Roanoke TV station won't air GOP ad criticizing Perriello

By: Dave Thompson | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: July 03, 2009

A Roanoke-based television station will not run an ad targeting Rep. Tom Perriello, the station’s president and manager said Thursday.

Jeffrey Marks, of WDBJ Television Inc., did not comment on the reasons why the ad will not be aired.

“I don’t characterize why an advertiser is or is not running on our air,” Marks said.

The ad, paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee, targets Perriello’s support of the Clean Energy and Security Act, also known as the cap-and-trade bill, which was approved last week in the House of Representatives.

Perriello, D-5th District, is the only representative targeted in the ad, which claims he voted with President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “over and over.”

The nonpartisan political analysis Web site, www.factcheck.org, published an analysis critical of the ad, calling the NRCC “wrong” in the amount of money it claimed the bill would cost a family of four. The site claims the NRCC misinterpreted data from a study performed by the Heritage Foundation analysis calculating the GDP loss in 2020.

Marks said though the station did not air the ad, that should not be interpreted as an agreement with the site’s analysis of the ad.

“We didn’t say it was false or misleading. The Democratic Party may have, or Perriello may have,” he said.

“I’m not making a connection between (Perriello’s concerns) and it not running,” he added.