For all of his talk about congressional challenger Tom Perriello’s “New York” ties, Fifth District Congressman Virgil Goode got a little extra cash on October 23 from one Louis Camilleri. Address: 120 Park Avenue, New York, New York. Occupation: Chairman & CEO of Philip Morris International.
While Camilleri’s donation of $1,000 was less than the $2,300 limit, it’s still a tidy sum in the final days before the toughest battle for the Fifth District that the six-term incumbent has faced.
Both sides have cried foul about the other’s funding sources in the process of raising about $1.5 million each. Perriello has charged Goode of taking money from corporate lobbyists, pointing to the $400,000 he has taken from Political Action Committees, while Goode has gone out of his way to paint Perriello as feeding from the pocketbooks of New Yorkers and Californians, who have given about $300,000 to his campaign.
Goode recently spent some of his cash on a mailer calling Perriello a “New York Lawyer” (the Albemarle County native took the bar there after graduating from law school) and “hypocrite” for claiming not to have taken money from corporate sponsors. Instead of substantiating that claim, however, the flier pointed to a handful of donations, like a $2,000 donation from New York Congressman Charles Rangel (not exactly a corporation), $9,700 from “Wall Street Hedge Funders” (otherwise known as individuals) and $55,000 from “Lobbyists and Lawyers” (again, individuals).
After Perriello brought in more cash than Goode in the early stages of the race, the Rocky Mount Republican managed to out-raise Perriello in the third quarter. In the period from October 1 to October 15, however, Perriello pulled in $161,000 compared to Goode’s $113,000.
Still, the Perriello campaign is beginning to live hand-to-mouth, with only $101,000 cash on hand as of October 15, at which point Goode had almost $700,000.