Below The Beltway

As I noted earlier today, there’s a late-developing controversy in the Republican race in the 8th District over allegations made in a mailing sent out by the Ellmore campaign.

Here’s a press release on the issue issued by Amit Singh’s campaign:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, June 8, 2008

Press Contact:
Navdeep Singh
Navdeep@Amit08.com
(703) 380-2050
Amit Singh for Congress
www.Amit08.com

 

 

PRESS RELEASE

Ellmore Campaign Fabricates Quotes

and Attributes Them to The Washington Post

Amit Singh Calls for Apology to the Voters and the Virginia GOP

 

(Arlington, VA) – The Amit Singh for Congress campaign is calling for their opponent, Mark Ellmore, to apologize for jeopardizing the reputation of the Republican Party in Northern Virginia and to retract, take full responsibility for, and take appropriate corrective action for the series of lies made in a recent mailer received by 8^th district voters. The two most egregious are fabricated quotes from The Washington Post and the online blog, Blacknell.net.

In response to the allegation that the statement appeared in an interview he conducted, Mark Blacknell, author of Blacknell.net, stated: “Nothing on Blacknell.net has ever said or implied that Amit Singh said he will not be voting for John McCain in November.  In addition to the plain reading of the interview at Blacknell.net, I’ve got an audio recording to back it up, if anyone wants to challenge my statement of fact.”

On his blog, http://blacknell.net/dynamic/, Mr. Blacknell goes into detail about the statements saying “The Ellmore campaign mailer is - in a word - false.”

The second is a statement attributed to an undated, unnamed article in The Washington Post. On April 5, 2008, the paper published an article by Kirstin Downey titled “Arlington Contractor Joins GOP Race for Seat Held by Moran”. This was the only article about Amit Singh that had been printed by The Washington Post. The alleged quote does not appear anywhere in the article, available here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040403428.html

On Sunday, June 8, The Washington Post confirmed the fabrication of the statement in an article by Theresa Vargas, “Item in Flier About Opponent Misleading, Campaign Acknowledges”. The paper states: “Those words never appeared in the newspaper or as a quote elsewhere.” The article is available here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/07/AR2008060701801.html“Running a campaign based on lies and attributing made up quotes to reputable sources of news and analysis has no place within the Republican Party, the 8^th District, or Virginia,” said Steve Bierfeldt, campaign manager for Amit Singh for Congress. “We have run a campaign based on the issues, highlighting differences on the record. It is unfortunate that our opponent’s campaign has felt the need to manufacture personal attacks to try to win support and jeopardize the reputation of the Republican Party in Northern Virginia.”