The 500 people who attended the only Fifth District Congressional debate in Charlottesville could be heard scoffing and murmuring disapproval of their chosen opponent while Democratic incumbent Tom Perriello and Republican Senator Robert Hurt faced off last night.
"Shh, ladies and gentlemen," said moderator and Charlottesville Newsplex anchor Dan Schutte, a phrase he’d repeat a few times throughout the evening.
And Perriello and Hurt made no move to hide their own feelings of disapproval. On the heel of debates concerning the source of funds used by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to fund political ads, Hurt told the crowd he was against the Disclose Act—a piece of legislation co-sponsored by Perriello in response to the Supreme Court’s FEC v. Citizens United ruling, to make the sources of political donations more transparent.
"I find it shocking that Senator Hurt would not be for this basic principle of voters having this information," said Perriello.
The two candidates also asked each other a question during the evening’s hour-long debate. Perriello stuck to the Chamber debate, and asked Hurt whether he has questioned "allies" if they are accepting money from foreign businesses to fund their campaign ads—an issue Perriello said will go down as an "enormous scandal in American democracy."
"That’s been totally debunked," responded Hurt, who said he was "proud" to have the Chamber’s endorsement. "There is no evidence that the Chamber of Commerce has done anything illegally." He added that Perriello should look for special interests in campaign contributions from groups like Service Employees International Union.
In turn, Hurt asked Perriello whether he would admit that his support of cap-and-trade legislation and, in what seemed like a telling homonym, an "abominable" healthcare bill with roughly $500 billion in Medicare cuts was a mistake.
"The $500 billion doesn’t come out of Medicare," responded Perriello. "It comes from the people who’ve been cheating the system, and goes to the people who’ve been playing by the rules."
