ODU Candidates forum

The Ted Constant Center at Old Dominion University was the setting for last week’s candidates’ forum. (I inadvertently left my camera in the car so I don’t have any photos from the event.) Spread across the dias were ten candidates, representing the races in the 6th and 13th Senate districts, and the 21st, 78th, and 82nd House districts. Not present were the candidates in the other three races in Hampton Roads: the 14th Senate, the 83rd House and the 87th House. I have no idea why the 14th was not represented. In the 83rd and the 87th, I understand that the Republican candidates chose not to participate, so the Democratic candidates did not come.

The seating was weird. Instead of the candidates for each district being seated side by side, they were jumbled up. From left to right (as memory serves) the candidates were Steve Heretick (D challenger – 13th), Bobby Mathieson (D challenger – 21st), John Cosgrove (R incumbent 78th), Bob Purkey (R incumbent – 82nd), Nick Rerras (R incumbent – 6th), Fred Quayle (R incumbent – 13th), John Welch (R incumbent – 21st), Bob MacIver (D challenger – 82nd), Ralph Northam (D challenger – 6th), and Mick Meyer (D challenger – 78th). This made comparing the answers for competing candidates difficult.

As is typical of these candidate forums, no rebuttal was allowed, which I consider to be a really dumb rule. Each of the candidates was given a few minutes to answer the same question, so they went down the line. You can imagine how difficult it was for the 10th person to say something that hadn’t already been said. A lot of times, the answers were just “I agree with _______” as there was nothing new to add.

This was the first time that I heard Fred Quayle, Bob Purkey, John Cosgrove and John Welch speak. The first three sounded like reasonable folks, even if I didn’t agree with some of what they said. John Welch, though, was in a totally different class all by himself. Welch’s responses were colored by palpable anger. Now, I know that sometimes passion can be mistaken for anger, but that was not the case here. Welch is an angry man – at what, I have no idea.

But perhaps the most difficulty that I had with Welch was his repeated use of “Republican rule,” as in “under Republican rule, _____ has happened.” Forgive me, but I was under the impression that we decided that there would not be a monarchy in the United States. None of his fellow Republicans used that phrase, even when referring to the Republican majority in the General Assembly. Perhaps that is why Welch is angry – he’s about to lose his entitlements 😉

The forum was sponsored by the ODU Student Government Association in conjunction with the College Democrats and the College Republicans. The assembled group included a number of ODU students. It’s always good to see young people demonstrating their interest in politics and our democracy.