Pogge apologizes for ad

Farlow may gain sympathy from negative GOP attack

The Virginia Gazette, by Steve Vaughan
October 24, 2007

York – Troy Farlow’s campaign slammed Brenda Pogge Tuesday for a pair of negative mailers that exploit his notorious hit-and-run case.

Pogge said she had already apologized to Farlow for the mailers on Friday and that they had been created and sent out by the state Republican Party over her objections and those of her campaign staff.

“I am appalled that Mrs. Pogge would use such reprehensible campaign tactics and mock a personal tragedy that affected my family,” Farlow said in a statement.  “This self-proclaimed champion of ‘family values’ has just exhibited a willingness to deliberately twist the truth for narrow political gain.”

One mailer portrays Farlow as a child and erroneously states that he “fled from police for four years.”  It’s inconsistent with the Pogge campaign’s repeated claims that it had nothing to do with leaking the information on the hit-and-run.

“I was angered by a negative mail piece sent out on my behalf authorized by the Republican Party this week,” Pogge said in a statement.  “The part clearly knew where I stood on this type of advertising as I had vetoed every overture made to me to approve such a piece.  It is not the business of the state party to conduct the business of their candidate without their knowledge or consent.”

But the Farlow camp, beset for weeks by the repercussions of the hit-and-run, piled on.

“Mrs. Pogge’s expedient apology only came after we raised this issue to the press,” Farlow said in a statement.  “The damage of these malicious flyers has been done.  If Mrs. Pogge is sincere, she will print and mail her statement of apology to the voters – twice- once for each piece of mail they received.  Actions speak louder than words.”

Farlow campaign manager Lonny Paris said that if Pogge’s claim that the state party had sent out the mail without her approval was true, it reflected badly on her ability to serve as a member of the General Assembly.  “What that says is she’s a puppet of the state party,” he said.

The mailers were paid for by the Republican Party of Virginia and were clearly marked “Not authorized by any candidate.”  They did stipulate, “This advertisement is intended to benefit Brenda Pogge, candidate for the House of Delegates.”

Pogge said she first learned of the mail pieces last Wednesday.  “We learned that there was a second piece scheduled to mail and we told them to stop it,” she said Tuesday.  “We stopped half of it.  The ones that mailed from Norfolk were stopped on the post office loading dock.  The ones mailed from Richmond we couldn’t get to in time.”

Pogge said she had nothing to gain from an attack ad, which she’d told her consultants when they advised one in the first place.  “All I could get out of this was complaints,” she said.

To confirm her account, Pogge released a chain of email correspondence between her campaign manager, Mike Hazlewood, and Charlie Judd, executive director of the Virginia Republican Party.

“I’m not happy about this!” Hazlewood wrote to Judd.  “Don’t know if you knew that a hit piece was sent out without Brenda’s approval.”  He added, “I don’t know for a fact but I suspect [redacted] is/or was behind this.  Now from a campaign standpoint, she’s up in the polls, in fundraising, so why send this out?”

Jeff Ryer, who works for the House of Republican Caucus, said he was aware of the dispute.

“Look, sometimes campaigns have done this, with a nod and wink, and said that party did it,” he said.  “That isn’t the case here.  I knew that Brenda and Mike had both told the consultants they didn’t want this done.  This has happened before in campaigns, more than it should.”

Ryer said from a strategic standpoint the mailers made no sense and would backfire with sympathy for Farlow.

If nothing else, the mailers provide a glimpse into the shadowy world of political consultants, who design yard signs, do direct mail and produce TV spots.  Often the profit motive of a consultant isn’t full consistent with the interest of the candidate.  They never tell a candidate he’s run enough commercials and mail consultants never tell the candidate, he’s sending too much mail, because that would cut into their profits.