We’ve got two candidates with no experience. This one came down to who’s more in touch with the region.
The 5th District Tom Garrett era lasted all of two years with no tangible results. We’re limping to the end of this Congress with another One Term Tom who did exactly what a freshman Representative is expected to do: Not Much. But that’s almost over and it’s time to pick between two more candidates, only this time both of them have no legislative experience.
I look at Leslie Cockburn and I see somebody who seems to be passionate about the district, but yet that passion feels superficial. She’s tried to tie the entire election to Denver Riggleman and Donald Trump. Nope. That doesn’t cut it for me. I’m not anywhere close to being a Ttump supporter, but I’m always going to vote with the district’s best interests in mind. Cockburn has tried to paint Rigglman as a nutball fringe Republican, but he’s not one of those crazy hyper-partisan people. Cockburn’s other main issue is health care, but let’s be real. Health care reform is already mired in molasses, and nothing will happen in the next two years on that topic either. I like Cockburn’s attitude, but that’s not enough to get my vote.
Denver Riggleman has no legislative experience, only having a pre-doomed run for governor that was sucked dry of money by his “consultants”. But he’s a successful businessman, entrenched in the 5th District. I was with Riggleman at a job announcement at the Institute, and went with him on a tour of the precision machining program. Holy crap, Riggleman was asking pertinent & real questions about what he saw. Not only that, he talked about his other experience in the technology industry and adapted it to what he was seeing for the first time. That day highly impressed me. Riggleman is also a regular person, stopping to talk to anybody that catches his eye. We haven’t had a congressman like that since Tom Perriello. Riggleman’s attitude & Southside connections are the tipping point for me.
I’ve got some issues with Riggleman saying that he wants to join the Freedom Caucus, but I’ve got enough faith in him to believe that he will be a Morgan Griffith type of Freedom Caucus member, going his own way when that’s the right thing to do.
No matter who wins the election, the new representative will be #435 on the seniority list and won’t get much accomplished (if anything), but I believe that Riggleman will represent this district well in DC.
SouthsideCentral gives our strong endorsement to Denver Riggleman and we strongly encourage all 5th District residents to vote for him.
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