Weed campaign reports narrowing gap

Just a few months away from a November vote, representatives for Democratic Congressional candidate Al Weed are feeling pretty good. A recent Zogby poll paid for by the Weed campaign showed that incumbent Virgil Goode’s previously large margin over Weed has shrunk to only 14 percent. Campaign Director Stephen Davis says Weed is leaps and bounds beyond from where he was two years ago when he lost to Goode in a landslide.
    “Last time Al had 20 percent name recognition and now we’re up to about 60 percent name recognition,” he says. Davis credits much of this to the efforts of hundreds of volunteers. “We’re constantly out doing lots of grassroots work,” he says. “Every night in multiple parts of the district there are people out knocking on doors, talking to voters, introducing Al, finding out what they care about, and spreading Al’s message.” The Fifth District, which includes Charlottesville and most of the state’s southside, is roughly the size of New Jersey.
    Weed Communications Director Curt Gleeson also attributes this campaign’s greater success to better organization. “Last time there wasn’t a continuity of staff, campaign, or plan,” he says. “It was lots of ideas here and there. Now, we’re a machine and we’re running strong.” Gleeson reserves his greatest praise for the actual candidate. “Essentially Al never stopped campaigning,” he says. “He knows what he’s doing and he’s been doing it for three years. We’re very happy where we are.”
    Some of their optimism is no doubt connected to the golden egg dropped in their laps when it was revealed late last year that Goode received considerable amounts of money in campaign contributions linked to disgraced defense contractor MZM after he helped lure the company to a military intelligence center in Martinsville, Virginia. The controversy has heated up in recent weeks, as the director of the center pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to Goode, totaling as much as $12,000. In his plea, Richard Berglund, who supervised the Martinsville plant, stated that Goode did not know the campaign donaitons were illegal.
    On July 27, the Pentagon announced that it would not renew the defense contract, thus closing the center and a big piece of Goode’s pork pie. While the Weed campaign has so far kept a safe distance from the growing scandal, his communications director is eager to get the incumbent in front of TV cameras for scheduled debates in the fall.
    “We’re looking forward to that,” says Gleeson. “These questions that people have, they can ask him when the cameras are rolling and see what he says.”