5th Congressional District race heating up

By Ray Reed

Published: October 31, 2008

Virginia’s 5th Congressional District race between Rep. Virgil Goode and Tom Perriello, seen as a sleeper two months ago, is now a slugfest of attack ads about money and sex.

Even the costly Richmond TV market is airing the contest’s allegations, and two people have left jobs this week in the midst of them.

Goode, a Republican, says Perriello is really a New York lawyer, and the Democrat Perriello says Goode is in the pocket of Washington lobbyists.

Those are the gentle ads.

Other claims link the two opponents to permissiveness on same-sex marriage and a movie about homosexuality.

Both parties’ national campaign chests are buying airtime, showing they think the contest could affect the balance of power in Congress. Their money also means the roughly $1.5 million each that Goode and Perriello have raised this year are just two pieces of a larger campaign-finance picture.

Goode’s campaign manager, Tucker Watkins, conceded the race is close, and Bob Roberts, a political analyst at James Madison University, agreed.

Larry Sabato, Virginia’s premier political pundit, says on his Web site that “the race is tightening in its last lap,” but the outcome is “likely Republican.”

About 11,000 new voters in the heavily Democratic Charlottesville-Albemarle area are a key element in the otherwise rural district, Roberts said.

So, too, is the TV advertising, Roberts and Watkins both said.

“When the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) dumps $400 grand in a race, they’ve probably got so much money they don’t know where to spend it,” Watkins said.

Another advocacy group jumped into the 5th District fray Thursday night, broadcasting ads that criticize Goode’s votes against bills affecting veterans’ benefits and farm families.

Paid for by a Midwest-based organization called “My Rural America,” the TV spots show two older men saying Goode has changed since he went to Washington.

Barbara Leach, president and founder of My Rural America, said she has been a Democrat and a lobbyist for farm interests, but “we’re on the other side of the firewall now” as an advocacy group that can seek to educate voters but can’t endorse any candidate.

“Virgil Goode has got a voting record that doesn’t match his district,” Leach said.

Watkins said a look at the My Rural America Web site shows “it is another leftist organization that’s not in the mainstream with the people of the 5th District.”

In dueling news releases Friday, Goode and Perriello talked about the gay marriage and gay movie issues.

Goode said it was clear from Perriello statements during a debate in Danville on Tuesday “that he opposes the Federal Marriage Protection Amendment” and would “let the same sex marriage philosophy permeate across the United States.”

Perriello has said that view twists his words, and he persuaded a Roanoke TV station to stop airing an ad about it that was financed by the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Perriello hammered Goode on Friday concerning a gay-themed art house movie called “Eden’s Curve,” released five years ago and produced by Jerry Meadors, of Danville.

Goode press secretary Linwood Duncan had a role in the film, and Goode is thanked in the film’s credits. In addition, it was disclosed this week that a brochure from a film festival in Toronto five years ago listed the taxpayer-funded fax machine in Goode’s congressional office as a contact number for “Eden’s Curve.”

The film was shot in 2001, two years before Goode secured $150,000 in federal funding to help finance a renovation of Danville’s North Theater. Meadors was artistic director at the theater.

Both Duncan and Meadors have left those jobs this week.

Goode said he didn’t know why he was mentioned in the film credits and he promised to investigate how his office fax number was listed in the brochure.

Perriello’s campaign issued a news release saying:

“The sudden departures of Mr. Duncan and Mr. Meadors from their positions raises even more questions and resembles a disturbing pattern of cronyism and cover-ups.

“Congressman Goode owes taxpayers an answer about how their dollars were used either in the production or promotion of this film,” Perriello’s news release said.

Goode’s office also released a series of documents linking Perriello to New York financier George Soros, whom Goode portrays as having highly liberal social viewpoints.

Watkins said the documents summarize about $200,000 of financial links between Soros and Perriello.

Perriello’s press secretary, Jessica Barba, fired back with a reminder that Goode received about $80,000 of campaign financing four years ago from Mitchell Wade and other people associated with the MZM bribery scandal. Wade and former California Rep. Randy Cunningham were convicted in the case, and Goode forwarded the contributions he had received to charities.

“I hardly think Congressman Goode is in the position to criticize us for campaign financing when the top contributor of his entire career is a convicted felon for bribing members of Congress,” Barba said.