Two young men with Democratic links who are visiting Virginia’s employment offices made Lynchburg their fifth stop Wednesday for planting questions about Republican Bob McDonnell’s gubernatorial campaign.
Yoni Cohen and Elliott Vice, who had been unemployed themselves before landing jobs with Common Sense Virginia, spent a couple of hours outside Lynchburg’s VEC office Wednesday on the third day of their tour.
They tried to get people to talk on video about McDonnell’s stand on unemployment benefits.
First, they had to explain McDonnell’s position to nearly everyone.
Common Sense Virginia is a “527 group,” a name derived from a section of the U.S. tax code that allows interest groups to raise and spend money on issues advocacy and voter turnout.
They usually cannot directly support a candidate, a condition that lets them avoid many election-law restrictions.
Common Sense Virginia is funded by a donation from the Democratic Governor’s Association, Cohen said.
Cohen previously worked for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington. Vice was a regional field director in the Hillary Clinton for President campaign.
McDonnell’s spokesman, Tucker Martin, had his own take on the activities.
“This is an outside group attempting to scare voters and employing negative politics,” Martin said.
Common Sense Virginia calls Cohen’s and Vice’s activity the “Bob’s Not for Jobs, Bob’s Not for You Tour,” basing their questions on McDonnell’s opposition to $125 million in federal stimulus money that would have extended unemployment benefits to part-time workers and some who were in job training.
A few days after McDonnell opposed the funds, the Virginia House of Delegates voted to reject them.
Cohen and Vice were telling people in Lynchburg that McDonnell’s position amounted to a refusal to expand unemployment benefits.
Actually, the General Assembly did accept some of the federal stimulus package for unemployment and added a few weeks of eligibility for many laid-off workers.
McDonnell said, “To receive this additional short-term funding from the federal government, we would have to permanently change state benefit law and saddle businesses and taxpayers with a significant unfunded federal mandate that will hurt our long-term ability to create the new jobs we need.
“I don’t believe it is in the long-term best interests of the commonwealth’s citizens to accept this specific short-term funding by permanently changing our benefit laws,” McDonnell said.
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