{"id":6247,"date":"2010-01-23T11:43:27","date_gmt":"2010-01-23T16:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=6247"},"modified":"2010-01-23T11:43:27","modified_gmt":"2010-01-23T16:43:27","slug":"lets-recap-fridays-tea-party-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/23\/lets-recap-fridays-tea-party-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s recap Friday&#8217;s Tea Party Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Five of the six candidates for the 5th District Republican nomination met in Charlottesville last night. So what happened, who won and who lost?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Laurence Verga, Feda Morton, Ron Ferris, Mike McPadden, Ken Boyd &amp; Jim McKelvey attended the debate, with Robert Hurt passing on this one due to General Assembly work needs.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s Random Thoughts time!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There wasn&#8217;t much &#8220;debate&#8221; at this &#8220;debate&#8221; because all of the candidates have pretty much the same opinion on the same issues. I didn&#8217;t learn anything about the candidates&#8217; positions that I didn&#8217;t already know.<\/li>\n<li>Joe Thomas, the host of the debate, appeared in a Thomas Jefferson costume. Wah wahhhh. I get it, Joe. You&#8217;re from Charlottesville. The people in the audience call themselves &#8220;patriots&#8221;. You still looked like an idiot. Colonial costumes are for Williamsburg and gubernatorial inagurations (and sparely used there, please).<\/li>\n<li>Robert Tracinski was the debate moderator and somewhat Didn&#8217;t Get It. Ask the questions, call TIME! and keep it moving. I&#8217;m not at the debate to listen to the moderator, I&#8217;m there for the stars of the show who are on the stage.<\/li>\n<li>All of that being said though, I&#8217;m pleasantly surprised that the Tea Partiers didn&#8217;t turn this debate into a free-for-all. I had significant fears that the event was going to devolve into a shout-fest.<\/li>\n<li>I give ZERO credibility to the after-debate straw poll that&#8217;s being circulated because I don&#8217;t feel that anyone in the audience changed their mind after the debate. That makes the straw poll a count on who they supported before.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Now, what about the candidates? Did they make any moves up or down the ladder?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Laurence Verga<\/strong>: Verga didn&#8217;t look like he was enjoying himself and put very little emotion in his answers. Verga comes out of this debate <strong>EVEN<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Feda Morton<\/strong>: Morton did absolutely nothing to make herself stand out from the other candidates. Morton comes out of this debate <strong>DOWN<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ron Ferrin<\/strong>: Ferrin started off on the wrong foot trying to make jokes that just weren&#8217;t funny and never came back. He just seemed hotheaded to me. Ferrin comes out of this debate <strong>DOWN<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mike McPadden<\/strong>: McPadden&#8217;s answers were relative short &amp; concise and he had a professional demeanor. McPadden comes out of this debate <strong>UP<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ken Boyd<\/strong>: Boyd started off talking in the style of John Moschitta and it was hard to decipher what he was saying. He&#8217;s one of the better candidates out there but did nothing to improve his standing. Boyd comes out of this debate <strong>EVEN<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jim McKelvey<\/strong>: McKelvey was a relative unknown coming into this debate but like the others, he did nothing to make himself stand out. Unfortunately, that still leaves him in the bottom of the field. McKelvey comes out of this debate <strong>EVEN<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Robert Hurt<\/strong>: Hurt made a strategic move to pass on the Tea Party debates by using the General Assembly session as his reasoning. It was a gamble, but based of what happened last night, it seems to be a good move. All Hurt has to do is let the field cannibalize\u00a0 themselves and he stays away from the fray. There were a few shots at Hurt&#8217;s tax increase votes (that were designed to please the anti-any-tax audience), but Hurt lost nothing by not participating in this event. Hurt comes out of this debate <strong>EVEN<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Recap: Feda Morton and Ron Ferrin seem to be nice people, but they don&#8217;t have what it takes to get me to vote for them in the primary. Jim McKelvey is barely hanging on to that threshold but I feel he&#8217;ll fall short of it very soon. That leaves Verga, Boyd, McPadden &amp; Hurt on SouthsideCentral&#8217;s &#8220;viability scale&#8221;.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five of the six candidates for the 5th District Republican nomination met in Charlottesville last night. So what happened, who won and who lost?<\/p>\n<p> [&#8230;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinioncentral","category-politicscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1CL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6133,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/07\/robert-hurt-plays-a-strategy-card\/","url_meta":{"origin":6247,"position":0},"title":"Robert Hurt plays a strategy card.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Gotta admit, I called this one as soon as he proposed a set of five debates... Hurt declines Charlottesville debates Last week, Robert Hurt proposed a series of five debates for the candidates for the Republican 5th district candidates. The various Tea Party groups had proposed their own series of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;NewsCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6585,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/20\/random-thoughts-from-todays-republican-debate\/","url_meta":{"origin":6247,"position":1},"title":"Random thoughts from today&#8217;s Republican debate","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, the candidates for the 5th District Republican nomination had their third in a series of debates sponsored by the area TEA parties. I was able to attend the first half of the debate and here are some random thoughts that came out of the first half. I'm sorry that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;LIVE!Central&quot;","block_context":{"text":"LIVE!Central","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/livecentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6104,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/02\/weve-got-overtime-on-the-15-minutes-of-fame-clock\/","url_meta":{"origin":6247,"position":2},"title":"We&#8217;ve got overtime on the &#8220;15 minutes of fame&#8221; clock!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Remember \"Joe The Plumber\"? He's coming to Virginia to support a 5th District Candidate. This article is brought to you by the \"We Can't Make This Crap Up\" Department. Joseph Wurzelbacher is coming to Arch's Frozen Yogurt in Charlottesville on Friday to help raise money for Laurence Verga. You can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;EventsCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"EventsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/eventscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6795,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/19\/some-thoughts-about-todays-danville-city-council-forum\/","url_meta":{"origin":6247,"position":3},"title":"Some thoughts about today&#8217;s Danville City Council forum","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The five candidates for City Council got together today at Danville's Liberty Hill Baptist Church for a forum sponsored by the Danville Ministerial Alliance. Let's go to some random thoughts... It takes a lot of time to run for City Council. This was the third \"forum\" in a seven-day period.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;EventsCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"EventsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/eventscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6603,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/20\/so-how-did-the-candidates-do-at-todays-debate\/","url_meta":{"origin":6247,"position":4},"title":"So, how did the candidates do at today&#8217;s debate?","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"All righty then... we just completed some random thoughts on today's 5th District debate in Danville. It's time to see how I think the candidates did. We'll recap the candidates in the same alphabetical order that they sat at today's debate. Ken Boyd - Today was the first time that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;OpinionCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"OpinionCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/opinioncentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5727,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/31\/updated-some-thoughts-about-tonights-halifax-county-candidates-forum\/","url_meta":{"origin":6247,"position":5},"title":"UPDATED: Some thoughts about tonight&#8217;s Halifax County Candidates Forum&#8230;","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"(Originally Published on: Oct 30, 2009 @ 19:27) Update #2: To reflect the Halifax County Chamber of Commerce's reply to the update. Update #3: Issuing retraction on \"candidates being told not to say anything negative\" What if they held a forum for the candidates in Halifax County and nobody showed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;EventsCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"EventsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/eventscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}