Elephant Ears

This blog is dedicated to the political happenings in the Valley and Southwest Virginia. As the the name implies, this blog will have posts based on what is heard by this elephant's (GOPer's) ears. It is also a great treat to get while at the county fair or a carnival.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Gloves Come Off in the 22nd

Friday I attended the Roanoke County Luncheon, where Sen. Bell and Ralph Smith were the speakers in a town hall format. It was around 45 people there, including many of activists in the Roanoke Valley. Specifically absent were Delegates Griffith and Fralin; who are both staying neutral in the Senate primary.
Of those in attendance I would say about 10 had Bell stickers, 15-20 had Smith and the rest were wearing none.

Each candidate gave their opening statements and then they took questions from the audience.

Smith used his statement to go on the attack; pointing out taxes, business rights, and out of control spending that he would be a better at than the current Senator. This comes in stark contrast to his speech several months ago to the Montgomery GOP where he simply talked about open government. He also pointed to his long term committment to the party by citing all his leadership roles and volunteer work he has done for the party over the years.

Bell's statements were typical of the incumbents where he says he hopes to set the record straight on some misconceptions and misinterpretations of his record. He also pointed to illegal immigration as a major issue that we need try and address here at the state level since the feds wont do anything about it.

In the Q&A section, there were a couple of interesting moments. One came when a lady asked about Smith's proposal for a website that shows government contractors and the business they did for the state. Everyone seemed to agree it was a great idea; including Senator Bell who pointed out that it already exists (the website is datapoint.apa.virginia.gov) and cited work Smith's company had done for the state as evidence of what you can find there.

Another interesting thing was there is a guy who has been passing out a several page handout on "RINO hunting" and basically showcasing something Bell did that was non-conservative. He has been doing this for about a year now, and this month it was a Roanoke Times article on the transportation solution. Anyway, during the Q&A session, a Bell supporter stood up and chided the gentleman who distributed these as hurting the party and actually being offended by them. That gentleman then replied: Brandon Bell offends me!

All in all it was a good event and I think everyone enjoyed the unique setup.

I saw two major things from this event.
The first was that Smith has seemingly changed his strategy. As I told you 2 months ago, he had to go on the attack and talk about taxes and the smoking ban to ever have a shot at Bell. He did just that at this event, but there is a catch. I imagine everyone in that room has already made up their mind about who they will be supporting; so the key now is for him to get his message out to the broader public.
The second is that Bell probably in a better position than many of the other primaried Senators in that his own district GOP people are either behind him or are staying neutral. This is in stark contrast to say the Hanger race where Rockingham Chair Mike Meredith and nearly every committee member in the locales is behind Sayre. Bell actually has some support from the committees, and he doesn't have any of the leadership working against him.

I don't think a tremendous amount has changed in this race yet; but we will know much more after the financial reports are made public in the next day or so. If Smith has a ton of money (either raised or self-financed) he could make this race interesting.

8 Comments:

  • At 4/15/2007 3:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Thanks for the analysis of the event. It sounds like there were fireworks.

    I am very interested in open government and Smith's proposal for "Google for Government." However, from your report it seems Bell suggests this already is in place. The correct web address for the site is: http://datapoint.apa.virginia.gov/.I went to that website mentioned by Bell and found it to be very lacking in several areas, specifically:

    1. It's an unknown website. I have never seen nor heard of this website in the past. Why is it not advertised to the public? I'll bet you 99.9999% of Virginians have NEVER heard of it.

    2. It is NOT current. Many of the entries are updated only ANNUALLY. The dated nature of such information renders it almost useless if one is really trying to monitor government.

    3. It is not user friendly. Type in "FORD" and you get way too many "hits" to sort through. Even if you type in "BRANDON BELL", you get multiple "hits" (but that may be because you never know what Brandon you will turn up.)

    Clearly Smith's plan for a user-friendly, Google-like website is still needed. I hope Smith will not let his efforts to secure such a site be obscured by more of Brandon's obfuscations.

     
  • At 4/15/2007 4:53 PM, Blogger GOPHokie said…

    Thanks for the site address. I thought I had the right one, but I must have gotten it mixed up.
    Its fixed in the link now.

     
  • At 4/15/2007 7:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Smith is coming out swinging too late. To have a chance at unseating Bell, he should've done this a long time ago. Eight weeks before the primary shows the weak workings of his campaign. Unlike Stosch and Hanger, Bell is a safe incumbent.

     
  • At 4/15/2007 8:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Not only is Smith swinging--he's connecting--and Bell was on the ropes on Friday. He could't even deliver a coherent speech.

    Unfortunately, this primary election is not yet on the RADAR screens of the press, yet alone the public's. Me thinks your optimism is way too high. However, I hope you and the other Bell supporters run the rest of the campaign like he is a "safe incumbent." We'll see come June 12!

     
  • At 4/16/2007 11:43 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Elephant Ears, if you're reading this today, please know that everyone is praying for the entire Virginia Tech community.

     
  • At 4/16/2007 11:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    GOPHokie, please post immediately to let all the VA bloggers know you're ok.

     
  • At 4/16/2007 11:51 AM, Blogger GOPHokie said…

    Everyone I know currently is ok; but obviously based on the magnitude of this I cannot guarantee anything.
    I will update you all as soon as we know anymore.

     
  • At 4/22/2007 3:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    US President Tim Kalemkarian, US Senate Tim Kalemkarian, US House Tim Kalemkarian: best major candidate.

     

Post a Comment

<< Home