Dodging Dirt on the Home Stretch (Editorial)

Sunday, May 27, 2007

(Hampton Roads Virginia Pilot)

Margaret Edds

RICHMOND - Get ready to duck. Here come the kitchen sinks.

With just a couple of weeks left before June 12 primaries, candidates all across Virginia are unloading anything left in their arsenals, including dirt.

Make that, especially dirt.

Rumors about divorces, extramarital affairs, homosexual tendencies, out-of-wedlock babies, unpaid taxes and overdue bills all have a way of bubbling along beneath the surface of political campaigns right up until the last minute.

Then, depending on who's ahead or behind, the muck may spill out. For years, direct mail has been a favorite manure spreader; hush-hush telephone campaigns work too. Now, blogs add a whole new high-tech dimension.

Suddenly, anyone can say just about anything and reach millions.

Years ago, I made a blanket decision to ignore 98 percent of what's whispered about candidates' love lives during campaigns. My epiphany came upon realizing the statistical improbability that every candidate for higher office in Virginia was homosexual, unfaithful, deviant or worse.

Yet, if you believed the rumor mill, that's where you'd wind up. My favorite was the year one statewide frontrunner inspired competing claims. He was both gay and a Lothario with the ladies. Take your pick, depending on your definition of vice.

Of course, sometimes the claims - financial, sexual or otherwise - are perfectly legit. It's up to the poor voter to sort out what's bogus and what's not. Here's a smattering of this year's cleaner dirt. Rest assured there's as much or more roiling beneath the surface:

? In the 27th senatorial district race for the GOP nomination to replace retiring Sen. Russ Potts, Middleburg businessman Mark Tate was indicted last week on two counts of election fraud and nine of perjury. The charges, based on discrepancies in campaign finance filings from 2002 to the present (Tate came within 106 votes of defeating Potts in 2003), were approved by a grand jury after an investigation by a special independent prosecutor.

Commonwealth's Attorney James Plowman disqualified himself because he supports Tate's opponent, Jill Holtzman Vogel, a Warrenton lawyer. So does the woman who raised the allegations. These complaints carry an air of legitimacy; still, it's curious that the formal charges came 18 days before the primary.

? In the 1st Senate District, incumbent GOP Sen. Marty Williams and GOP challenger Tricia Stall are engaged in a slugfest that gets nastier by the minute. The most visible contention centers on the signatures that got Williams on the ballot.

Williams acknowledges mistakes, but that's not enough for Stall. Her backers have lodged a complaint with the State Board of Elections. The board referred a caller to the attorney general's office; the attorney general's office referred the caller back to the state board.

Everybody duck.

? In the 83rd House GOP primary, allegations that contender Chris Stolle had somehow abused his tax status bubbled beneath the surface for weeks. When the complaint burst into the open last week, it seemed far less egregious, if at all, than the rumor mill suggested.

Stolle, who faces Carolyn Weems for the party's nod to replace retiring Del. Leo Wardrup, paid in-state tuition for a son attending a Virginia college while voting and paying taxes in Florida . As a Navy doctor, Stolle - now retired from the military - kept his residence in another state until after retirement; his wife has had formal residency in Virginia since 1999.

The many Virginia Beach voters who are former or current military personnel don't need help sorting this one out - or whether Wardrup overstepped in trying to intimidate Stolle into dropping out of the race.

? In Prince William County , a conservative blog made news last week by running an online dating profile posted by Jeff Dion, one of two candidates in the Democratic primary. "Yes, even you, (sic) can have a date with a current candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 51st District, but only if you're a man," sniffed Black Velvet Bruce Li, the name of the blog.

Unabashed, Dion, an attorney with the National Center for Victims of Crime, who acknowledges but does not advertise his homosexuality, wrote back: "I'm not hiding anything. I'm not out there talking about my social life (Lest my friend, James Young, would say, 'the love which dare not speak its name now won't shut its mouth!') but if you bring it up, I'm going to respond."

And so it goes. Political dirt is as old as the nation and as fresh as the pigeon droppings on Capitol Square . If you're anywhere near politics for the next few weeks, duck.

Margaret Edds is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. E-mail her at margaret.edds@pilotonline.com.