I had the pleasure of attending the 5th District Republican convention on Saturday at Hampden-Sydney College, and it was quite interesting. The highlight, in my opinion, were speeches given by each of the seven candidates running for the Republican nomination to challenge incumbent Tom Perriello in November.  Now it’s one thing to listen to speeches and debate when the contestants disagree, but it’s something quite different when all seven fundamentally agree on nearly everything.

From what I saw, Feda Kidd Morton was the best orator, which surprised me a little.  She is feisty in the Sarah Palin vain and really got the crowd enthused more than any of the other speakers.  She brought real energy to the stage, and when you and everybody else are basically saying the same thing, energy and delivery go a long way, and in that regard Morton deserves high marks.

Robert Hurt clearly has the deepest political resume of any of the candidates, but I was struck by how unenthused the delegates from the northern part of the district are about him.  When he began his speech the delegates from Albemarle County didn’t even clap.  Not even a golf clap or anything!

Hurt has had to answer some tough questions throughout the primary mainly because of his vote in support of the Warner tax increase.  Hurt has said it was the toughest vote he ever cast.  However he still is the frontrunner and has by far raised the most campaign cash.  It will take a lot to beat Hurt in June, but it’s certainly still possible.

One of the other frontrunners is Ken Boyd.  I think of him as the “behind enemy lines” candidate.  While Hurt has been successful winning elections in a conservative district, Boyd has won elections in Albemarle County where conservatism is generally considered bad form.

Boyd brings experience governing at the county level having served on both the school board and board of supervisors, and his track record is a respectable conservative one.  What concerns me about Boyd is he seems tired.  He has a head full of silver hair and sometimes seems like his best days are behind him.  When I think of Boyd versus Perriello, I have flashbacks of Barack Obama on the same stage with John McCain, and we all know how that turned out.

Another candidate who did a good job was Mike McPadden who’s also from the northern end of the district.  He is the military candidate, if you will, who is a naval aviator and now a commercial pilot.  He has a firm grasp of the issues and gives a pretty energetic speech.  I’m not sure he is that well known around the district, and he has no elected office experience to speak of, but he is a sharp guy and worth considering.

If McPadden is a political outsider, then Jim McKelvey is the ultimate outsider.  His contempt for the current state of affairs in Washington is palpable. McKelvey, a contractor by trade, had a good line about building a fence on the border.  He said if the government hired him, he’d have it done ahead of schedule and under budget.  That would be a first. McKelvey also said he would limit himself to four years, saying if he couldn’t reach his objectives by then, then he couldn’t reach them.  He is the anti-establishment candidate and has not ruled out running as an independent, so we’ll see.

Another successful businessman seeking the nomination is Laurence Verga.  He comes from an immigrant family and is a true American success story.  He was the first in his family to go to college and quickly rose through the ranks at AT&T.

He is a good candidate, but he still comes across as more of a manager than an inspiration leader, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but in a crowded field, you don’t really want to be the guy who looks like the accountant.

Verga also suffers from a medical condition, and that has raised some concern, but he said on Saturday that it wasn’t an issue, and I’ll take him at his word on that.

The last candidate to mention is Ron Ferrin.  He is the “everyman” candidate from Campbell County.  He talked about electric bills and kitchen table issues, and that’s good. But most people, even delegates, didn’t know who the guy was when he walked in the hall.  Not good.  I don’t think he’ll be in the field much longer, although he seemed like a decent guy.