Broyhill Visits Boone, Tours Local Businesses Ed Broyhill, Fifth District Republican candidate for U.S. Congress, held a meet-and-greet event last Thursday at the Daniel Boone Inn. Photo by Kathleen McFadden By Kathleen McFadden Among the slate of Republican candidates who have declared their candidacy for Richard Burr’s Congressional seat, Ed Broyhill is a relative latecomer, having announced his bid in July, months later than most of the other candidates. But he has spent the intervening months traveling the district and fundraising, and his travels last week brought the Winston-Salem resident back to Boone for the third time in recent months. As an Appalachian State University trustee and chair of the university’s capital campaign, Broyhill is no stranger to the High Country, but spent his time in Boone last week visiting the courthouse, Cheap Joe’s and U.S. Buildings, and then topped off the day with a social at the Daniel Boone Inn. In his brief remarks to those who attended the function to meet the candidate, Broyhill discussed his top priorities — job creation, the cultivation of relationships to benefit the Fifth District, constituent services and transportation. “My most important message — the thing that moves me the most as I tour factories and mills — is that people are worried about losing their jobs,” Broyhill said. He said that the state’s devastating job loss was the principal issue behind his decision to run for the office. “The federal government is not doing enough for us in North Carolina,” he said, and part of the solution is to develop productive relationships with committee chairpersons in Congress. Broyhill talked about his creation of the Broyhill Jobs Council, a group of 400, he said, that is “coming up with creative ideas for winning grants, renovating factories and initiating occupational programs.” Broyhill said that his father — James T. Broyhill, who represented North Carolina’s 10th Congressional District and served in the U.S. Senate — had set “a constituent services example that I will live up to in Washington, D.C.” He also endorsed four-laning Highway 421 to Bristol. According to John Oxford, the campaign’s media director, Broyhill has raised almost $500,000 so far, and is “in [the campaign] for the long term.” Oxford pointed out that the candidate has visited every county in the district and that “at the grassroots level, everyone is talking about jobs.” Oxford said that Broyhill is intentionally emphasizing job creation over his conservative credentials. “Socially, he’s as conservative as anyone in the race,” Oxford said, “but when an unemployed person wakes up in the morning, he doesn’t care if his congressman is for or against something. He wishes he would get him a job.” The Fifth District includes the counties of Watauga, Ashe, Alleghany, Wilkes, Alexander, Yadkin, Davie, Surry and Stokes and parts of Forsyth, Iredell and Rockingham.