Tea Party leadership 'lumps' 5th District GOP contenders

Leaders of the Tea Party movement in the 5th District got together in a conference call last week and evaluated the region’s seven Republican candidates for the House of Representatives.

Notable perhaps as a sign of unity among people frustrated with the major political parties, this evaluation gave the candidates lumps of sugar for their tea, figuratively speaking, with more lumps equating to a higher rating.

It wasn’t a typical opinion-poll process in which candidates are measured by percentage points, as a professional pollster did Thursday when it assessed the re-election chances of incumbent Democrat Rep. Tom Perriello.

The Tea Party ratings were announced jointly by three of its leaders — Mark Lloyd of Lynch-burg, Nigel Coleman of Danville and Bill Hay of Greene County. Candidate Laurence Verga, of Albemarle County, got the most lumps for his campaign’s “cup of tea,” the leaders said; Jim McKelvey of Franklin County got the fewest.

“The more lumps, the sweeter the tea,” the three said, with five lumps being the maximum.

TEA PARTY 5TH DISTRICT CANDIDATE RANKINGS

Name: Laurence Verga
From: Albemarle County
Rank: 3.5 lumps

Name: Mike McPadden
From: Albemarle County
Rank: 3 lumps

Name: Feda Morton
From: Fluvanna County
Rank: 2 lumps

Name: Robert Hurt
From: Chatham
Rank: 1.5 lumps

Name: Ken Boyd
From: Albemarle County
Rank: 1 lump

Name: Ron Ferrin
From: Campbell County
Rank: 0.5 lumps

Name: Jim McKelvey
From: Franklin County
Rank: 0 lumps

Their names appearing together on a Tea Party news release indicated some unity in a movement whose events have had many different organizers — particularly in the Lynchburg area — since they began to occur last spring.

Political analysts have begun paying attention to the Tea Party movement, though few of them see it as overtaking either of the major parties.

“The joint release from the Tea Party leaders is remarkable because it shows the coordination between activists throughout the district,” said Isaac Wood of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “It is a way to show that the grassroots support they offer will be organized and district-wide,” Wood said.

Another analyst, Charles Dunn of the Regent University School of Government in Virginia Beach, said he doesn’t think the Tea Party will be a force for long.

“The Tea Party is running against history and time, and neither favors the Tea Party,” Dunn said.

The Tea Party “must rally its troops now,” as the 2010 mid-term elections loom in November, Dunn said. He predicted that by 2012’s presidential election, one or both of the major parties will adopt the Tea Party policy objectives.

Citing 10 historic but short-lived movements, including Ross Perot’s Reform Party and George Wallace’s American Independent Party, Dunn said the Tea Party “will have a short shelf life.”

A third analyst, Dan Palazzolo of the University of Richmond, said he liked the attempt by Tea Party leaders to rate candidates according to the party’s principles. “But the rating process is always tricky because the concepts are easy to talk about but harder to measure in terms of specific public policy issues,” Palazzolo said.

Because only one of the seven candidates has a record in office, surveys asking them to state their beliefs would have been the best way to evaluate them, Palazzolo said.

As defined by the leaders in their news release, the Tea Party principles are: limited government; fiscal responsibility; free and fair markets; individual liberty based on personal responsibility; and a return to constitutional governance.

Palazzolo said that unless the Tea Party runs its own candidate in the November election, “it needs to push all would-be GOP candidates to endorse the Tea Party principles.”

“It’s easy to talk the talk; the question is whether the party and its candidates will walk the walk,” Palazzolo said.

Palazzolo then focused on state Sen. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, the only one of the seven candidates who has held public office.

“Normally, it is better to field candidates who have the most experience,” Palazzolo said. “But, in 2010, I do think there is an anti-incumbent/anti-establishment mood.

“This will most likely play out in primary elections,” such as the one 5th District Republicans will hold on June 8, Palazzolo said.

“So, whereas Hurt might be the most electable Republican in the general election, he is not as in-sync with the Tea Party as some of the other outsiders,” Palazzolo said.

“The goal should be ... to push candidates like Hurt to get on board” with the Tea Party principles, Palazzolo said.

Hurt has been criticized by many Tea Party followers for supporting a 2004 tax increase that was approved by the General Assembly.

Hurt has since signed the “no-tax pledge” of Americans for Tax Reform, a group that once put his picture on a Wild West-style poster of Virginia’s least-wanted politicians.

The Tea Party leaders on Thursday ranked Hurt fourth among the seven candidates. They said Hurt has support among Tea Party followers in the Southside region of the Fifth District, and awarded him 1½ lumps of sugar.

• Reed is a staff writer for The News & Advance in Lynchburg.