Virgil Goode, reeling from allegations that his office helped support the showing of the film 'Eden's Curve' at various film festivals in this country and Canada, has said that he will have a meeting of his staff to find out how the government-paid fax number in his office was used as a contact by fax number for promotion of the film, according to the Daily Progress in Charlottesville.
This news comes on the heels of the revelation that WDBJ-TV, the CBS affiliate in Roanoke, Virginia, will not be running the NRCC ad that had been running and continues to run at other media outlets in the district. The station said it wants to see documentation of a claim by Goode that Perriello is in favor of gay marriage.
In fact, Tom's position is one that I agree with: He does not support any further government intervention in the definition of marriage. The Christian Science Monitor article being used by Goode carried a correction in a later edition, although obviously, that's not the part the Goode campaign used.
Jeffrey A. Marks, president and general manager of WDBJ, said the ad cites as its source an article about Perriello that ran in the Christian Science Monitor. However, the Perriello campaign pointed out that the newspaper ran a correction about the Democrat's position on the issue, which is that he does not support more government intervention in defining marriage."We've suspending running an ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee," Marks said. "We asked for further substantiation ... We're waiting to see if the sponsor can provide additional information."
TV stations cannot refuse to air political ads by candidates for federal office, but are allowed to refuse ads that are paid for by third-party organizations, such as the DCCC or the NRCC. "We are in no way taking sides," Marks said.
Virgil Goode's insistence in calling Tom Parriello a 'NY Lawyer', has drawn more complaints as well, from the campaign and supporters. Tom was admitted to the bar in New York State, a necessary step for him to perform the security and humanitarian work he does, with organizations based in New York.
Now Goode is criticizing the fact that the Perriello campaign has calls being made from a firm in Brooklyn. Why this matters, I have no idea.
Also in Goode's statement on Thursday, the congressman accused Perriello of having New York residents make phone calls on Perriello's behalf to residents of the 5th District, which includes the city of Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene and Nelson."Tonight, Southside Virginians will hear the sound of New York accents on their telephones," the statement said. "Citizens in New York City will be participating in a phone bank calling Southside Virginians and asking them to vote for Tom Perriello. Once more, liberal New Yorkers are attempting to push their ideas on 5th District Virginians."
Goode has portrayed Perriello as an outsider from New York in stump speeches and in his campaign's TV and radio ads. Perriello, Goode said, is relying on the campaign contributions from out-of-state supporters.
The phone banking activity in New York on behalf of Perriello, Barba said, was being hosted by a longtime friend of Perriello's who had wanted to assist in his bid to unseat Goode. The Perriello campaign, she added, has more than 500 volunteers from within the 5th District and such phone banking is occurring on Perriello's behalf across the country and elsewhere in Virginia. "This has become a national race, whether Congressman Goode likes it or not," she said.
Like I have been saying, people from everywhere want Virgil Goode gone. Just because he can't or won't understand this is just an effort to paint Tom as an 'outsider', a 'carpetbagger', even though he was born and raised in Virginia. He even got his Eagle Badge as a Boy Scout in Virginia.
It will be interesting to see what, if anything comes from this meeting. I can't imagine there are too many happy people at the Goode Campaign, from Virgil on down.
Let's get Tom over the hump as he gets rid of a horrible Congressman. Give today, and leave it all on the road.
...Goode says he will be interviewing his staffers in order to investigate how that happened, showing that he agrees that it's tough for people not to connect the dots at this point.Honestly, none of this makes much sense to me right now-I can't know what's going on in Goode's office, or what his connection is to this film. But it's no longer possible to escape the conclusion that Goode's office-and quite likely Goode-were involved in the making of the movie. But I can't see how the existing information forms an overall picture. Either this is the tip of an iceberg, or we're simply missing some central element that would allow these data to be tied together.
Somebody want to try interviewing Linwood Duncan?