I have finally made it to the Republican Roundup here in Richmond after a two hour drive from the battle station in Northern Virginia. Due to the weather, it appears that the crowd is significantly less than the previous three years. Upon coming into the event, I caught up with Steven Latimer, Jim Hoeft of Bearing Drift, Lynn Mitchell, Tom White of Virginia Right and Rick Sincere.
Right now (4:31 p.m.), the Royal Blue Band is keeping the audience entertained, and Rep. Eric Cantor stopped by new media row to say hi before being interviewed by Jim Hoeft.
Update at 4:44 p.m.: The elected officials are gathering in the front and will soon be going on stage. I will be featuring small samples from each of the speeches. CBS 6 Richmond has a crew here taking footage of the event.
(5:00 p.m.) Candidates appear on stage.
7th District Chair, Linwood Cobb, is introducing the candidates and giving an explanation to the protesters outside the venue. Basically, the venue, Snag-a-job Pavilion, does not want guns on their property, so the Virginia Civil Defense League (VCDL) was upset by this and decided to hold a protest against the 7th District GOP and Rep. Eric Cantor. The VCDL asked the 7th District GOP to relocate it to a more gun friendly venue. More on this in a later post.
Ken Cuccinelli started the comments by bringing a broom on stage saying that we are going to sweep in November, but he encouraged the crowd to keep up the momentum to help make this possible.
Bob McDonnell was next on stage. “Life is controlled by those who show up, so we need to inform our friends to come to the polls on November 3.”. McDonnell mentioned his work on bringing more jobs to the Commonwealth, improving transportation, and boosting Virginia’s economy.
Rep. Eric Cantor is currently making remarks. Cantor said, “Deeds will bring Obama-Pelosi style politics to Virginia, if elected.”. Cantor also said the results from Virginia’s election this fall will send a clear signal to those in Washington that the GOP is making a comeback.
More pictures will be online later tonight.
Being one of the gun owning protesters I would like to make my reasoning clear. If it were not for the second amendment we would not have the freedoms we do now, as well things like the republican round ups would not be. To be ignored as we were in requests for a different gun friendly location just brushed off. Sounds like something the Obama administration and the rest of the Democrats would do. Before I go into my second issue I would like to bring up the fact of the many gun owners present and armed, there were no shots fired, or negligent discharges. As a matter of fact we made sure all rules of the law were obeyed and conducted ourselves in a responsible manner.
In saying this we all should agree that drinking alcohol and guns don’t mix, but do politics, promises and many of the attending drivers of the round up? I would not want a drunk general’s calling the shots in a war. I would not want a drunken president with his finger on the button, or fighter pilots to drunk to fly a mission, and the same could be said about the voting public. Far more alcohol related issues in this country from drunken driving deaths and injuries, mean abusive behavior from alcohol consumption, as well as many other affects alcohol can have on a family.
Is it truly responsible to ignore our rights under the constitution for a pleasure that causes so much more damage?
The Republicans need to get back to their roots, or the next time the Democrats take over it could be far worse than what we are seeing now.
I agree with you, and I believe that our rights under the 2nd Amendment should be protected and not ignored. There will be a follow up post on this issue.