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Politicians In BV Attack Opponents On U.S. Issues
A boisterous crowd was on hand for the stump speeches at Glen Maury Park Monday as candidates clashed at Buena Vista’s 53rd annual Labor Day Festival.
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is not a candidate in this year’s elections, and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, who is, headlined a contingent of speakers who sparred over the southern border, the state of the economy and which presidential candidate is best suited to lead the country.
One notable absence from the stage was Hung Cao, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate who is Kaine’s opponent. Cao spoke at the Republican breakfast at the American Legion building and marched in the parade along Magnolia Avenue but declined to participate in the stump speeches at the park.
There was plenty of firepower from the GOP speakers who did appear at the park – Youngkin, Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, state Sen. Chris Head of the Third District and Del. Ellen Campbell of the 36th District. Joining the fray from the Democratic side, in addition to Kaine, was Ken Mitchell, Cline’s opponent. Youngkin touted the successes of his administration, then launched into a barrage of attacks on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president.
“The reality is that we have watched, over the last three-and-a-half years, weakness in the White House create chaos at the border, unleash inflation that has stolen hard-working Virginians and Americans’ money and we’ve watched it cause chaos around the world,” declared Youngkin. “The reality is that unbridled spending caused inflation. Every state has become a border state. The reality is that Kamala Harris did not do her job. Millions of illegal immigrants – more than [the population of] the commonwealth of Virginia – have come across that border. Young women [are] being sexually assaulted by illegal immigrants. … Drugs [are] pouring across the border – illegal drugs, fentanyl.”
Kaine, meanwhile, questioned the fitness for office of the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump. “You’d never see a Democrat inspire a violent attack on the United States capitol to overturn the peaceful transfer of power,” he said. “Democrats believe in Democracy.”
Biden and Harris have accomplished much during their time in office, Kaine asserted. “Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, unemployment is at near record lows, the stock market at record highs, the uninsured rate at the lowest rate it’s been in the history of the United States. America is building a gain. America is manufacturing again. … For years insurance companies could discriminate continued from page 1
Labor Day
against you because you had pre-existing conditions. Democrats fixed that without a single Republican vote. For years, pharmaceutical companies could charge us whatever the heck they wanted. Democrats fixed that. We’re negotiating prices and saving American taxpayers and seniors seven-and-a-half billion dollars a year without one Republican vote for that. We couldn’t get one Republican to vote for $35 a month insulin.”
While he characterized the national economy as being in poor shape, Youngkin portrayed Virginia’s economy as “soaring. We have 250,000 more people working today than the day I started. There are more people working in Virginia today than ever before in the history of the commonwealth of Virginia. We have $80 billion in commitments from companies that are here and are coming because they like what’s happening in the commonwealth of Virginia. We have 10,000 more small businesses that are growing and hiring in Virginia.”
In criticizing the president, the governor went beyond what he thinks is the poor state of the national economy. “We all know that weak foreign policy emboldens our enemies,” said Youngkin. “I will say it today. If it weren’t for the Biden and Harris administration, we would not have war in Ukraine, we would not have war in the Middle East, we would not see China doing what they’re doing.”
When Youngkin then called for the election of Cline, Cao and Trump, Democratic partisans on one side of the pavilion began shouting, “We’re not going back! We’re not going back!” This prompted Earle-Sears to rise from her seat and lead the Republican side in chants of “U-SA! U-S-A!”
During his comments, Kaine contrasted the current president’s record on infrastructure with that of his predecessor. “You guys remember when Donald Trump used to talk about infrastructure week and never did a damn thing to build anything infrastructure? We only realized later when Donald Trump talked about infrastructure week he was spelling it W-E-A-K. But under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, [we’re building] roads, bridges, airports, rail, public transport, broadband – we’re expanding rural broad band all over western Virginia.”
On foreign policy, Kaine pointed out that “Democrats expanded NATO, growing alliances around the globe. Democrats put bipartisan immigration reforms on the table and then Donald Trump said ‘vote against them. We don’t want to fix the problem, we want to complain about the problem.’ Americans need people who will fix the problems.”
Cline countered that the Democrats “have delivered a world on fire. They delivered the horrible withdrawal from Afghanistan under Joe Biden that left American soldiers dead. There is a lack of leadership in the White House. There is a lack of leadership in the vice president’s office.” By electing Trump, he said, “We have an opportunity to actually address the problems of the Biden-Harris administration by securing our southern border, by eliminating illegal immigration. We can address the drugs, the human trafficking, the sex trafficking that have come across our border in record numbers since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris came into office.”
On the domestic front, Cline continued, the democratic administration’s policies “have caused prices to go up. Labor Day is a time to celebrate working families and nobody has been hurt more by the Biden-Harris policies than working Virginians. We have a choice on the ballot this November. The choice is to continue those harmful policies of the Biden-Harris administration or change course to the great economy we had under President Trump.”
Cline’s challenger, Mitchell, said he rejects the notion that America is weak or that it’s lost its way. “That’s what [America’s critics] want to tell us. But I tell you, I get up every day and I’m proud to be an American. I don’t stand here today looking for fault anywhere. What I’m seeking to do is go to Washington as your next congressman where I will work tirelessly to look at the problems that we face and address those problems.”
Mitchell called for unity in seeking to solve our country’s problems. “When we stand for our economy, our economy thrives whether you’re red, blue or white. I stand for a strong economy here in the Sixth Congressional District where hardworking men and women get up every day, put on their boots, go out and get ‘er done. It is through respect for one another, decency for one another and looking for the common good in one another that we will thrive. … As I look out here today and see friends and neighbors, we may be apart on some of the issues, but our love for our country, our patriotism and our trust in one another – that’s what we have to strive for, my friends, trusting in one another.”
Robby Wells, independent candidate for the Sixth District congressional seat, called on everyone to reject the usual partisan choices. He said he would work to end sending millions of dollars in foreign aid overseas and would offer a novel solution to violence in the schools by employing veterans as security officers. “I’m not any wing [left or right],” he said. “I’m a bird that sits in the middle.” In an apparent reference to transgender issues, he said, “I won’t be putting tampons in little boys’ bathrooms.”
Earle-Sears also weighed in on transgender politics. Four years into the Biden-Harris administration, she said, “they’re taking your girls’ children’s scholarships and giving them to biological males and they call it freedom. Four years later, they’re removing body parts from our children and they’re calling it freedom.”
Repeatedly invoking references to freedom, Earle-Sears said, “Four years later, the borders are open and criminals are coming across and they’re calling it freedom. Four years later we’re paying more for food and they call it freedom. Freedom isn’t free because people died when they pulled us out of Afghanistan.”
Trading barbs with democrats in the audience, Earle-Sears looked at one holding a sign that said “weird” and said, “I tell you what, take down that weird sign because y’all are the ones who are weird.” Then, she asked, “Did I hear somebody say ‘go back to Jamaica where you came from’? … I’m just sayin’ because y’all are the tolerant people.”
As she was winding down her remarks, Earle-Sears said she thought she heard someone telling her to “get off the stage. They’re telling a Black woman to get off the stage. Why didn’t you tell that to Kamala Harris? It was the Republican Party that nominated me, a Black woman, to be lieutenant governor of Virginia. And it was the Republican Party that voted for me,” the first Black woman to ever hold that office.
Head accused the Democrats in the audience of trying to “shout down people because they say things they don’t like ...” He likened the alleged misbehavior to “racism, fascism” that Democrats have accused Trump of exhibiting. Trump, according to Head, supports “freedom and freedom of speech and freedom of religion and freedom of the press.”
In a disparagement of Harris, Head asked, “Do you want to support a candidate that supports economic policies that have led to unbridled inflation that goes so far that it’s worse than the years under Jimmy Carter when we measured things in a misery index? Or, do you want to support a candidate that will give us back an economy that was thriving, an economy with low inflation and low unemployment and was bringing back manufacturing to this country?”
When it came her turn to speak, Campbell said, “I’m going to turn it down a little bit. I’m not known to be a bomb thrower. Everything I’d want to say has already been said. We’re all, whether we like it or not, in the same boat. We’re all feeling the pinch of the economy. We’re all feeling it when we go to the grocery store. We’re all feeling it at the gas pump. We’re all feeling it with our electric bills. We’re feeling all of those things. The only decision we have to make on Nov. 5 is who are we going to pass the paddle to because we are all in the same boat.”
REPUBLICAN REP. BEN CLINE holds up a pair of flip flops to illustrate his attack on the Democratic nominee for president, Kamala Harris. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
ROBBY WELLS is running as an independent for the Sixth District congressional seat held by Cline. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
KEN MITCHELL, the Democratic nominee for the Sixth District congressional seat, speaks at the park. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
LT. GOV. WINSOME EARLE-SEARS gets expressive as she delivers her Labor Day speech at Glen Maury Park. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
THE LIBERTARIAN candidate for vice president, Mike ter Maat, was also in Buena Vista for the Labor Day festivities. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
DEL. ELLEN CAMPBELL endeavored to “turn it down a little bit” in her Labor Day speech. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
DEMOCRATIC supporters express their opinions during one of Monday’s speeches at Glen Maury Park. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
REPUBLICANS show their support for comments by one of their candidates at Monday’s stump speeches. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
DEL. CHRIS HEAD talks to attendees at Monday’s Labor Day festivities prior to the stump speeches at Glen Maury Park. (Stephanie Mikels Blevins photo)
