A Virginian-Pilot editorial today expresses impatience with special prosecutor Earle Mobley’s flier investigation. According to the Pilot, the investigation should be brought to a conclusion so prosecutors, and Beach officials, can move on to more weighty matters.
Maybe election integrity is not a weighty enough matter for the Pilot. Or are some influential toes at risk of getting stepped on?
The editorial makes conflicting claims. First, we’re told that Dave Iwans was Republican candidate Will Sessoms’ media consultant in this supposedly nonpartisan election. Then we’re told that Iwans was Sessoms’ campaign manager. In November, Iwans was identified as a “Sessoms spokesman,” who
said he had contacted precinct captains and told them not to distribute the fliers and that they weren’t sanctioned by the campaign.
Which is it? Was Iwans a flunkie or in charge?
Then, we’re told that Sessoms did not know about the fliers. Says who? Will Sessoms? Dave Iwans? The Pilot cites no source for this naked declaration.
Bruce Williams, a consultant hired to help Sessoms among black voters, who distributed the fliers to campaign workers, initially said that the flier simply “showed up,” and he “thought it was a good one.” How convenient.
Now we’re told that Iwans paid for the flier from his personal account, not from Sessoms’ $600,000 developer-funded war chest. Did Iwans hire the NSU fraternity members who passed out the fliers? Were they paid from his personal account? Or did Williams recruit them? Oh, these orphaned, inconsequential, unintentional, pranky fliers have so many helpful uncles!
There has been no sworn testimony in the case. Previous statements from the Sessoms campaign indicate that the fliers magically appeared and were distributed at an election eve training session for paid campaign workers in a conference room at the Williams Mullen law firm. What is Iwans’ connection to this law firm, home of former UBS mortgage broker and Republican delegate Terrie Suit and Sessoms’ guy pal, former City Councilman Billy Harrison?
The Pilot’s news pages are silent on these connections, but their clairvoyant editorial board somehow knows what Will Sessoms knew and when he knew it. Stop the investigation! If Will says he didn’t know about it, then it’s not illegal anymore. Right?
Since the Pilot has apparently abandoned investigative reporting on these fliers, we’re left to Mr. Mobley’s efforts. Let’s hope he takes his time and gets it right.
To top off its stunted reporting and editorial protection of Will Sessoms, the Pilot incongruously claims that we don’t know whether the fliers made a difference in the election.
Were the fliers a mere personal vendetta or an electoral stroke of genius? Did they work very well, as suggested by the research of Vivian Paige? Did they have no effect at all, as some claim? Or did they have less than the intended effect because those who conceived them scattered like cockroaches when the TV cameras showed up on Election Day?
Sessoms outspent his opponent by 7 to 1, but won by just 6,852 votes in an election where 190,867 votes were cast. How effective do illegal campaign tricks have to be before they’re worth investigating?
If the fliers were so ineffective, why did Iwans, a seasoned operative with a well-funded campaign, bother to use them? Why is the Pilot so eager to accept Iwans as the campaign’s scapegoat and to stop the investigation?
Maybe it’s time to amend the quote at the top of the Virginian-Pilot Opinion page:
“Our duty is clear: It is to serve the public with skill and character, and to exercise First Amendment freedoms with vigor and responsibility. Unless doing so might threaten the small hereditary elite that runs things in our towne, embarrass the nice folks whose kids attend the same private schools as our publishers’ kids, disrupt our golf outings, interrupt our wine and cheese soirees, reveal our financial interests–or, egad, alarm the populace.”
Filed under: Dave Iwans, Fliergate, Local, Will Sessoms | Tagged: Dave Iwans, Fliergate, Hampton Roads, Will Sessoms
While not on the same level or degree of crime, don’t some of these points sound somewhat like the Nixon White House defense talking points for Watergate?
“It was just a break-in . . no big deal. No one at the White House or close to Nixon had anything to do with it. Nixon certainly didn’t know anything about it.”
“This didn’t have any effect on the election. It was no big deal, just someone leaving a disclaimer off. I know they all said they had nothing to do with it at first, and now the campaign manager not only KNEW about it, but paid for it out of his pocket. But that still doesn’t mean others knew about it, including Sessoms. And sure, they all met in the law firm offices of Sessoms’ best buddy, Billy Harrison, the night before the election, but that doesn’t mean the Mayor knew anything about it, just because his campaign manager and best friend did.”
“It’s still not that big of a deal. They just left off the disclaimer; it’s not like they were trying to tamper with the election results. Uuuhh, actually they were. But so what? Just because they tried something illegal so as to deceive voters doesn’t mean it worked and actually swayed the election. OK, so they WERE trying to sway the election by deceiving voters. There’s no proof that it worked (Really? Check out Vivian Paige’s analysis).”
“Just because TWO mayoral candidates — Oberndorf AND Scott Taylor — filed complaints, doesn’t mean anyone cares. Just because Sessoms and his buddies tampered with an election doesn’t mean it would have changed the results. And we certainly know that Will Sessoms didn’t know anything about it, don’t we? Or do we?”
“Oh,that’s right — he said he didn’t. Just like Bruce Williams and Dave Iwans said they didn’t know anything about it. So Sessoms probably is telling the truth, even if no one else is.”
“So the VP editorial page is right — why are we wasting time looking into an election that was tampered with? Slap Iwans on the wrist, assume Sessoms is telling the truth and let’s get on with doing the developers’ business and letting Iwans go back to work for Paul Fraim/Will Sessoms (one and the same).”
“After all, the VP endorsed Sessoms without asking any real questions, so why take a chance on embarassing them by finding out he actually knew something. Those pesky grand juries and Commonwealth Attorneys!! ”
“The VP editorial board doesn’t respect the electoral process and the voters, so why should Sessoms, his campaign and his cronies?”