Who is Robert Hurt?

Southside Virginia likes to think they know Senator Robert Hurt. Son of a wealthy and established family, he went off to college before coming back home to be a country lawyer. Plain and simple, right?

Well . . .

Maybe not.

I'm surprised that in a heated campaign in which opponents of Tom Perriello continue to attack him as a "New York lawyer" and indicate confusion over his past that more attention hasn't been given to Robert's past.

For example, despite the attack of "New York lawyer" Perriello was born and raised in the 5th District. 100% Not only was he born in the district, his entire early education was in the district. Perriello didn't leave until he started college at Yale. Young 18 year old Perriello was a Virginian, born and raised.

Robert Hurt? He'd like you to think he was just as Virginian, but there are some serious gaps in his story. First off, that he was born in New York City is obviously not common knowledge among his supporters. You've got to love the way Robert dismisses the situation of his birth.

In his law office across the street from the courthouse on Main Street in Chatham, Hurt says his birth in New York was simply a result of where his mother was at the time.

He lived in New York for about nine years but prefers to talk about growing up in Chatham, where he and his family live across the street from his parents. He was elected to Chatham's Town Council in 2000, then the House of Delegates in 2001 and the state Senate in 2007.

Newsflash Robert, all births are a result of where the mother is. Or did your parents never explain the birds and the bees to you?

Hurt lived in New York for nine years but claims to have grown up in Chatham. Does coming down to Virginia during the summer count for citizenship in the Old Dominion?

More importantly, a lot of Hurt supporters talk about how he graduated from Hargrave Military Academy. The fact is he "attended" the Academy before being shipped off to the wealthy Northern Virgina boarding school of Episcopal High School. Did Robert attend Episcopal High School all four years? If so, that cuts his continued time in the district growing up to less than five years.

Flash forward and we get a snap shot of Hurt's time at law school:

I went to law school. There I obtained invaluable legal training. But I also sought out that practical experience that can only be obtained in the field. During my law school years, I worked in the criminal litigation section of the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office and in the U.S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi. During my first summer of law school, I worked in the Dekalb County District Attorney’s Office in Atlanta. During my second summer of law school, I worked for the Virginia Attorney General’s office in Richmond. During my final semester in law school, I attended the Cardozo School of Law in New York and worked for New York State Supreme Court Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder.

Robert Hurt attended a law school in New York City? Cardozo School of Law, part of Yeshiva University? Sounds like a New York Lawyer to me!

Robert Hurt's own website claims that he grew up in Chatham. If he gets to claim that he grew up in Chatham, he needs to direct his supporters to stop raising questions of Tom Perriello's origins. He himself should stop indicating that Perriello isn't from around here. It's shameful that Hurt has resorted to these sorts of negative and false attacks. I know that's how Chris LaCivitia likes to play the game, as we saw with the hit job on Robert Hurt. But I have to ask, does Hurt want people looking through his past too?