The Tea Party is upset with Rep. Robert Hurt:
The group gathered in the parking lot outside Hurt’s Berkmar Circle office for about half an hour. After a few speeches, the crowd dispersed, with some attendees going to speak to office staff who were inside handling casework.
Some were upset that no representative from Hurt’s office came out to the event.
“When we did this at [Rep. Tom] Perriello’s office, he always had a representative to come down and listen to us,” said Don Woodsmall. “And no Hurt representative down here today? I’ve got to tell you, I’m severely disappointed.”
It was just in October that Hurt said: “I can promise you this, I will certainly be as accessible if not more accessible than Congressman Perriello has been.”
The list of ways that this is not surprising is almost endless.
Do you think any light bulbs turned on when that dude said that? I bet he is seriously baffled.
I wonder if they’re also as concerned that he’s leasing an office on private property as they were about Periello’s office downtown?
I’ve been meaning to go to Hurt’s office and measure its distance from public land.
Hurt’s claim that he’d be more accessible was ludicrous. He must have regretted it as soon as the words came out of his mouth. Perriello was known nationally as the single most accessible member of the House. Nobody held more forums on healthcare than him.
Hurt’s claim was ludicrous at the time, and I said so.
Even though I am glad Perriello’s gone, he was basically one of the most accessible politicians I have ever seen. His voting record left a lot to be desired, but that was how to treat constituents.
Have they pulled out the teaparty toolkit – post his family’s personal information and go looking for the propane tank at his brother’s house?
“Hurt’s claim that he’d be more accessible was ludicrous. He must have regretted it as soon as the words came out of his mouth.”
I absolutely agree with the first sentence. Unfortunately, I can’t possibly imagine a way in which the second sentence might feasibly be true. Such is the problem with people who shamelessly pander: you can’t shame them for it later.
No, his brother is the DC Chief of NY Post, I’m guessing he lives in a private neighborhood somewhere.
Wow – Hurt’s almost as good at it as Obama!
I got a return call from Hurt twice already from Robert himself not a staffer.I left over 30 messages for Tom Perriello and never got a single call returned.Id say Hurt is keeping his word alot better than Perriello ever did.
Either those calls you made were rude, or you’re lying, or perhaps both. There’s no telling which.
I documented every call after the first five.Time,number called,and date.Maybe because I hadn’t worked for or donated to his campaign was the reason.Im not the only person this happened to.I don’t always agree with Hurt but atleast you can get him on the phone to give him your opinion.Tom Perriello was in office for two years and never called me back id say Hurt is doing alot better so far.
Perhaps you could explain what it was that you were calling about. Because it strikes me as wildly unlikely that any constituent could call any congressman’s office thirty times and never receive any kind of a response. (Does the employee who answers the phone just breathe heavily and not speak?) Were you demanding evidence that the president isn’t a Martian, or was this about reasonable human being kind of stuff? Did you call thirty times in one day?
Waldo I was calling on the healthcare bill.I was very nice to the staffers that answered as they were to me also.My questions to was that I would like Tom to give me a phone call and he never did.The phone call were over a six week time span.When I did see Tom at a townhall meeting I showed him my log and he said he didn’t have time to return every phone call.I reminded him Virgil Goode always found time when he was a Democrat,Indy,and Republican.After that I made my mind to donate my $2,400 to Hurt for congress.
Wait, you weren’t willing to talk to a staffer? You wanted to talk to Perriello personally? I think I’ve ID’d your problem there, Tom.
I’ve made a lot of phone calls and written a lot of letters to a lot of legislators over the years. But I don’t think I’ve ever once insisted on one of those legislators giving me a call. A few times I’ve made appointments to go in and talk with them, a bunch of times I’ve gone to public events where they’re meeting with constituents generally, and sometimes I’ve been lucky enough to bump into ’em and have a quick chat. 95% of the time, I talk to the legislator’s staff, which almost always works better, because they know more than the legislator, and they can do more for me.
I know why Hurt called you back personally—because he’s not spending his time meeting with groups of voters. This is not a wise use of his time as a representative. He’s representing 650,000 voters, and if he’s going to personally place phone calls to everybody who leaves a message (or two dozen) saying “call me, I want to talk to you,” he’s going to end up much less accessible. Sure, the people who get phone calls feel special, but the end result is that he’s available to a lot less people.
Well Virgil Goode NEVER had a problem personally giving me a phone call even when I disagreed with him.So far Robert Hurt hasn’t had a problem with this either.Tom Perriello’s problem was he felt like he was working for Obama not the people in the 5th district.You are also wrong about Robert Hurt not having meetings.He had one last night at Hampden Sydney it was around 150 people at the meeting.It was very well advertised in the local papers and on the radio.
Virgil Goode was also a lot less accessible than Perriello. He didn’t hold a single town hall in Charlottesville or Albemarle, ever, at least that I knew about—and I paid pretty close attention. I didn’t say that Hurt never has meetings, I said that he has a lot less. Tom Perriello held more town hall meetings than any other member of Congress. Period. The man met with Tea Party groups—people who would never, ever vote for him, and everybody there knew it. At his present rate of holding hardly any such meetings, Hurt is in no danger of breaking Perriello’s record.
Waldo Hurt has only been in office 3 months.Im not sure if Virgil Goode had any townhalls or not but he was very accesible atleast to me he was.Hell he even gave me his personal cell phone number.Perriello did have alot of townhalls but alot of them were at 7:00,7:30,and 8:00am when alot of people had to be at work or on their way to work.How many meetings did Perriello have in his first 3 months in office ?
It’s true, he’s only been office for three and a half months, and that provides precious little on which to judge him. (To be fair, it’s a Tea Party member lamenting Hurt’s inaccessibility that kicked this off.) I think a year is a good period of time in which to see if he meets his goal, but I would put down rather a large sum of money that he will not, by any metric.
Tom Perriello distributed his town hall meetings over all times of the day within each geographic area, to make sure that if somebody couldn’t attend a 7:00 PM meeting in Danville, that’s OK, they could attend the 7:30 AM meeting the next morning in Martinsville, or maybe the noon meeting the following day in Chatham. The result was exactly the opposite of inaccessibility.
Regarding Perrillo’s first three months, I can’t tell you how many meetings he had—I didn’t keep track. I knew only that it was far, far more than Virgil Goode had ever held—whether as a Democrat, independent, or Republican—so there was no need to keep count.