From the Department of Making Shit Up:
“I think that there is a great opportunity for this district to be Republican again,” said Tucker Watkins, the longtime chairman of the 5th Congressional District Republican Committee, who has been meeting with a dozen possible candidates. “Congressman Perriello has not lived up to his pledge of working overtime, and he has voted against the wishes of the district over and over.”
(Emphasis mine.) Tom Perriello works constantly. He was invited to a small party I was at, on a Friday night, a couple of months ago. He arrived late, having been at an event, came and talked about your basic constituent-service stuff, and was led away by his driver after half an hour, late to yet another appointment. His weekend was full of visits around the district. Just look at his listing of upcoming events—if that’s not working overtime, I don’t know what is. If you’re going to invent ridiculous lies about a congressman, it’s best to start with something that’s harder to verify than this.
Incidentally, what in the world is the Washington Examiner? This article is so slanted that I have to figure it’s an editorial, but it’s not labelled as such.
It’s one of the two major free daily newspapers in DC. The Express is by far superior to the Examiner.
Note some of the other errors with the Examiner in its two recent pieces on Perriello. They incorrectly list Hurt as from Franklin County, not Pittsylvania, and they somehow proclaim that Goode never ran a TV ad in his career!
The GOP of the 5th District are desperately making shit up about this race. They are doing everything possible to make Goode seem like an out of touch beyond the times incumbent that could easily have won if he just knew about that new fangled TV. I think it’s increasingly clear he was forced out. They are trying to pretend that the 5th is a deep ruby red district instead of the slight Republican tilt is has. They are trying to claim that Perriello won on Obama’s coattails despite the district having voted for McCain.
Why?
I think you nailed it with your observation that the 5th District GOP is in shambles post-Goode. They have a weak bench that amounts to two or three names. The 12+ Tucker Watkins claims to come up with includes long shots that are second tier at best in most races. The only way these long shots will get national attention and money from the NRCC and the big donors is for them to be convinced that Perriello is so weak and vulnerable anyone could beat him.
The Examiner is an extreme-right-wing rag distributed free every day around the Washington DC metro area. It’s like reading a print version of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, basically. It has Sudoku, so I pick one up most days for that, and also scan through teh crazy while I’m at it just to see what the wingnuts are blabbering about.
The Examiner is a waste of paper and ink.
Oh, um, it’s an insane free “newspaper.” For a while, they were trying to increase subscriptions by delivering their “paper” to people, unasked for. The only problem was, at least my in neighborhood, no one wanted to touch them and be infected by the crazy, so they just piled up, unread, and many ultimately disintegrated in the rain. They were too cheap to put the papers in plastic bags, which exacerbated the problem.
Unlike the Express, which is put out by the Post, it’s run by, um, crazy people. The Express has Sudoku now as well, so you’re better off with that and/or the Onion, which you can get in Virginia at most metro stations now and is infinitely more reliable than the Examiner.
I’ll just say that the Examiner isn’t just a bunch of crazy, and leave it at that. If you are inclined to see something one way, you’ll see it that way. Does having conservative authors make it “crazy” ipso facto? I guess, according to the other commenters here.
Some of the stuff is really slanted to the right (there’s no denying that), but there is a lot of good reporting coming out of the Washington Examiner. You just have to know how to read it.
As to the actual topic at-hand, the piece is a tad off. I have no idea of the office/work hours Perriello keeps while he’s in D.C. (he promised to work a “double shift”), but this recess, he’s been amazing. He’s staying hours and hours past the scheduled times for these town hall meetings. He stays until every last questioner gets his or her chance to ask something of him. He’s got the patience. (He also has the balls, as opposed to many in Congress who refuse to face their constituents.)
I notice you didn’t mention the part where Tucker said Perriello “has voted against the wishes of the district over and over.”
I agree that the first part probably was unwise. I’d be surprised if there is a SINGLE Member who doesn’t “work overtime” as that phrase is commonly understood. If for no other reason than their desperate desire to hang on to power.
I notice you didn’t mention the part where Tucker said Perriello “has voted against the wishes of the district over and over.”
That’s just useless mouth-words. Politician-speak. Unless somebody has polled the residents of the district on every issue, we have no idea what the “wishes of the district” are.
What Harry said. The job of a district chair to say that the elected guy of the opposite party in his district is out of step, not a common man, ignoring the wishes of his constituents, blah blah blah. There’s a reason why I never bother to link to comments from the chairs of my own party—their job is not to speak truth, but to both define and toe the party line. It’s swell that they do that, but I’m certainly not interested in it.
As an attendee of his health care forum in C-Ville, I came away incredibly impressed by the Congressman’s knowledge of the issues, his candor about the faults within his own party, and his explanations for his positions. I don’t think there was a single person at that forum that didn’t applaud him at some point (though, of course, not everyone at the same time).
But seeing the rudeness from both the left and the right left me thinking why Perriello would even want this job.
Tom Perriello is in the process of holding 21 townhalls this month alone. I can’t find a congressperson holding more. Perriello has clearly been keeping his “doubleshift” pledge, even if Tucker Watkins doesn’t want to admit it.