Campaign financing causes an uproar

By Sarah Arkin

Published: September 13, 2008

During the Sept. 3 forum featuring the two men hoping to represent the 5th District in Congress — and in public statements since — fingers were pointed and a lot of uproar was made about where the other’s campaign financing was coming from.

In short, Democratic challenger Tom Perriello accused sitting Congressman Virgil Goode of being in the pocket of big oil companies and other corporate lobbyists. Goode shot back that Perriello is getting most of his money from out of state liberal donors, particularly from New York and California.

Both candidates have money coming in from out of district donors. Barring one red flag on each, an independent analyst said neither one of their finance reports is particularly shocking.

The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan watchdog organization that monitors campaign financing and presents its findings at http://www.opensecrets.org.

Goode pulls the majority of his funds from the 5th District and the Washington, D.C., area, according to the organization’s findings.

“(Goode’s donor list is) a pretty typical list for an incumbent member of Congress that the top contributors are going to be trade associations as opposed to companies or just groups of individuals,” said Massie Ritsch with the CRP. “Trade associations and PACs (political action committees) favor incumbent members because they’re already in power and they have the ability to do something for them.”

Ritsch said a seat on the Appropriations Committee makes that particularly true, and said he wasn’t surprised to see defense contractors on Goode’s donor list.

Goode’s top donor is the National Auto Dealer’s Association, a group the CRP says is “among the most powerful voices on transportation issues in Washington.”

In a written response, Goode wrote that he accepts out-of-district donations from PACs, people and organizations because “they often work for and help persons and business in Virginia and Fifth District … for example, the Goodyear PAC is located in Ohio, but Goodyear employees, including Danville, have contributed to the PAC.”

Strange contributors

Only one donor from Goode’s past jumped out as strange to the CRP.

“There was this oddity of MZM being his biggest donor,” said Ritsch, referring to the 2005 bribery scandal involving illegal contributions the former defense contractor gave to lawmakers.

MZM’s former president, Mitchell Wade, pleaded guilty to bribing a California lawmaker and submitting illegal contributions to two lawmakers, including $46,000 given to Goode. 

“I’m sure it wasn’t very flattering for him to have his biggest fundraiser put in jail,” Ritsch said.

Goode maintained he did not know the contributions were illegal.

Ritsch also pulled out an oddity in Perriello’s reports.

“He’s raised more money than the incumbent, and that’s pretty rare,” he said, “particularly without putting much of his own money in there.”

A little more than half of Perriello’s contributions have come from in-state followed by donors in New York, Washington, D.C., and California. Two celebrities, Rob Reiner and Virginia-native John Grisham have donated to the Ivy Democrat’s campaign.

Perriello’s biggest donor, “by far,” Ritsch said, is the organization ActBlue, which acts as a sort of third-party distributor for general donations to Democratic candidates.

“He would appear to be going to the Democratic ATMs of our country and trying to withdraw money by arguing that he can unseat a Republican who may be familiar to them because of the whole Keith Ellison Koran thing,” Ritsch said, referring to Goode’s opposition to the Minnesota representative taking the oath of office on the Muslim holy book.

Winning The financial race

Challengers often have to go out of state to raise funds, Ritsch noted. In almost any race, challengers face a comparative lack of name recognition and familiarity with voters, particularly in cases where the incumbent has been sitting for a number of terms.

Perriello on Thursday said most of his out-of-state contributions are coming from classmates of his from law school and extended family members.

“They’ve seen me be able to make a difference in some rough spots in the world and think I’ll be able to make a difference in the 5th District … people who know that I’m going to stand up and fight for the working class,” he said. “It’s a testament to the track record and results I’ve had.

“What’s disturbing most about Congressman Goode is massive contributions from corporate lobbyists … and that he’s always voting with them,” Perriello added. “He’s voting with the big oil companies and the pharmaceutical companies. He voted against consumers at the pump and at the pharmacy.”

Goode takes issue with Perriello’s contributors, too.

“These donors, like the Soros family in New York, are very liberal and they want a real liberal in Congress like Perriello,” he wrote.

Goode also wrote that another example is Congressman Charles Rangle from New York who “sponsored the mother of all tax increases. He knows I am a “No” vote on his liberal proposals.”

So, does all this money have tangible implications for winning the race in November?

“The candidate with the most money almost always wins,” said Ritsch, “but that’s because the candidate with the most money is usually the incumbent.”

Contact Sarah Arkin at or (434) 791-7983.