VA: Independent Speaks to Tea Party Group in CD-5

From GoDan River: 

The independent candidate running against U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, and GOP nominee Robert Hurt faced some skeptical questions Thursday from members of the Jefferson Area Tea Party.Several members of the Charlottesville-area conservative group told Jeff Clark - a Danville resident and Tea Party member himself - that they are worried his candidacy will split the conservative vote on Nov. 2 and deliver a victory to Perriello.. . .

“We have to put our foot down, draw a line in the sand and say ‘No more!‘“ said Eugene Scott of Earlysville. “If [Clark’s candidacy] causes Tom Perriello to be re-elected, so be it. It also causes a revolution in the Republican Party.“Supporting Hurt, Clark argued, would be a compromise. Sacrificing conservative principles to back a GOP nominee simply to beat a Democratic incumbent, he said, is “no victory at all.“

“Patrick Henry did not say ‘Give me liberty or give me someone I can live with,‘“ Clark said.. . .

Carole Thorpe, chairwoman of the Jefferson Area Tea Party, said she has invited all three candidates to appear at the nonpartisan group’s monthly meeting. Hurt has been invited to appear in July and Perriello has been invited to come in August.“My take is, we have three candidates,“ Thorpe said. “Let’s give them all an equal shot.“