Governor, state leaders rally for GOP candidates

A crowd of 150 to 200 cheering people greeted Gov. Bob McDonnell and a dozen other Republican leaders Sunday at a Lynchburg GOP headquarters rally for state Senate candidate Tom Garrett and House of Delegates hopeful Matt Fariss.

McDonnell, midway through a weekend tour of 14 Virginia cities designed to win control of the state Senate in Tuesday’s elections, told the crowd that “I’m here to help you elect a great senator in Tom Garrett and a great new delegate in Matt Fariss.”

Garrett, who is running against Democrat Bert Dodson for the 22^nd District Senate seat that was created by redistricting in April, told the crowd that “we cannot find a spending, fee, or taxing issue that my opponent voted against” during 12 years Dodson served on Lynchburg City Council.

Garrett told the party volunteers that “I’m blessed and humbled to have your support,” and “I’m going to ask you to take one extra step and redouble your efforts” to ensure a voter turnout on Tuesday.

Fariss didn’t address the crowd, although he and Garrett stood on the platform while a dozen other party leaders spoke.

McDonnell and several other speakers thanked Liberty University’s College Republicans Club for making 30,000 phone calls to voters in the past three weeks on behalf of Republican candidates.

Kristin Handy, president of the LU club, said most of the calls were made to potential Garrett voters. Some additional calls were made for a Roanoke-area candidate, state Sen. Ralph Smith, she said.

“Before Tuesday, we will make 50,000 calls, minimum, to support Tom Garrett,” Handy said.

McDonnell, riding a 69 percent approval rating from Virginians as reported by an Old Dominion University poll on Saturday, referred briefly to national issues and a “vision for America.”

“When it comes to spending and control and debts and deficits, we are the greatest country on Earth. But we are broke. We have got record deficits and debts.  And we have a 9.1 percent unemployment rate. We need new leadership,” McDonnell said.

The governor read part of a letter  written to him by Garrett’s 10-year-old daughter, Laura, which said: “I hope that you will help our government very much, and please try to help our economy any way you can. All I’m asking is that you help Virginia by doing the opposite of what [President Barack] Obama is doing in America.”

McDonnell added, “You can tell something about a man by his children.”

Ten speakers preceded McDonnell to the platform during the rally, which started almost an hour after its scheduled 3:30 p.m. beginning, and concluded about 5:30 p.m.

Besides Garrett, the speakers were: Rep. Robert Hurt, R-5^th District; Rep. Robert Goodlatte, R-6^th District; state Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg; Lynchburg-area Republican leader Wendell Walker; state Republican Party leader Pat Mullins; Del. Tim Hugo, chairman of the Republican caucus in the House of Delegates;  Senate Republican leader Tommy Norment of Williamsburg; Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling.

Another speaker was Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee, which has donated $2 million to Virginia candidates this year.

Among their comments were these:

 Gillespie: “Last year we helped flip 21 state legislative chambers from Democratic control to Republican  control, and on Tuesday we are going to flip the 22^nd one and give our governor a majority in the Senate to go with a majority in the House.”   

Newman: Garrett “has worked more than anyone I know of.  He’s been back and forth to Lynchburg more than 60 times to campaign in this area.” Garrett lives in Louisa County, about 100 miles to the east.

Mullins: “This is the seventh stop we have made in the past two days.  We can feel the electricity in the air everywhere we’ve been, just as we are feeling it here.”

Hugo: “This election is the canary in Barack Obama’s coal mine.”

Norment:  Referring to Dodson’s family owned pest control business, Norment said, “We need to exterminate the exterminator and keep him home on Tuesday.”

Bolling: “In our party the last couple of years the wind has been at our back. I think the wind is still at our back in 2011.”