Another Hokie will be vying for public office while still vying for a diploma.
Paul Cornett, a senior majoring in history and communication, is running for state office. He will challenge Democrat Jim Shuler for the 12th District House of Delegates seat.
Cornett will run as an independent after fulfilling the requirements to run last month.
He said his parents instilled an interest in politics.
"All my life, it's been an interest," Cornett said. "I grew up in a house where my mom and dad were always talking about politics. It's been in the back of my mind for a long time, just something I wanted to get into."
Cornett plans to use an Internet based campaign to stimulate the Blacksburg area.
"I guess it was last year during the election I heard about this guy running for the Kansas state House named Sean Tevis," Cornett said. "He used the Internet in a way no other candidate had before. He used Web comics, Twitter. I thought something like that could definitely work in a college-based town."
However, in addition to a portion of Montgomery County, the 12th District includes Alleghany County, Bath County, Craig County, the City of Covington and a part of Giles County.
"The Internet is the main thing we're pushing for, and that will be really good in Montgomery County and Blacksburg, but we are going to have to go up there and do some actual campaigning in person," Cornett said. "We haven't dealt with everything yet, but we will be making plenty of trips up to Covington, Alleghany, Bath County."
His campaign will use the Internet mainly because it will not accept money for advertising.
"One thing about my campaign, we're not accepting any donations, and we're spending no money on advertising, so that's really going to hurt with the name recognition," Cornett said. "We have some plans to get more of the Tech community involved to help us out up there."
He said the process of getting on the ballot was a trying time.
"I needed to get 125 valid signatures from voters in the 12th District," Cornett said. "After about two weeks, we did it a couple of times, we ended up with about 130 signatures. I brought them into the office and it turned out that only about 70 of them were good. It took a few more tries. In total, I think I got about 300 signatures to get to the required 125."
Cornett's platform is based on civil liberties and education reform, but he will run as an Independent in an attempt to buck the clash of the two party system.
"It's just turned into a big us vs. them thing," Cornett said. "It's really time for independent third parties to get going. Now is the time."
He said he does not believe in government regulation of personal activities.
"The big thing is personal liberties," Cornett said. "We're all for people doing what they want as long as it doesn't effect anybody else. Why should the government tell anyone what to do as long as it just involves them?"
Cornett also hopes to change the ways of Virginia's public schools.
Leave a comment 2 Comments Write a letter to the editor
All letters to the editor must include a name, e-mail, daytime phone number and affiliation to Virginia Tech. Affiliation includes: year and major for students; position and department for faculty and staff; current city for alumni and parents.
So, you happen to be running a) for the hell of it (because you don't disagree with Jim Shuler about damn near anything) b) so you can speak in the third person (let's be honest, there is no "we" to the Cornett for Delegate campaign not counting members of your own family) and c) because you are, at the bottom of everything, a huge tool.
Reply to this Top
Maybe do a little more research next time before citing that Mr. Cornett is the only Hokie running for office. I think his opponent, the incumbent Delegate Jim Shuler, would disagree. He is an alumnus of Virginia Tech, as are his colleagues in the House of Delegates Mr. David Bulova, Mr. Dan Bowling, Mr. Dave Nutter (also an administrator at Virginia Tech) to name a few.
Reply to this Top