Below The Beltway

Bearing Drift has what is apparently the Ellmore campaign’s response to recent reports that their latest campaign mailer contains a series of blatant falsehoods about Ellmore’s primary opponent:

The Ellmore campaign responded this afternoon with a press release that doesn’t address the accusations of false statements in their material, but in turn accuses Singh of using false statements in his latest mailer.

In a recent smear campaign mailer targeting Ellmore, the Singh campaign falsely portrayed Ellmore as someone opposed to a fence on the border. “Ellmore has been clear on this issue since day one: secure the borders first and build a fence today,” said Daniel Tillson. In the same article that Singh referenced in his mailer, Ellmore is quoted saying, “I do believe in securing the border with a fence,” directly contradicting Singh’s accusation.

Singh further accused Ellmore of receiving money from an AFL-CIO union. The contribution in question was a one time donation received in a separate campaign from the local Fire Fighters Union. “It is egregious to cast such a shadow on a group which risk their lives daily for our community”, state Ellmore spokesperson Mike Lane.

The donation issue is apparently related to this 2006 donation from a firefighters union and, frankly, seems to be entirely true. As for the border fence issue, well, there’s no evidence either way on that one, but when someone responds to proof that they’ve been caught in a lie with allegations that someone lied about them first, it really doesn’t help their cause very much.

The reaction to this story has, shall we say, been less than positive.

The Young Reaganite puts it this way at The George Mason College Republicans Blog:

Mark Ellmore has managed not only to make himself look like a liar, he is jeopardizing the entire Republican establishment in Northern Virginia. It is imperative we elect Amit Singh to be our Republican nominee for the 8th district.

Writing atThe Next Right, Rick Sincere says that the Ellmore-Singh race is a test for Northern Virginia Republicans:

 The Ellmore-Singh election takes place on Tuesday, June 10. Results should be known by 8:00 p.m., with the winner facing a long-term incumbent in a safe Democratic district. Who the voters of the Eighth Congressional District choose as their standard-bearer will say a lot about whether Virginia Republicans want to confirm their commitment to the core principles of a party that was brought to maturation by Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, or if they want to abandon those principles for the big-government “conservatism” of George W. Bush and Mike Huckabee.

And, at his personal blog, Rick notes that the incident reveals the biggest reason Ellmore deserves to lose:

Ellmore deserves to lose, not just because he’s wrong on the issues, and not just because he’s a liar, but because he’s a stupid liar who’s wrong on the issues.

Faking quotations from the Washington Post just invites scrutiny. Mark Ellmore, meet Gary Hart.

Yea well, I’m not so sure about that in this case.

How many people who received Ellmore’s mailer are going to take the time to investigate whether it’s true or false ? How many of those people actually read the Post article yesterday or read the right blogs to find out what the truth is ?

Not many I’d bet.

Sending out campaign literature with false or exaggerated information within days of an election is one of the oldest dirty campaign tricks in the books, because it often works. Voters who are influenced by the last piece of information to fall into their laps are going to see that mailer and, unless they’re diligent, nothing else. In an election like this one, where turnout is likely to be low, that might be enough to tip the balance, which just makes what the Ellmore campaign did even sleazier than it appears at first glance.