"Sharp differences over President Bush, the MZM bribery scandal in Congress and immigration highlighted a forum Wednesday featuring 5th District Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, and Democratic challenger Al Weed of Nelson County.

A largely partisan and divided crowd of about 300 people at the Senior Center of Charlottesville heard Weed attack Goode as a career politician who takes questionable contributions and supports Bush more than 80 percent of the time, including on the war in Iraq.

Weed, who has a son about to serve a second tour as a surgeon in Iraq, said Goode “follows the Republican lead at every turn” and has never questioned Bush on his war policy in “the failed occupation of Iraq.”

“On things that I agree with the president, I vote with him,” Goode responded. He listed immigration policy, foreign aid and free-trade agreements as three areas where he votes against Bush’s policies.

As for the war, Goode said, “I do believe that we need to listen to those in theater, the commanders in the field, and I’m not one of those that say we should roll the white flag up tomorrow and get out the next day.”

The candidates sparred over Goode’s acceptance of $46,000 in illegal campaign contributions from former MZM Inc. employees and Mitchell J. Wade, founder of the former defense-contracting firm. Other contributions from MZM employees brought the total given to Goode to about $90,000 during three years.

Wade pleaded guilty six months ago to bribing former California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, and passing through the straw contributions to employees to give to Goode, whose staff later told Wade that a spending bill would include money for an MZM facility in Martinsville.

Wade’s guilty plea stated that he made the illegal pass-through contributions to Goode’s campaign and that of Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla., because he believed they “had the ability to request appropriations funding that would benefit MZM.” Goode denied knowing the contributions were illegal and has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Weed blasted Goode for taking what the Democrat called “nearly $100,000 in illegal contributions from a now convicted felon [Wade], and in return got that man $15 million for a useless federal contract - $15 million that could have bought proper body armor for our troops in Iraq.”

“Now that the felon is in jail, the Pentagon has terminated the contract and the taxpayers of Martinsville may owe up to a half-million dollars” for the facility that the defense contractor and its successor abandoned, Weed said. “We deserve better.”

Goode joked that Weed must be smoking marijuana if he thinks MZM got anywhere near $15 million.

“Let’s get to his assertion that MZM got $15 million. Totally false,” Goode said. “He must be smoking something like what he’s named for. The maximum amount that MZM could have gotten was less than $5 million and most of that was invested in Martinsville. Athena followed MZM and, this is a guesstimate now, I’d say they got $1 million or a million-and-a-half.”

Weed said after the event that he still believes the $15 million figure reported in the Roanoke Times. Goode said later that the newspaper is wrong and MZM “probably got $4 million or $5 million [in Martinsville] and Athena probably got $2 million or $3 million.”

Goode said Democrats fail to mention that former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina accepted straw contributions in 2004 without knowing they were illegal.

The Republican said he had “never heard somebody so uninformed as Mr. Weed was in his comments about [MZM and Martinsville]. He said I got nearly $100,000 in illegal contributions. Not so. It was about $46,000 that was straw contributions, but I gave every donation that I could tell was related to MZM to charities around the 5th District.”

Martinsville received economic benefits from the now-canceled Pentagon contract and might owe little or nothing on the abandoned building, Goode insisted.

The five-term congressman, who beat Weed by 64 percent to 36 percent in 2004, stressed his opposition to the immigration policies of Bush and the U.S. Senate.

“I support a fence” along the border with Mexico, Goode said. He said Bush needs to tell Mexican officials “loud and clear: No amnesty. Do not come because we are not going to give you amnesty.”

Weed criticized the House immigration bill Goode favors and the idea of a fence along the border with Mexico and said the more moderate Senate immigration bill is a “good start.”

“People come across that very dangerous desert and that border because they can earn 10 times as much in America as they can earn in Central America or Mexico,” Weed said. “What person in this room would not risk their lives to provide a life like that for their family? The fence, the wall, will not stop that.”

The two sparred briefly over whether independent green candidate Joseph Oddo should have been included in the forum.

Goode argued that Oddo should participate in all debates as he is qualified as a third candidate on the Nov. 7 ballot.

Weed rejected Oddo’s participation, saying the real estate salesman from Charlottesville has not filed papers with the Federal Elections Commission, “so that makes him hardly a credible candidate and I don’t think it’s worth your time to be listening to him.” An FEC filing is required once any candidate has raised or spent as much as $5,000.

Oddo manned a table in the back of the Senior Center.

Sponsors of the event were the Senior Center and Senior Statesmen of Virginia." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, August 10, 2006)