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From Tom Perriello:

I am thrilled to announce that, because of your help, we reached our $900,000 fundraising goal! For the second straight quarter, it was online donations that got us across the finish line with less than 2 hours to spare. That means we have broken district fundraising records for four straight quarters. Simply amazing. I am truly touched by so many of you digging deep to make this happen.

Pundits told us that a first-time candidate would never be able to compete with a six-time incumbent on the Appropriations Committee. Pundits told us we would never be able to raise enough money. Pundits told us that the 5th District was just too big for a new campaign. But clearly they underestimated the power of you, our amazing grassroots network.

Soon we will launch our economic revival tour throughout Southside. Your support will allow us to reach every county in the district to meet voters and get our message out. There is a tremendous hunger everywhere we go: people want leaders who will shake things up in Washington and fight for them everyday.

I have refused all corporate lobbyist money in this election, meaning I answer only to you. And I renew my pledge to work a double-shift in Congress every day to bring jobs and economic fairness back to the district.

I have long maintained there are threee keys to a Democrat capturing VA-05 (assuming, all else being equal, a good campaign, of course):

1. A great candidate. CHECK

2. Strong fundraising. CHECK

3. An overall Democratic tide generated by the top of the ticket (can’t say CHECK yet, but this is clearly in the works with Obama and Warner).

What a great candidate Tom is proving himself to be.

I had the privilege on Saturday of accompanying Tom Perriello, the Democratic challenger in the 5th District to Virgil Goode, to a couple of campaign stops, specifically the Fluvanna County Democrats Strawberry Social and the Uncle Billy Day Festival in Altavista.
I was grateful for the opportunity to see with my own eyes what is going on between Tom and the voters in Southside.
The two events cemented my conviction that Tom will beat Goode in November, especially after seeing the dedication of several of the young people working on his campaign.
The Strawberry Social was at Supervisor Marvin Moss’ home, Glen Burnie. There were some competing events in the area, so turnout was apparently less than the Fluvanna Democrats had hoped for, but the small crowd that was there was lively and enthusiastic, and gratefully able to fit in Mr. Moss’s lower level, air-conditioned great room.
Besides Tom, Creigh Deeds was there, and because the crowd was so small, I got to chat with him for a while, which was a real treat for me. Soon enough the race between Del. Brian Moran and Sen. Deeds will heat up. I’ve met Sen. Deeds a few times, and for me he embodies everything that makes me proud to be a lifelong Democrat. He is a Democrat in the best sense of the term, a Democrat in the tradition of FDR with a genuine concern and feel for the challenges faced by everyday folks, and a desire and an understanding of how to use government to address those challenges and really improve people’s lives – not just the folks able to organize into interest groups, but all people — in a tangible way.
Furthermore, I always walk away from a conversation with Sen. Deeds impressed with his honesty.
Brian Moran was scheduled to attend the event, but apparently he got stuck in Richmond, which was too bad, because I was really hoping for the opportunity to meet him. I’ve heard plenty of good things about him as well, and was hoping to be able to introduce myself and say hello.
But I was there with Tom Perriello, so let me get back to him. I don’t want to hijack my own diary.
Tom is an effective speaker. I think he is much better in this kind of informal setting than in a larger set speech. Here, in this blessedly cool room, talking about how he was going to reclaim and revive the Fifth District, he seemed to really connect with this crowd of Democrats.
The sense among this group that Tom can actually win this race, as opposed to merely fighting the good fight, was real. These were partisans, yes, but also clear-eyed political realists.
The desire for change was palatable. Outside of the several campaign staffers who were there, most of the crowd tended to be older (including me!), but everyone was stoked about the enthusiasm that they are seeing in young people this cycle and the sustainable change that portends for our country. Of course, we’ve seen young people energized before only to not show up on election day, but among these Fluvanna Democrats, hope springs eternal! The betting there (and I think it is 100% correct) is that this election, because of quality candidates on the ticket like Obama, Warner and Tom who speak to the desire for change and a new, more constructive direction for the nation, turnout will be high. The higher the turnout, obviously, the better for Tom and Virginia, if not all, Democrats this cycle.
Substantively, the contrast Tom offers to Virgil Goode is really striking: Tom talks about hope; Virgil about fear and hatred of illegal aliens and Muslims. Tom talks about changing the culture in Washington, while Virgil is part of a corrupt and ineffective Washington, DC mentality that has brought us to the brink of disaster. Tom talks about finding solutions, while Virgil talks about finding scapegoats. Tom talks humbly about faith as a foundation for a life of service, while Virgil sees faith as a rhetorical tool to demonize people and divide them. Tom is out in the District virtually every day, especially in Southside, meeting voters, working hard, listening to people. Virgil, who gets paid with out tax dollars, won’t even provide his constituents with a schedule of his activities.
“Building a fence in Mexico,” Tom points out, “won’t bring jobs to Southside.”
The discussion turned toward the importance of the African American vote in Virginia, in general, and in the Fifth District, in particular. Apparently, only about 50% of African Americans eligible to vote in the District are even registered here (I knew it was low, but not that low). And it isn’t only a Southside phenomenon, but exists in Charlottesville and Albemarle as well.
The thinking is that Obama’s nomination will help with this, both in terms of exciting African American voters to want to register and vote for our historic nominee, but also because Obama’s ground game will be helping to register as many voters as possible.
Tom also spoke about his organizing effort, especially his Fellows for Common Good Summer program in which he has trained 15 volunteer college students to fan out across the District. Tom’s campaign now has offices in Bedford, Martinsville, Smith Mountain Lake, Danville, Farmville and Charlottesville. (Some more on the Fellows I met, below).
Before leaving Fluvanna, I would like to say a word about Supervisor Marvin Moss and his very interesting historical home. It was built in 1826 and is on the National Register of Historical Places. Mr. Moss was a gracious host in showing me and several other guests around, discussing his period furniture and artwork, not to mention wall paint that costs $150 a gallon. Imagine being able to stroll around Monticello freely as guest of the owner, not a sightseer, and you can get an idea of what it felt like. If you like being able to see, feel and touch history, as well as read about it, like I do, it was a real treat.
Our nest stop was about 2 hours south at the Uncle Billy’s Day festival in Altavista. The Perriello campaign had a tent set up there where they were raffling off $50 of free gas. It was the only political tent at the event. Perriello stickers were a big hit with the kids passing by (in keeping with Tom’s faith-based approach – see Isaiah 11:6)
By the way, did I mention it was hot?
As we passed a bank in Altavista, it had one of those electronic clock and thermometers out front showing the temperature was 102 degrees. I think it was using a Fahrenheit scale, but I’m honestly not certain – it could have been Celsius. There was barely a perceptible breeze.
We were drenched in sweat just from the short walk to the fairground from the parking area.
Which leads me to the most impressive thing I saw all day. I cannot say enough about the three Perriello staffers I met at the Uncle Billy’s Day Festival who manned this tent ALL day. Drew Lumpkin, Tom’s Western coordinator, headed up the team, and he was accompanied by two Common Good Fellows, Jesse, who goes to Swarthmore, and Meredith, a rising third year at UVA.
Drew, Jesse and Meredith had working all day out in the hot sun, and as you can imagine, they too were drenched in sweat. It was miserable. Somehow, these three folks maintained their enthusiasm for Tom and good humor for their work throughout the incredible heat of the entire afternoon.
Everyone felt grungy (Tom later remarked, “I could take a shower in beer right now and feel less sticky.”). That didn’t stop these five; Tom and Jess strolled around the
Fairgrounds meeting voters while Drew, Meredith and Jesse continued trying to engage people at the booth.
By far, the issue on people’s mind was gasoline prices.
Virgil and Republicans have been touting ANWAR as the panacea for high gas prices. It is absurd, but it permits to the GOP to frame the issue as “you’re paying $4 at the pump because Democrats don’t want to hurts a few polar bears.”
The truth is that our current problems are the result of 7 years of mismanagement and bad policy by the Bush Administration, especially the failure to invest both intellectual and actual capital in the development of alternative energy before we were in a crisis.
Not much you can honestly say to folks about bringing gas prices down short-term, and to his credit, Tom did not try to do so. Rather, he took the opportunity to talk about long-term solutions, and how new scientific discoveries would generate jobs and about the importance of leadership in addressing these issues.
Many people seemed willing to chat for a while, and many seemed particularly impressed that Tom was there.
My personal favorite was a lady who insisted I take her picture with Tom, who she thought was very good looking. “Put that in your paper,” she pointed at me and ordered me (actually, I don’t have a paper, but I said I would). She was quite happily boisterous and seemed really receptive to Tom. A minute later she returned to ask what party Tom belonged to. She was crestfallen to hear he was a Democrat and said she’d be voting for Virgil. Tom asked, “Do you want him to erase the picture?
“No, y’all keep the picture,” she said with a big smile and a wave goodbye. I really got a kick out of it.
Tom didn’t agree, but come Nov. 4, when she gets in that voting booth, she’s voting for the nice young man she posed with for a picture. Yes, I predict she will be voting for Tom. And even if she doesn’t, she is the kind of person that Tom is running for, as much as he is running for people like me who are closer to him in political thinking. That woman doesn’t know it, but she needs Tom in Congress as much as all of us do.
Photos follow:

Creigh Deeds introducing Tom at the Strawberry Social. Creigh is running for Governor, but he is not looking past this year, and spoke passionately about the need to make sure Obama and Warner win statewide, and that Democrats take advantage of this great opportunity to pick up Congressional seats in the state.

Supervisor Marvin Moss

Marvin Moss’ beautiful and historic home

Tom chats with a voter and her son at the Uncle Billy’s Day Festival in Altavista. That’s Common Good Fellow Jesse on the left, holding the clipboard.

Tom with some more voters

Drew and Meredith at Tom’s booth at the Festival. Note the numerous bottles of water and Gatorade on the table, which were constantly being consumed.

Here’s Tom with that lovely woman I discuss above. she doesn’t know it yet, but in a little less than five months, she will be voting for a Democrat for the first time.

Packing up at the end of a long day. Left to right is Meredith, Drew and Jesse. That is Jessica Barba, Tom’s communication director, picking up the sign.

The fault lines exposed by Virgil Goode’s mystifying vote in the House last week against the GI Bill, a bill that he co-sponsored, presages a deeper problem for him and other down-ticket Republicans this Fall.

It is the inherent contradictions of the mess that the Conservative movement has become as a result of the failures and corruptions of the Bush presidency.

Despite the cleaves exposed by the Democratic primaries this year, the fault lines of the GOP, bound up in the fundamental failure of the governing philosophy upon which the party’s electoral success have been based, are significantly more vulnerable..

Bush’s instance on fighting a war of choice while simultaneously enacting and maintaining personal income tax rate cuts has left Republicans without resources necessary to govern the country in any meaningful manner. Despite the so-called long-term Conservative strategy of “starving the beast” to reduce the size of government, the demand for all sorts of government services, and in wartime the necessity for them, creates an untenable situation that has reduced Republicans to fumbling for explanations as to why the largest deficits in history are acceptable.

The Republican governing philosophy, as practiced, has always been evident as nothing more than a Ponzi scheme of staggering magnitude, but there was no telling how long it could rhetorically and electorally continue to pass muster with voters able to access seemingly unending credit to finance it. However, the inevitable squeezing of that credit by financial markets, together with the undeniable incompetence of the Bush Administration, particularly in foreign policy, the emergence of the United States as a left-of-center country (sorry, George Will - look at the polls) on social policy, and the public and personal corruption which seems to permeate every nook and cranny of the Republican Party, have hastened the end and left the GOP with a single substantive issue that it believes stands a shot of resonating with the financially hurting, fed-up, independent-minded, decent voters who will decide this election in district after district: Democrats want to increase your taxes.

This is what explains the curious vote of Virgil Goode against a bill he co-sponsored.

The bill upon which the House voted last week differed slightly from Senator Jim Webb’s GI Bill - the bill that Goode co-sponsored after being called to account on the matter by Tom Perriello.  But both bills provided for a 3.9 percent pay increase for military personnel to take effect Jan. 1, as well as full scholarships to any in-state public university and other educational assistance for men and women who serve the military for at least three years.

At the insistence of Blue Dog Democrats, however, the House bill added an increase in taxes on income above $500,000 per year to pay for itself, a so-called “Patriot’s Premium.”

According to statement from Goode’s office, which did not respond directly to reporters’ phone calls on the matter, this was the provision against which he voted.

In fact, so did every Republican member of Virginia’s delegation.

I have been asking myself, why would Virgil Goode risk the adverse publicity of failing to support the troops in defense of this tiny amount of high-income earners?

Was it simply that Goode, with a Congressional salary of $165K plus an income-earning fortune of more than $5 million, might simply have been voting in his own self-interest? I doubt it. Even if he were to earn that much, and for all his faults, Mr. Goode is a honest person who doesn’t strike me as a legislator that would so blatently abuse the trust of the people he represents.

One explanation might be that when your only substantive issues are scaring folks, sometimes about illegal aliens, sometimes about Muslims and sometimes that your opponent will want to raise taxes, then you’re voting options are limited. You are, for example, simply unable to vote for any tax increase whatsoever, no matter how worthwhile the reason, without undercutting a main argument behind your own candidacy.

The media in Southside is beginning to notice. Last week, the Danville Register & Bee took note of Goode’s inconsistent stance in its story headlined, “Rocky Mount’s Goode votes no on soldiers’ education bill”:

While maintaining that he supports increased benefits for veterans, U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode voted against a House bill aimed at ensuring educational costs for soldiers, saying Democrats used it as fodder for promoting partisan politics. … “(The bill) as a stand-alone piece of legislation would have passed overwhelmingly,” Goode, R-5th, said in a written release, after he couldn’t be reached by telephone. “It is a good example of Democratic rhetoric about bipartisanship being untrue. This could have been a bipartisan effort.”

The Washington, D.C., Bureau of Media General News Service reports that conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats got on board only after the GI Bill was funded through what Democrats dubbed a “Patriots’ Premium.” The premium increases an individual’s taxes by a half-percent on all income above $500,000 and would generate an estimated $56 billion over 10 years.

“The Democrats created a package so that they could highlight the VA benefit and not mention the $10 billion in foreign aid and the tax increase on individuals and on individuals who own small businesses,” Goode said. … For his part, Goode said he continues to support any bill that benefits veterans.

“I suspect that the Senate will not adopt the Democrats’ tax increase provision, and we will have another opportunity in the House to vote on the legislation to give expanded educational benefits to our veterans,” Goode said.

This kind of honest press coverage in an area that has been a Goode stronghold in the district - Pittsylvania County, suggests that the first part of a successful campaign for Perriello - convincing the electorate that it can do better in Washington, DC than Virgil Goode, is clearly achievable. The R&B gets the story exactly right - At the end of the day, Goode voted against our soldiers because he politically beholden to a discredited ideology of governance.

Goode’s explanation of his vote is both convoluted and unconvincing. He is trying to square the proverbial circle.

Perhaps more revelaing than Goode’s actual vote on the bill, however, is his closing line that Democrats will give him another chance to vote on the bill. Perhaps GI benefits will come around again, and Mr. Goode can support it after he opposed it - that would be fine because it would help our military.

But the sad fact is that, as he implicitly acknowledges, Mr. Goode’s vote and his input is quite irrelevant to the outcome. This is not simply a matter of Democrats controlling the House and the Senate (which they will continue to do for the foreseeable future). Rather, Mr. Goode and other Virginia Republicans have removed themselves from the conversation because they have demonstrated a rigid ideological approach to legislation that is not suceptable to reason.

What good does this do for the people of the Fifth District?

Of course, it will be up to Tom Perriello to close the deal. He is a great candidate whose common sense positions are, like many folks down here in the Fifth, rooted in his religious faith. More importantly, he has lived his life consistent with those beliefs, fighting for ideals in which he believes on behalf of some of the most oppressed people on the planet.

At a practical level, Tom has proven to be an effective fundraiser. And he has put together an enthusiastic and dedicated staff that has creatively developed ideas to reach out to the community, such as by tithing 10% of their volunteer hours this summer.

It’s a long time to November, but it seems with each passing day the Perriello campaign looks stronger, and Virgil Goode looks more and more vulnerable.

So many politicians these days on both sides of the aisle talk about values, but when push comes to shove, don’t seem to reflect them in any kind of substantive or tangible way. All to often, they use values as a bludgeon to criticize others, rather than as a positive call to action.

So I think this move by Tom Perriello’s campaign is both smart and, well, decent and classy:

Perriello Campaign Launches Unprecedented Initiative to Tithe 10% of Volunteer Hours to Community

May 12, 2008—Danville, Charlottesville, and Collinsville, VA—With events in Danville, Collinsville, and Charlottesville, the Perriello for Congress campaign launched its volunteer tithing initiative, unprecedented for a political campaign. The campaign will tithe 10% of all its volunteer hours to community service projects around the district. The campaign has logged more than 1,700 volunteer hours in total; over the weekend, volunteers kicked off the initiative by tithing 42 volunteer hours and moving forward, will tithe 10% of its hours.

“I was raised to believe that a strong faith is a lived faith that must be made clear by our deeds. I want my campaign for Congress to reflect those same values,” said Tom Perriello. “That is why we are asking our campaign team to commit 10% of their volunteer hours to local charities to reflect the value of service to community and to country.”

Perriello campaign volunteers launched the volunteer tithing initiative in three locations around the district. In Charlottesville, volunteers worked on constructing a house for Habitat for Humanity. In Collinsville, they brought groceries to the local post office for the “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive. In Danville, they served food to the hungry at a local church. Tom Perriello is the Democratic candidate for Virginia’s fifth congressional district. Born and raised in the district, he is a national security analyst and has founded faith-based organizations.

Video and photos are available at http://www.perrielloforcongress.com/

For high-res photography, contact Jessica Barba at 434-882-4163.

The Danville Register & Bee wrote an interesting editorial today about Tom Perriello and Faithful American.org. The group, of which Tom was co-director, raised money and ran an ad on al Jezeera television apologizing for American torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. The Register & Bee recently ran a story on it, and two observers of the Virginia political scene, Tim Craig of the Washington Post and Bob Gibson of the Daily Progress, both thought it was damaging to Tom.

It was an odd sort of editorial, lauding Tom for acting honorably in helping to condemn torutre, but then concluding that as a result of acting honorably, he hurt himself politically.

Here is, as they say in the News biz, the nut graf:

For Perriello to be involved in a public relations outreach to the people of the Arab world was a decent, honorable thing to do. 

And here is the conclusion the Register & Bee draws from that:

But it won’t help him in his race for the 5th District congressional seat. 
Local conservatives have shown little concern over how the Iraq War has been prosecuted. They generally support the president and have little use for the likes of al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. 
At best, the reports of prisoner abuse in Iraq were greeted locally with shrugs, indifference or a hostility toward the news media for reporting those crimes. Those folks want more stories about our troops with happy, smiling Iraqi kids — which is a part of what’s going on over there — and view anything critical as being anti-soldier and anti-American. 

The Register & Bee, Craig and Gibson are all wrong. The validity of their opinions depends on the cynical belief that most people in the 5th District can’t tell the difference between right and wrong.

If this kind of garbage is all Virgil Goode has to run on, then I say we should all get in the habit of calling him “Former Congressman Virgil Goode.”

VA-05 Democratic candidate Tom Perriello had the following to say in response to the testimony earlier this week by Gen. David Petraeus:

In light of the testimonies by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before Senate and House leaders, VA-05 congressional candidate Tom Perriello asserted that Americans are being offered a false choice in Iraq, and that the only solution there is a political one.

“Our generals have been winning battles but we are not winning the war because our political leaders have provided no plan for victory and ask the wrong questions. Gen. Petraeus is right that immediate withdrawal would be disastrous. But sticking with the Administration’s current policy is just as dangerous. We owe it to our troops to provide a new path to victory, such as the N.E.W. Plan for Iraq I helped launch in 2006. We need to shift the debate from troop levels and timelines to a new political power-sharing arrangement that can anchor a manageable peace without a U.S. troop presence,” said Perriello.

“The question is not whether the surge reduced violence. It is whether the surge moved the ball forward on solving the underlying political standoff that keeps us there. We need a solution, not a stalemate,” said Perriello.

More than 50 house and senate candidates across the country have signed onto the “Responsible Plan to End the War.” Tom was one the first dozen or so to be on board when the plan was revealed least month.

There is no longer any doubt but that the war in Iraq was a mistake that need to be responsibly ended. As Gen. Petraeus’ testimony showed, as as Tom Perriello has recognized, this war has been a failure of policy, not a failure on the part of our military. But it is the brave men and women of our military and their families that have had to bear the consequences of George Bush and Dick Cheney’s mistakes, and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives, long after this controversy has faded from our political debates.

All John McCain, Virgil Goode and the Republicans offer is 100 more years of the same failed policy. It makes no sense.

Alan