Letters to the Editor for Wednesday, May 2, 2018

I write this letter both in support of Cynthia Dunbar for the GOP nomination in the race for our Sixth District Congressional seat, and in disgust at the underhanded tactics her opponents and local GOP establishment figures have employed in an attempt to derail her rise as a champion for constitutional conservatives. While I have followed politics for many years, I have rarely seen a party establishment structure so willing to resort to outright lies and the politics of personal destruction to gain an upper hand in an intraparty nominating contest. Despite all of this, Dunbar has held true to her pledge to run a clean and positive campaign, a pledge which her opponents refused to join her in.

There’s a general rule in dirty politics: When you can’t beat an opponent on the issues, avoid the issues and attack the person. It doesn’t matter whether your attacks are true, the only thing that matters is distracting the voters from the actual issues at hand. That’s exactly the strategy Dunbar’s main competitor’s surrogates and supporters seem to be employing in this race. They don’t want delegates to the May 19 Sixth District Convention to focus on her support for congressional term limits (Ben Cline is against them), so they attack Dunbar’s family. They don’t want delegates to know about Dunbar’s support for a “Convention of the States” to take power back from Washington (Ben Cline is opposed to the idea), so they spread lies about her professional accomplishments. They don’t want voters to zero in on the fact that she supports a Balanced Budget Amendment (Ben Cline opposes one), so they file false and misleading complaints with the FEC. They mock Dunbar for quoting the Constitution, when we live in a time when most in Washington legislate as though one doesn’t exist. To the establishment, Cynthia Dunbar is dangerous, because she represents a challenge to the party status quo and a disruption to the way things operate.

For almost three decades, the Sixth District has been represented by a career politician firmly entrenched in the D.C. establishment, voting with House liberals on more than a third of his votes according to Conservative Review. Delegates to the Sixth District Convention on May 19 have a choice: Nominate his former chief of staff, himself a career politician, or finally elect a true conservative not afraid to engage her constituents, disrupt the status quo in Washington, and give voice to the limited government values of our region.

At a time when we have Republicans in Washington passing spending bills that add trillions of dollars to our already out-of-control national debt, the time is now to start sending representatives to Washington that will not go along to get along, but rather will fight to reign in the scope of the federal government to its constitutional parameters.

Having known Dunbar for many years, I know her character, I know her values, I know the strength of her deeply held Christian faith and I know the Sixth District could not ask for a better candidate to send to Washington as our citizen legislator. I ask all delegates to the Sixth District Republican Convention to join me in supporting her nomination.

BRANDON K. BUTLER

Goode

Cockburn in the Fifth

I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to participate in propelling the successful candidacy of Leslie Cockburn in the Campbell County Democratic Caucus on April 17th. I am grateful for the heartfelt candidacies of Andrew Sneathern, R.D. Huffstetler and Ben Collup, for having jumped into the fray of taking on Tom Garrett for Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District.

However, I am even more grateful that a majority of the voters of the Fifth District saw Cockburn as the candidate they most trusted to do two things: (1) Reveal to Virginians the danger to our Commonwealth and this country, of an extension of Tom Garrett’s tenure in the House of Representatives, and (2) lay out a rationale for honorable governance in every area of our lives, where our issues, at the local level, set her agenda, rather than the other way around, which is Garrett’s agenda.

She has the capacity and experience to speak truth to power, with grace and resolve founded in facts, enabling her to speak with unflinching authority. Being a strong resolute woman, who knows her mind, and our hearts, will deliver the finesse that even wins over the other side. Toward that end, we are locking arms with her to restore responsive leadership to Virginia’s Fifth District and honor back to the House of Representatives of the United States Congress.

MICHAEL WHORLEY

Lynchburg