Fifth District candidates meet in virtual campaign forum
Nearly one thousand people registered yesterday for the first and possibly last campaign forum featuring the two candidates for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District. The event was put on by the Senior Statesmen of Virginia, and was held virtually on a Zoom call. The audio is available on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network.
Dr. Cameron Webb is an attorney and physician who works for the University of Virginia Health System and served on the White House Health Care team in both the Obama and Trump administrations. Webb said in his opening statement that his decision to go into politics stems from his wish to heal the community.
“Being a doctor, being a physician, it means that we’re leaning into the issues that make our patients sick, and often times those issues that make them sick, they’re issues related to education, and housing, or food insecurity, challenges with earning a decent wage or having a good paying job, those are the factors that really drive the outcomes in my patients.” Webb said.
Bob Good has worked in the finance industry, served as an athletic director at Liberty University and has served on the Board of Supervisors in Campbell County outside Lynchburg. In his opening statement, he said he understood what it was like to live in poverty.
“I know what it was like to get free lunch at school, to be in the lunch line with the free lunch voucher if you will and to know what that feels like as a young kid,” Good said. “I know what it’s like to get sent by your mother to walk a mile down the street to the grocery store because we didn’t have a car and to buy groceries with food stamps… I had to work for everything all of my life as long as I can remember and as we struggled for the essentials and we certainly didn’t have any of the extras, so I learned to work at a young age and I think that’s one of the most important things for a young person to do, is to learn to work and to learn the value of things, that has shaped me all of my life.”
Webb had limited his opening statement to his own biography, but Good opted to go on the attack.
“My opponent is aligned with the radical socialist left that has become much of the Democrat party,” Good said. “If he were elected he would do everything in his power to stop President Trump’s agenda or God forbid enact the Biden/Harris agenda if President Trump was not reelected.”
In response, Webb cited a string of endorsements.
“I’m proud that I am endorsed by the entire span of the Democratic party,” Webb said. Moderates, centrists and also progressives that shows my ability to build consensus. The reason why I have members of the current Trump administration still acknowledge all that I contributed and how I think that I am a pretty awesome guy.”
The audio is available on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network.
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