All the Democrats who have been screaming “scurrilous” and “pathetic” over the cartoon cutout of Kaine will I’m sure join in condemning Leslie Byrne’s new ad, which I first saw this morning. I couldn’t find a link. It is posted at www.lesliebyrne.org. It portrays Bill Bolling as a bobblehead doll, attacks him as a friend of the insurance industry and ties him to the legal problems of his former employer.
This punch was telegraphed well in advance and takes advantage of a well established truth of logic — you cannot prove a negative. The issue floated out in the primary but Bill’s opponent then never pressed it home (to his credit). Byrne trotted it out front and center at the Virginia Chamber of Commerce debate late last month. Byrne has zero evidence that Bill Bolling played any role or profited in any way from the problems with his employer, The Reciprocal Group, but she puts the burden on him to play the Nixon role and assert over and over “I am not a crook.” Bolling has quite a bit of evidence that he was not part of the problem at the firm and he was never a target of the investigation, let alone charged, but expect four weeks of her demanding more evidence, more records…demanding proof of a negative.
Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell have opened with some nice ads touting their experience, families, backgrounds, endorsements — ads that make you like them. At some point they are likely to take off the gloves. Kilgore and Kaine are probably keeping some positive ads in the mix, if not the 51 percent Sabato demanded. Leslie starts nasty and forces Bill to choose his opening card carefully. It is the political equivalent of leading trumps.
