Poll: Hurt is the early frontrunner in the Fifth GOP race
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
The conventional wisdom in the Fifth District Republican congressional race has been that Southside State Sen. Robert Hurt is the early frontrunner. A poll released Friday morning confrims the conventional wisdom.
Hurt leads the seven-candidate field with 22 percent of projected primary voters surveyed by Public Policy Polling this week expressing a preference for the veteran state legislator. Albemarle County Board of Supervisors member Ken Boyd is the only other candidate to register support in the double-digits, at 12 percent.
The tab undecided stands at 51 percent, indicating that there is much room for movement in the nearly four months leading up to the June primary that will decide on the Republican Party nominee. Read more
A conservative’s take on the Fifth
Former candidate blogs, talks up congressional race
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Republicans can knock off freshman Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello in November, but it won’t be easy.
The assumption among some on the right is that Perriello won in 2008 on the coattails of Barack Obama, but as Internet-radio host Bradley Rees points out, John McCain beat Obama in the presidential voting in the Fifth by a healthy margin, “and yet Tom Perriello still won by 727 votes.”
Rees is a former candidate for the GOP nomination in the Fifth who is now devoting his energies to covering the race as a blogger and podcaster with a right-of-center perspective. A focal point for Rees, as he detailed in an interview on The AFP Show podcast on Monday, is moving the Republican Party nomination race to the right, a tall task with moderate State Sen. Robert Hurt appearing to be in the driver’s seat at this point. Read more
Perriello passes $1M mark in fundraising
Staff Report
News tips: freepress2@ntelos.net
The Perriello campaign announced on Friday its year-end FEC filing will reflect $1,140,470 raised for the 2010 election cycle, with $874,128 cash on hand for the election year.
The campaign starts this election year in this strong position by running an aggressive, grassroots donor program, raising money from 2,118 individual donors this cycle, 77 percent of whom are small donors (under $200). That is nearly five times as many individual donors as have given to all the Republican candidates in the field combined.
“Our strategy of grassroots, people-powered politics continues to excite and inspire people, with nearly five times the number of individual donors as all the Republican candidates combined and zero dollars from lobbyists,” said Anna Scholl, finance director for the Perriello campaign. “Virginians know that Congressman Perriello is looking out for their interests, not the special interests of lobbyists, big banks, and oil companies.”
The campaign will report $308,725 raised in the fourth quarter of 2009, the strongest quarter of this cycle, with the majority of donors coming from the Fifth District.
Perriello introduces legislation to ban foreign corporate money from U.S. elections
Staff Report
News tips: freepress2@ntelos.net
Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello has introduced legislation that would ban electioneering activity by corporations whose shareholders include any foreign nationals.
Perriello introduced H.R. 4523, the Save Our Democracy From Foreign Influence Act of 2010, to close a dangerous loophole that “would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans,” as stated in Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent to a recent Supreme Court decision overturning federal law to allow unlimited corporate spending in electioneering activity,
“George Washington said, ‘Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence… the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.’ That was before the age of global interconnectedness, but the principle remains the same: we simply cannot allow American elections to be influenced by anyone but Americans,” said Perriello. Read more
State of the Union: A Virginia perspective
Edited by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Everything you wanted to know about the State of the Union, but were afraid to ask.
We have the full texts and videos of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s Republican response. We also have reactions from Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner, congressmen Tom Perriello and Bob Goodlatte and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine.
Enjoy.
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address
Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:
Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union. For two hundred and twenty years, our leaders have fulfilled this duty. They have done so during periods of prosperity and tranquility. And they have done so in the midst of war and depression; at moments of great strife and great struggle. Read more
Show me the money
Court strikes down restrictions on corporate campaign financing
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
The best government that money can buy – it’s official now.
“Their decision announced today in Citizens United v. FEC is constitutionally irresponsible and will surely bring about an anti-democratic revolution in how we finance elections in this country. Today, basic pillars of American democracy have been undermined – that elections should not be corrupted by vast corporate wealth and that the voters should be at the center of our democratic system,” said Mary G. Wilson, the president of the League of Women Voters, on the ruling handed down today that struck down restrictions in federal law restricting donations to political campaigns from corporations.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 5-4 majority on the Court, opined that the restrictions effectively suppressed “political speech on the basis of the speaker’s corporate identity. “No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations,” Kennedy wrote. Read more
Perriello: End antitrust exemption for health-insurance companies
Posted by afp on February 4, 2010 · 4 Comments
Staff Report
News tips: freepress2@ntelos.net
The measure would end special treatment for the insurance industry that allows them to fix prices, collude with each other, and set their own markets without fear of being investigated. Removing this exemption has been a common priority of these two freshmen lawmakers, though they voted differently on the initial House health-care reform bill.
They will formally unveil the bill at a press conference on Friday. Read more
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