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Perriello Very Impressive In Forum Against Goode
I don't know whether today's debate between VA-05 Congressman Virgil Goode and challenger Tom Perriello will have much effect on the race, which will be decided in precincts far from the Albemarle County location of the debate, but it did prove that Tom Perriello is ready to be a great congressman and representative of this District.

There were no major gaffes during the debate. Goode's occasional rants against his favorite bogeymen - illegal aliens - were tame by his standards, and contained the usual amounts of untruths and distortions to whip up his core nativist supporters.

Perriello, however, clearly had the upper hand throughout the debate and was able to put Goode on the defensive for most of the hour-long Q & A, whether it was in explaining an inexplicable vote (such as opposing SCHIP expansion) or trying to defend a record that, most generously, is void of any significant legislative accomplishment on behalf of his constituents, despite Goode's having been in office a decade.

I'll let the campaign have its say about the meat of the debate, but for me, personally, there were a few moments that really stuck out. In no particular order:

1. In a question about health care, Goode argued that our health care system was pretty good in comparison to many other countries.

Is that the new standard, Perriello shot back, to simply be better than other places?

That is the problem with Republican governance in a nutshell. It utterly and completely lacks any sort of inspiring vision for our country.

2.