{"id":6739,"date":"2010-04-10T23:15:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-11T03:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=6739"},"modified":"2010-04-10T23:15:33","modified_gmt":"2010-04-11T03:15:33","slug":"some-thoughts-about-todays-danville-tea-party-freedom-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/10\/some-thoughts-about-todays-danville-tea-party-freedom-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"Some thoughts about today&#8217;s Danville Tea Party &#8220;Freedom Rally&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Danville Tea Party sponsored a &#8220;Freedom Rally&#8221; at Danville&#8217;s Ballou Park today. Let&#8217;s take a look at what happened using the infamous &#8220;random thoughts&#8221; format.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It was a beautiful day for this rally with bright sunshine and 65 degrees temperatures.<\/li>\n<li>Our emcee for the day is Elmer Woodard and unfortunately, he&#8217;s dressed in a colonial costume. Yeah, I get it. Tea party, colonial days. That homage is really starting to fall flat.<\/li>\n<li>Nigel Coleman does a good job with his speech. He&#8217;s toned down his rhetoric and didn&#8217;t say anything stupid. I was impressed with his performance today.<\/li>\n<li>Virgil Goode was added on as a late addition to speak and if I didn&#8217;t know any better, I&#8217;d swear that he was either running for office or still in office. He knows how to get a crowd going.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve always been impressed with Danny Marshall, and he made another good speech &amp; the crowd was very receptive. I&#8217;ve always found it interesting that lots of Tea Party members vilify Robert Hurt for his &#8220;tax increase&#8221; yet never say anything about Marshall or Charles Hawkins, as they voted for the same bill.<\/li>\n<li>Danny Marshall says he&#8217;ll be voting for Robert Hurt. The crowd has absolutely no reaction&#8230; not even from the 2 or 3 people who&#8217;ve been talking to no one in particular when they attempt to echo various speakers&#8217; points.<\/li>\n<li>Marshall says that there will be a major jobs announcement in the next few weeks for Southside. We&#8217;ll have more on that later.<\/li>\n<li>There was approximately 150 people at the rally but after looking at the demographics, I sense a big problem with the Danville&#8217;s Tea Party message. Except for Nigel Coleman, the crowd&#8217;s racial background is totally white. If their message isn&#8217;t getting out to Danville&#8217;s black community, they&#8217;re missing a lot. The crowd also is skewed towards older people (with a few exceptions), which means that the young voters are a group that the Tea Party is missing out on and could incorporate into their fold. The Danville Tea Party has not gotten into local politics at all, and I&#8217;m wondering if that&#8217;s a major flaw in their thought process. With the Danville City Council race coming up, it&#8217;s an opening for them to get more recognition.<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of Danville City Council, it was good to see Councilman Fred Shanks at the event. Shanks has attended most, if not all of the Tea Party events. Since we&#8217;re in the middle of a city council race, it&#8217;s surprising that none of the challengers showed up to at least get some name recognition (even if they&#8217;re not warm to the Tea Party ideas).<\/li>\n<li>Virginia State Police Special Agent Mark Campbell, the coordinator of the Halifax\/South Boston Regional Narcotics and Gang Task Force, spoke on the potential threats to homeland security that are in the region. Campbell is extremely knowledgeable in his field of expertise and represents an arm of the Virginia State Police that few people know about. His speech was excellent, yet it was a bizarre tangent to a political &#8220;freedom rally&#8221;. Campbell would be best utilized as a speaker that has the entire agenda dedicated to what he knows best.<\/li>\n<li>Daren Gardner was another speaker at the event. He plans on doing a &#8220;Constitution Ride Across America&#8221; on his motorcycle, visiting the lower 48 state capitols from August 15 to October 30, holding a rally at each stop.<\/li>\n<li>Tito Munoz spoke at the rally. He&#8217;s a Colombian immigrant who has built a successful construction business and is a frequent speaker at rallies like this. Munoz appears to be affiliated with the &#8220;Americans For Prosperity&#8221; group.<\/li>\n<li>Closing remarks went to Darriel Burnett, the vice-chairman of the Danville Tea Party. This was the first time that I had heard from Burnett and he impressed me with his &#8220;everyman&#8221; attitude. Dressed in a t-shirt &amp; jeans, Burnett really seemed to have the genuine &#8220;spirit of the Tea Party&#8221; ideals in him. He didn&#8217;t have any of the fiery rhetoric that has made negative publicity. Burnett needs to get out and get more visible, and he can add some more credibility to the Danville Tea Party.<\/li>\n<li>Feda Morton &amp; Jeff Clark were at the rally. Feda Morton is a candidate for the Republican nomination for the 5th District House seat, while Clark is running an independent campaign for the seat. I&#8217;m hoping to do an interview segment with both of these candidates on this week&#8217;s &#8220;Local Buzz&#8221; shows. I&#8217;ll be hosting Monday through Wednesday in the upcoming week.<\/li>\n<li>The iced tea was rather tasty. \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the total civility of today&#8217;s rally. I came in expecting more of the same (and fearing something like the one held at the Danville courthouse last year). If the Danville Tea Party continues on this path and away from the idiotic stunts, they just might gain some of the respectability back that they&#8217;ve lost. Today&#8217;s rally was a disjointed group of speakers, but it somehow worked out into an entertaining two hour event. We&#8217;ll have a photo slideshow from the event in an article on Sunday.<\/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>The Danville Tea Party sponsored a &#8220;Freedom Rally&#8221; at Danville&#8217;s Ballou Park today. Let&#8217;s take a look at what happened using the infamous &#8220;random thoughts&#8221; format.<\/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":[58,6,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-eventscentral","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1KH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6734,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/09\/danville-tea-partys-freedom-rally-saturday-410\/","url_meta":{"origin":6739,"position":0},"title":"Danville Tea Party&#8217;s &#8220;Freedom Rally&#8221; &#8211; Saturday (4\/10)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's happening at Danville's Ballou Park on Saturday. We're going to try and attend. Make your way to Ballou Park on Saturday at noon. The Danville Tea Party will be holding a \"Freedom Rally\" and will feature Delegate Danny Marshall as a speaker. With any luck, we'll be there and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6779,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/17\/tom-perriello-opens-danville-campaign-office\/","url_meta":{"origin":6739,"position":1},"title":"Tom Perriello opens Danville campaign office","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"November 2nd is a long way away, but the first campaign office has opened in Danville. (Caution: This is in the OpinionCentral category for a reason.) Over 100 people turned out at 437 Man St. in Danville today for the grand opening of Congressman Tom Perriello's campaign office. I'm smelling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7547,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2012\/06\/10\/its-not-shouting-at-a-telephone-pole\/","url_meta":{"origin":6739,"position":2},"title":"It&#8217;s not shouting at a telephone pole&#8230;","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"...but it's just as useless. It's stupid when Virginia Organizing does it, and it's just as stupid when Danville's Tea Party does it. Danville Tea Party protests EPA regulations at closed office (If you get the stupid Register & Bee paywall block, just reload the page and hit the stop\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4852,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/27\/random-thoughts-about-the-patients-first-rally-in-danville\/","url_meta":{"origin":6739,"position":3},"title":"Random Thoughts about the &#8220;Patients First&#8221; rally in Danville.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a whirlwind tour that is swinging through Southside VA. But what' s it all about? Here are some thoughts about the Danville stop. Damn, that's a nice bus. Who's paying for all of this? As I turned the corner around the bus, I noticed the same signs that were\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":5811,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/11\/13\/danvilles-tea-partiers-have-officially-lost-their-minds\/","url_meta":{"origin":6739,"position":4},"title":"Danville&#8217;s Tea Partiers have officially lost their minds.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"November 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"They were confusing before, but this proves that they're quite insane. TEA Party rally to burn Perriello in effigy The Star-Tribune was the newspaper to break the embargo, but something this asinine deserves to be mocked as quickly as possible.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4848,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/27\/patients-first-rally-in-danville-live-photo-recap\/","url_meta":{"origin":6739,"position":5},"title":"&#8220;Patients First&#8221; Rally in Danville &#8211; LIVE! Photo Recap","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a recap of the LIVE! photos that we took from the \"Patients First\" rally that was held Monday afternoon on the Municipal Building stairs.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739","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=6739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}