Hurt dismisses Verga\u2019s challenge<\/a><\/p>\nConventional wisdom says that if you’re in the lead in a political campaign, you generally shouldn’t participate in a debate because you have nothing to gain. Hurt’s campaign controllers are very smart in political strategy and knew that when they immediately rejected this gambit. Not only that, Chris LaCavita (strategist) & Sean Harrison (campaign manager) were able to pull the reversal by saying Verga’s idea skipped over all of the other candidates. Well played. What’s Verga’s take on this? The same old very very tiring “But Robert Hurt voted for a tax increase six years ago!” crap we’ve heard over and over again. Charles Hawkins & Danny Marshall voted for the same tax increase bill and Verga or his “Communications and Policy Director” haven’t got the guts to call those people non-conservative. <\/p>\n
Verga has a small chance of winning now and it’s getting smaller every day that his campaign pulls stunts like this that fail. This was the first attempt by anybody in the race to knock the King of the Hill down and Hurt swatted Verga down like he was a mosquito. Let’s see who tries the next similar move in this race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ouch. Laurance Verga takes a gamble and it doesn’t pay off.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/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":[20,22,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newscentral","category-opinioncentral","category-politicscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1Ko","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6511,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/05\/laurence-verga-grasps-for-another-straw-and-fails\/","url_meta":{"origin":6720,"position":0},"title":"Laurence Verga grasps for another straw (and fails).","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We had made it 22 days without an article on the 5th District race. That streak comes to an end after a stupid-ass comment by Verga, who said Robert Hurt raised taxes \"once again\". Verga accuses Hurt of raising taxes, \u2018once again\u2019 This is convoluted horsecrap. Verga is full of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NewsCentral"","block_context":{"text":"NewsCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/newscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6324,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/29\/food-chain-5th-district-candidates\/","url_meta":{"origin":6720,"position":1},"title":"UPDATED: Food Chain! – 5th District Candidates","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We made it six days without a political article, so let's get everybody upset at us with our first \"Food Chain!\" that ranks the candidates for Virginia's Republican nomination for the 5th district. Let's start it out as fairly as we can. Here's the list of candidates that's been randomly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Food Chain!"","block_context":{"text":"Food Chain!","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/food-chain\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6942,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/05\/25\/another-5th-district-forum-ha-ha-ho-hum\/","url_meta":{"origin":6720,"position":2},"title":"Another 5th District forum. Ha Ha! Ho Hum.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This time, the Crazy Crew of Candidates make their way to Liberty University! Fifth District candidates face off Let's go to the not-so-relevant points... Robert Hurt wasn't there due to a prior commitment... but it's a pretty good strategy now to let the other candidates implode. Everybody Hates Hurt -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "OpinionCentral"","block_context":{"text":"OpinionCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/opinioncentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6608,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/21\/food-chain-5th-district-candidates-update-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":6720,"position":3},"title":"Food Chain! – 5th District Candidates – Update #1","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We did a Food Chain! on the candidates for the Republican 5th District nomination ten weeks ago, so it's time for an update. This time, we'll promise to get all seven candidates in there the first time. ;) Here's the list of candidates after being randomized: Feda Morton, Ron Ferrin,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Food Chain!"","block_context":{"text":"Food Chain!","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/food-chain\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6924,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/05\/19\/5th-district-republican-primary-update-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6720,"position":4},"title":"5th District Republican Primary \u2013 Update #2","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"(Last update: 5th District Republican Primary \u2013 Update #1) Ten days from our first update, let's see what's been going on in the 5th District. Let's kick it off with an update on each of the candidates (in random order). Jim McKelvey - McKelvey is starting to spend (his own)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "OpinionCentral"","block_context":{"text":"OpinionCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/opinioncentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6975,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/01\/5th-district-republican-primary-update-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":6720,"position":5},"title":"5th District Republican Primary \u2013 Update #3","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"(Last update: 5th District Republican Primary \u2013 Update #2) Seven days to go until this election is decided is decided in the voting booth. Let's do a quick update on whats happened in the last two weeks. Let's look at each candidate (in random order)... Feda Morton - Morton seems\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "OpinionCentral"","block_context":{"text":"OpinionCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/opinioncentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720","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=6720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}