GOP hopeful angles for convention before primary

Comment:  Sen. Robert Hurt, whose ya daddy, maybe part of the uranium mining group according to articles and some history: Thirty other people have invested in the company, several of whom live in the area, including Henry Hurt, a former editor for Reader's Digest.Hurt's son Robert served three terms in the House before winning his Senate seat. Coles' son Walter, who is executive vice president of Virginia Uranium, and Reynolds together donated $1,500 to Hurt last year, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.Robert Hurt, a Republican whose House and Senate districts include Coles Hill, said he supports a study but does not have enough information to know whether he favors mining. He said he does not need to recuse himself from a vote on the study because no profit is at stake for his father.http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-01-13/news/17150436_1_uranium-mining-virginia-uranium-environmental-groups/3

 

By Brian McNeill
Media General News Service

Published: January 5, 2010

An Albemarle County Republican seeking his party’s nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello is calling for a convention to pick one conservative candidate to face Sen. Robert Hurt in the June 8 GOP primary.

Michael McPadden, a North Garden resident and airline pilot, believes such a “conservative convention” would unite the GOP grassroots behind one diehard conservative.

McPadden and several other candidates in the crowded field view Hurt, a state senator from Chatham, as too moderate.

“Hurt is a moderate,“ McPadden said. “The six other candidates in the race are vying for the party’s conservative base. We’re going to split the vote and hand it over to the moderate.“

Six of the primary race’s seven candidates had advocated for a convention to select their party’s nominee to challenge Perriello, D-Ivy. The 5th District Republican Committee, however, last month voted instead to hold a state-run open primary. Only Hurt wanted a primary.

Hurt strongly disputes the notion that he is anything but a solid conservative, noting that as a legislator he has received top ratings from the National Rifle Association, the Family Foundation and other conservative organizations.

Hurt has been criticized by his GOP primary opponents for several votes in the General Assembly, most notably for Gov. Mark R. Warner’s tax increase in 2004.

Chris LaCivita, a strategist for Hurt, wrote in an e-mail that McPadden’s proposed “conservative convention” would be unfair to the other candidates in the race and to the “thousands of conservatives across the 5th District [voting in a primary] for some smoke-filled room funded by outside interests.“

“There are seven conservatives running,“ he wrote. “Voters get to make their pick in June.“

McPadden said he has been contacted by several conservative-leaning groups in the 5th District - which stretches from the Charlottesville region down to Danville - willing to finance his conservative convention idea. McPadden declined to provide the names of the organizations.

For such a convention to work, McPadden must first get the race’s five candidates other than Hurt to glom onto the idea.

In addition to McPadden and Hurt, the race’s crowded field includes Kenneth C. Boyd, a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors; Ron Ferrin, a Campbell County resident who owns an Internet firm; Jim McKelvey, a Franklin County real estate developer; Feda Kidd Morton, a Fluvanna County biology teacher and GOP activist; and Laurence Verga, a real estate investor from Ivy.

Perriello is in the middle of his first two-year term, having narrowly defeated incumbent Virgil H. Goode Jr. in 2008. The general election is Nov. 2.

Read more:
http://www2.godanriver.com/gdr/news/local/danville_news/article/gop_hopeful_angles_for_convention_before_primary/16791/