THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 5, 1994 TAG: 9411050702
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
A bipartisan voter-education group asked Friday for a public apology from U.S. Rep. Norman Sisisky, D-4th, saying the 12-year congressman has damaged the organization's reputation by using its name in ``negative political advertising.''
Project Vote Smart, an Oregon-based group that distributes information about federal candidates to voters, made the charge in a letter delivered to Sisisky Friday. The letter also said the Democratic incumbent has hampered the project's fund raising.
Sisisky has used the group's name in campaign advertisements that attack his Republican challenger, George Sweet, by alleging he wants to eliminate Medicare, Medicaid and all veterans' hospitals.
Sweet filled out a questionnaire for Project Vote Smart last summer indicating he is against all federal health-care spending. He has since denied the claim, explaining that he thought the question referred to President Bill Clinton's proposals for universal care.
Sisisky has continued to run the advertisement.
``I'm just repeating what you said,'' he told Sweet at a debate last month.
In the letter, Project Vote Smart board Chairman Richard Kimball called the ad ``misleading'' and demanded an apology.
``A handful of dishonorable campaigns . . . have attempted to either intimidate the project through threats or damage our hard-earned credibility through unauthorized and intentionally misleading use of our name,'' read the letter, signed by Kimball.
The ``implication that we support your campaign's negative tactics'' has damaged the project's reputation and fund-raising abilities, Kimball wrote.
Sisisky's campaign manager, Tim Shock, discounted the letter and termed it ``another attempt by George Sweet to run from his answers.''
Shock said he would not apologize to Project Vote Smart and said the ad will continue to run.
``He wants to go through this campaign changing his answers depending on which way the political wind is blowing,'' Shock said.
The letter was just one sign of the increased activity in the 4th District contest, which has been characterized recently by back-and-forth jabs between the two opponents. The district includes Chesapeake, Franklin, most of Suffolk and part of Portsmouth, and stretches west, including Isle of Wight and Southampton counties, almost to Charlottesville.
Sisisky spent much of Friday courting voters in Hampton Roads and has scheduled a host of meet-and-greet appearances over the weekend.
Sweet, who wound up his ``victory tour'' across the district, held a news conference Friday with Gov. George F. Allen in Richmond. The Republican governor urged voters who supported his campaign last year to rally around Sweet on Election Day, Tuesday.
KEYWORDS: CONGRESSIONAL RACE CAMPAIGN CANDIDATE FOURTH DISTRICT by CNB