From STAFF and WIRE REPORTS
RICHMOND--The State Board of Elections fined Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore's campaign $100 yesterday for mailing a deceptive flier to Virginia voters.
The action came a day before the election and three days after the board dealt the same punishment to Democrat Tim Kaine's campaign for the same violation: failing to adequately disclose who paid for the mailers.
Board Secretary Jean Jensen complained that the board "is being used for political gain." She noted that Charles Spies, a lawyer for the Republican Governors Association, blasted the Kaine flier as "dishonest and deceptive" during Friday's board meeting.
"My anger is based on the fact that by amazing coincidence, during the time Mr. Spies was addressing the board regarding dishonesty and deception, the mailer before us was being delivered to the mail boxes of Virginia voters," Jensen said.
The cover of the flier sponsored by Virginians for Jerry Kilgore features the red and blue Democratic donkey emblem over the headline: "2005 Official Democrat and Progressive Voter Guide." Inside is a seven-point comparison of Kaine to independent candidate Russ Potts, who is deemed "the only candidate who will stand up for progressive principles."
The Kaine flier that prompted the earlier complaint prominently displays the GOP elephant logo and the words "For Virginia Republicans." Inside, it repeats an anti-tax group's attack on Kilgore for failing to sign its no-tax-increase pledge or back the group's agenda.
However, the board has no authority to sanction the campaigns for questionable content or misusing logos on fliers. In both cases, the fines were for failing to conspicuously disclose the identity of the sponsors of the mailers as required by Virginia's "Stand By Your Ad" law.
On both mailings, the sponsors were named only in tiny, hard-to-read type resembling a photo credit alongside a picture.
In addition to levying the maximum fines allowed, the board referred both complaints to the Richmond commonwealth's attorney to determine whether the campaigns willfully violated campaign laws.
As the election winds down, misleading fliers aren't the only way the candidates and interest groups are trying to approach the other side's voters.
Some are using telephone calls, such as an automated call many Virginians, including some in Fredericksburg, received over the weekend.
Those calls featured Tim Kaine talking about his opposition to gay marriage and his support of a partial-birth abortion ban. The voice and the positions are Kaine's, all right, but the source is Republican.
A PAC called "Honest Leadership for Virginia" paid for those calls, which use clippings from one of Kaine's own radio ads. The PAC is affiliated with the Republican Governor's Association.
It wasn't clear whether the calls use the Kaine radio ad verbatim, or use clippings from it, although Kaine spokeswoman Delacey Skinner suggested it might be the latter.
Ken McFarland, who has a Kaine campaign sign in his yard, was incensed by the positions stated as Kaine's in the call. His wife called the Kaine campaign, where staffers informed her that the call wasn't from the Kaine folks.
"This is very similar to the recent flier that Jerry Kilgore's campaign sent out. They have a number of different parts of the state-run ads claiming that Tim Kaine supports abortion on demand," Skinner said. "Here we are at the end and they're pointing out what Tim Kaine actually supports are reasonable restrictions on abortion. When you don't have a positive campaign with a vision for the state, what you wind up relying on solely is the kind of attack."