On April 10, Charlottesville Republican party activists had a mass meeting to elect a new unit chairman and delegates who will attend the Fifth Congressional District convention on the first day of May in Farmville.

One of the seven candidates for the GOP nomination for Congress in the Fifth District, Albemarle County Supervisor Ken Boyd, took time to answer questions from the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner. Boyd will face his six rivals for the nomination in a party primary to be held on Tuesday, June 8. The winner will go on to face incumbent Representative Tom Perriello (D-Ivy) in the November general election.

Boyd talked about the three top issues he would emphasize in his race against Perriello:

Top Issues

“First will be a balanced budget. I think that is so important for us to get a balanced budget and that will drive so many other things. If we had a balanced budget amendment now, we wouldn’t be dealing with cap-and-trade, we wouldn’t be dealing with the health care issues because we couldn’t fund [them]. They’re not sustainably funded.”

“ We want to stop the health care [bill],” Boyd continued. “We’d either repeal it or get it stopped through support of Ken Cuccinelli and the efforts to make it unconstitutional. And then cap and trade, we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t move through.”

Another issue that concerns Boyd is illegal immigration, “I certainly am not in favor of amnesty. I think that’s another issue that’s going to be pushed real hard, but we’ve got to stop that, too.”

Party Unity

Because there are seven competitors for the Republican nomination, the winning candidate will have to pull together the party after the primary in order to have an effective general election campaign. Boyd addressed this question, too.

“I think this party’s going to come together I’m certainly hoping that we don’t get fractioned by this primary process. All of us candidates get along. I don’t think there’s anyone who would not support the eventual nominee.”

What really matters, he said, are “grassroots efforts. It’s getting all the unit chairs together and behind you, it’s getting all those people out there who work for the various campaigns to get behind ours and move forward.”

Boyd concluded, however, that “we all understand that the real prize here, if you want to call it that, is to beat Tom Perriello in November.”

Boyd – who is a self-employed financial planner when he is not running for (or holding) elective office – said the best place to learn about his campaign is at KenBoydforCongress.com.

Note:  The video (attached below) contains content different from that found in the preceding interview.

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