation for his pro-family values, an A+ rating from the Virginia Society of Human Life for his strong pro-life record, an A rating from the NRA for his protection of the Second Amendment Right to bear arms and an A+ rating from the National Federation of Independent Businesses for his record of helping small businesses through fiscal responsibility.
His lifelong record reflects that of a social and fiscal conservative committed to limited government and low taxes. In contrast to the attention given to his one tax vote six years ago for former Gov. Mark Warner’s budget, Hurt has voted against tax increases more than two dozen times, including his vote to eliminate the death tax.
Critics like to draw attention to a vote for the HPV vaccination for girls, even though the version Hurt voted for included an opt-out option for parents. They also forget that the same bill was also voted for by Sen. Steve Newman of Lynchburg and Attorney General (at the time state senator) Ken Cuccinelli, as well as every other member of the Virginia State Senate. An often-criticized health care vote was a vote to allow businesses the option of covering family members in the household of an employee, including an elderly parent or grown child who cannot afford health care on their own. Hurt voted to let businesses decide who they are willing to provide healthcare for, instead of coverage decisions being mandated by the government.
Rather than misrepresenting the record of fellow conservatives, we should be uniting together in our goal to replace Tom Perriello. The people of the Fifth District deserve a representative like Hurt who listens to the people, stands for conservative values and is devoted to the citizens of the district he represents.
The best measure of a candidate is not what the candidate promises to do, but what the candidate has done in the past. When it comes to life, business, gun rights, taxes, small government and the conservative values that best represent the citizens of the district, Hurt is the only candidate with the record to stand on. For this reason, I proudly support him for Congress.
TIM VITOLLO
Lynchburg
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Reader Reactions
Perriello should go. He represents himself and that is about it.
Dr.(?) Beck is no exemplar of civility. It’s a little hypocritical that he should denigrate “peanut galleries” and demonstrate a predilection for invection.
Does he wish to imply that those ailments (many of which are prevalent in the South) are the counter-reaction of treating Cash’s? No, his cynicism first gets the stage. He plays the loyal opposition as proud of it’s failures.
The question most intriguing me is whether Dr.(?) Beck is a reconstructed or an unreconstructed cynic. His students should know.
Grandma, I think you are right that Virgil Goode may well run again; however, I seriously doubt he is a “virgin.“
I would like a good example of any rightist who has made the government smaller in this century or who has done anything to improve the lives of the average American.
doctorbeck,
I am very surprised by your answer to my post.
If I am not mistaken you are a professor in a world-class institution of higher learning.
As such you should have refuted (if possible) the points made by W. J. Cash in his appraisal of the South. Claiming that there are places in the world worse than the American South is not very helpful.
Obvious that doc has never walked the streets of Savannah at night.
Oh if we could only have things just as they are up north. Punitive taxes, high unemployment, urban decay, crime, illegal drugs, horrible schools.
Then we could pound our chests and proclaim superiority and tolerance.
Except for the citizens of our new community…......
In 1941, W. J. Cash wrote of the South in “The Mind of the South”:
“Intolerance, aversion and suspicion toward new ideas, incapacity for analysis, an inclination to act from feeling rather than thought, an exaggerated individualism and a too narrow concept of social responsibility, attachment to fictions and false values, above all, too great attachment to racial values and a tendency to justify cruelty and injustice in the name of those values, sentimentality and a lack of realism—these have been its characteristic vices in the past. And despite changes for the better, they remain its characteristic vices today.“
Bear in mind that those comments were written 60 years ago. Obviously not much progress has been achieved during that time.
Free, I think lu has bought the N&A too.
Thank you Middle for you comments yesterday about President Obama.
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