Talking Virginia 5th District Politics on the Radio

This past Tuesday, I was invited by Coy Barefoot to be a guest on his WINA-AM radio program, "Charlottesville Right Now."  He had seen a comment I left on an article about Fifth Congressional District GOP candidate Feda Morton on The Hook's web site and had also noticed that I had conducted face-to-face interviews with Feda and her six rivals for the Republican nomination in the primary scheduled for June 8.  He asked if I would be willing to talk about the race on his show.

Despite the short notice, I accepted the invitation. 

The video (below) shows the result of our discussion, which included thoughts about Feda Morton as a "family values" candidate who has been twice divorced and who was denied custody of her children because of her anger and bitterness, about how formidable an opponent Tom Perriello will be (regardless of who the Republican nominee is) because he has learned the right lessons about constituent services and keeping his name in the news, and how Perriello will still be a weaker candidate this year because he does not have Barack Obama at the top of his ticket.  (In fact, Perriello will be the top of the ticket, as there are no other offices up for election this year.)

Here is Part I, where Coy introduces me as a "Republican blogger of note" and sets the stage for the discussion, starting with the Feda Morton article:

(Note that this interview took place before the Daily Progress reported that Morton had apparently plagiarized parts of an op-ed piece by Joseph Sobran and published his words as her own.)

Coy also threw me a softball question that allowed me to plug the excellent documentary film from the Moving Picture Institute, Do As I Say, which exposes leftwingers Michael Moore and Al Gore as hypocrites, and to to also talk about that day's resignation announcement by "family values" Congressman Mark Souder (R-Indiana), who had an extramarital affair with a staffer -- after making a video with her touting the benefits of sexual abstinence education!

In Part II, Coy returns to the "bombshell of a story" (his words) about Feda Morton and asks what impact the story might have on the outcome of the race on June 8.  I reply by noting the lack of independent polling in the race and the way that straw polls can be misleading.  I also note that Republican voters in the "low turnout primary ... are going to be voting strategically," trying to nominate the candidate "who can best beat Tom Perriello" and that "intelligent Republican voters, even if they like Feda," may vote against her because they are "hungry to take this seat back."

Here's the video:

In Part III, Coy leads off with a question about who I think can beat Tom Perriello in November. I note that statistically, with seven candidates in the race, there can be a winner with 15 percent of the vote, though I predict the ultimate victor will have 27 or 28 percent.

I also note the conventional wisdom favors state Senator Robert Hurt, who has been attacked by Morton and other candidates for various votes he has made in the General Assembly. "The slings and arrows that are being aimed at these candidates," I say, "are a bit odd and sometimes off-base."

Then I go over the list of other candidates -- Michael McPadden, Ron Ferrin, Ken Boyd, Laurence Verga -- and weigh their pluses and minuses. (Apologies to Jim McKelvey, whose name did not come up in the discussion.)

Here's the final segment of the video:

Coy also asks about the Second District, where former GOP activist Kenny Golden has entered the race as an independent against incumbent Democrat Glenn Nye.

Surprisingly, we were able to get through the whole hour without talking about either Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga.

For those interested, all of my interviews with the congressional candidates, including some from districts other than the Fifth, can be seen at my Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner page on Examiner.com.


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