Lynchburg Tea Party won't endorse Hurt

By: Media General News Service | Daily Progress
Published: June 11, 2010

LYNCHBURG — Leaders of the Lynchburg Tea Party won’t endorse any candidate for Congress in the 5th District, three of the activists said Thursday in a news release that criticized tea party partici-pants who are lining up behind Republican primary winner Robert Hurt.
The Lynchburg Tea Party is “drawing a line in the sand,” according to the release, which followed Hurt’s clear victory Tues-day over six other candi-dates in the primary. Some of those candidates had support from various ele-ments in the tea party movement, but endorsed Hurt after the primary.
Hurt will carry the Re-publican banner on the November ballot against Rep. Tom Perriello, a De-mocrat. Jeffrey Clark of Danville also will be on the ballot as an independent candidate.
“We congratulate Robert Hurt on his recent victory,” said Kurt Feigel of Lynchburg, the local group’s communications vice chairman.
“However, we cannot and will not endorse a candidate that does not align with our core princi-ples,” Feigel said.
Mark Lloyd, chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party, said, “At this point, as a Tea Party organization, I don’t foresee the endorse-ment of any candidates during this election cycle.”
That statement put the Lynchburg Tea Party in a different position from the Danville Tea Party, whose chairman, Nigel Coleman, told the Danville Register & Bee on Tuesday night that he was “pretty com-fortable” saying the local group would support Hurt in November.
“We feel that it is best to unite behind one candi-date,” Coleman said.
The Lynchburg Tea Party’s release said, “Some point to this split as evi-dence of division within the tea party. On the contrary, standing firmly upon our core principles shows evi-dence of solidarity and strength within the organi-zation.”
Dana Hale of the Lynchburg Tea Party joined Feigel and Lloyd in issuing the statement.
Carole Thorpe, chair-woman of the Charlottes-ville area’s Jefferson Area Tea Party, said Thursday that it is too soon to know if her organization will en-dorse a candidate in the three-way 5th District congressional race.
“We’re not ready to de-cide anything yet,” Thorpe said. “The polling machines aren’t even cool from Tues-day’s election.”

Lynchburg Tea Party won't endorse Hurt

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