Perriello cries foul over campaign ad

Democratic candidate Tom Perriello’s campaign called on local TV stations to stop airing what it describes as a misleading attack ad run by longtime incumbent U.S. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr.

In the ad — which is running in the Charlottesville area — an announcer says “Perriello opposes the offshore and Alaskan drilling we need to lower gas prices.”
Perriello has repeatedly stated that he supports more drilling for oil and gas, although he believes it should be part of an all-of-the-above energy policy that also promotes alternative energy and weans America off its dependence on foreign oil.
Perriello has said that he is a proponent of offshore drilling, though he is less supportive of — yet, not opposed to — drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Goode’s ad features an excerpt from an article published in the Danville Register & Bee that quotes Perriello as saying “Drilling is a 2-cent solution to a $4 problem.”
That quote, however, was taken out of context, Perriello’s camp said. In the June 19 story, Perriello said: “I support more drilling as one piece of a much bolder strategy for relief. But those who think drilling alone will make a dent in prices are offering a 2-cent solution to a $4 problem.”
Goode’s ad also displays a darkened photo of Perriello that was taken after Perriello, a national security consultant, returned from a trip to Afghanistan in 2005.
In response to a request for comment Monday, Goode’s campaign faxed a written statement from the six-term Republican incumbent.

“The ad is correct,” Goode wrote. “Mr. Perriello has said in debates and statements that he disagrees with my position of being for drilling in ANWR in Alaska. He has made the comment in several forums that drilling is a ‘2 cent solution to a 4 dollar problem.’”
Goode goes on to defend his recent vote against a Democratic-backed bill that would have permitted drilling off the coast of Virginia and other states. That bill, Goode pointed out, only would have allowed drilling more than 50 miles off the East Coast and would not have shared any of the revenue with state governments.

“It is clear that I am more pro-drill than Perriello,” Goode wrote. “Perriello needs to adopt the Goode position on drilling and make it a focal point of the campaign … I am clearly more pro-drill than Perriello. As the ad says, he does not support the drilling that is needed to have a positive impact on gas prices.”
The oil drilling debate took on a new dimension last week after Congress lifted the nation’s 25-year-old ban on oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Goode’s description of Perriello’s views on oil drilling was a “blatant lie,” said Perriello’s spokeswoman, Jessica Barba.
“This is a desperate and blatant effort by Virgil Goode to distract attention from his terrible record on the economy,” Barba said Monday at a news conference outside of NBC29’s offices in Charlottesville.

Charlottesville lawyer J. Lloyd Snook III sent a letter to TV stations in the 5th Congressional District requesting that Goode’s ad be pulled, saying its verifiably false statements were “libelous.”
“This television station should not be taking money to air political advertisements that it knows are false,” Snook wrote in the letter. “You owe to your viewers a higher duty than simply to take every advertising dollar that is thrown your way.”
Snook also referenced in the letter several other articles in which Perriello expresses support for offshore oil and gas drilling, including three from The Daily Progress.

“I assume that you would not run an advertisement from someone who claims that the herb [he] is selling cures cancer; that would be false, and it would be harmful to any viewers who would see the advertisement and act on that falsity,” Snook wrote. “The same is true of political advertising. We do not expect you to act as a censor, prejudging all advertisements that are offered to you. But we do expect that when you are confronted with clear proof that a particular advertisement is false, you will refuse to run the advertisement in question. You owe your viewers that much.”
The general managers of NBC29 and the Newsplex stations did not return a call for comment. Harold Wright, vice president and general manager of NBC29, did release his response to Snook’s letter.

Wright pointed out that federal law forbids TV stations from rejecting political ads by federal candidates. “Therefore,” he wrote, “we must deny your request.”