Democrat Tom Perriello, who already leads in fundraising against Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Charlottesville, in the 5th District Congressional race, is getting outside help this week.
Radio ads paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are scheduled to air all week. They criticize Goode’s votes on legislation that, the committee says, “give tax breaks to profitable Big Oil companies.”
Goode said he voted to avoid increasing taxes on oil companies, rather than creating new tax breaks. “We should be encouraging them” to drill for oil in the United States instead of buying it from overseas, he said.
The DCCC is a fundraising political action committee to elect Democrats to the House of Representatives. It has declared as its primary targets 20 races around the country in which challengers are taking on Republican incumbents.
The PAC has listed the Perriello-Goode race in a second tier of 20 other races that it’s watching, and the radio spots are the first time the DCCC has spent money to back Perriello.
Goode said he’s been a DCCC target in previous elections, and he expects more ads to be run against him because the DCCC has raised unprecedented sums this year. Goode credited those gains to a shirttail effect from fundraising success by Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Despite Perriello’s position in the money race this year, Goode claimed a lead, by almost $200,000, in the campaign-financing category that counts most, which is cash on hand.
Perriello, of Albemarle County, has raised about $640,000 in the current election cycle, according to Federal Elections Commission data released on June 24.
Goode has raised $580,000 in the current cycle, but he also carried over money he had raised in previous years, according to the June 24 data. The net effect: Goode’s balance was larger than Perriello’s.
Perriello’s campaign announced Tuesday that its fundraising total had reached almost $900,000 as of Monday. Goode said he hadn’t checked on where his fundraising stood after Monday.
The DCCC’s radio ads accuse Goode of standing with President Bush and Big Oil, while “middle-class families are squeezed by gas prices.”
A Bush impersonator recorded the ads, the DCCC said, and they are not authorized by Perriello. The ads also are running in 12 other Congressional races around the country this week.
Goode said his vote regarding oil-company taxes would have meant lower gas prices.
“We need to be drilling for oil in Alaska, and off the coast of the United States, and the outer continental shelf, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico,” Goode said.
“If we had a pro-drill policy it would have an immediate, positive impact on oil prices.”
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