A few pictures from yesterday’s candidates’ forum. The event was sponsored by Bank Street Baptist Church.
From left to right, Joe Bouchard, delegate candidate in the 83rd, Bobby Mathieson, delegate candidate in the 21st, Mick Meyer, delegate candidate in the 78th, and Ralph Northam, senate candidate in the 6th.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
How did our guys do?
They all did a great job.
Ok, I must be missing something. How can it be a “Candidate Forum” when only the candates of 1 party are participating?
My understanding is that all of them were invited.There is no way to make folks participate. Guess the R’s decided not to.
It’s no secret that Republicans have written off minority voters…which makes Daun Hester and Paul Riddick’s endorsements of Rerras all the more strange.
Vivian,
Quoted from the Welch campaign “We did not receive an invitation to the candidate forum sponsored by the Bank Street Baptist Church.”
That pretty much covers that.
It turns out that Delegate Welch was out knocking on doors in his Virginia Beach district while his opponent was in Norfolk. In a direct quote from Chris Stolle “I don’t recall receiving an invitation to that forum, I was knocking on doors in the 83rd”.
Speaking of blowing off particular voting blocks, reliable sources have informed me that Joe Bouchard and Bobby Mathieson, were no shows for a recent AARP candidate forum.
It seems that Ralph Northam skipped the HR Chamber of Commerce forum back in June. That was a forum moderated by Congressman Whitehurst that all Norfolk candidates attended but Ralph Northam.
It appears you are being used as asource on another blog.
Spotlight – I said I understood that all were invited. Now the fact that someone might not have remembered getting an invitation doesn’t mean that none were sent.
All of the Beach candidates left the forum to knock doors. In case you are not familiar, Bank Street Baptist Church has members from all over the area, like most churches these days. It would be incorrect to assume that simply because the forum was in Norfolk that there were no VB residents there. In fact, I know that there were.
And Ralph had a conflict at that June forum. I wrote about it then, as I attended that forum. Not sure what your point is in mentioning that, anyway.
Vivian,
I am not disputing your statement that you were unsure. The point is that another blog is going off the deep end and I feel that that detracts from your blog. I read your blog on occasion and believe you tell the truth as you know it. It appears that the user of the link here is trying to drag the credibility you have with it. BTW, I assume nothing, facts matter.