Who/what is Lawrence Verga ?

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Over the past several weeks and months a number of things have become clear about Mr. Verga but do we really yet have any idea who he is ?

1.  He has given himself a lot of money.  He has raised little from anyone else especially in Virginia in his now three month campaign.

2. He has gotten rid of almost anyone on his campaign who knows anything about the fifth district and replaced them with high priced inside the beltway DC consultants and inexperienced rookies who are taking a lot of his money.

3. He is clearly the most negative campaigner out there and seems to have abandoned any positive campaign at all.  People all over are shunning him because of it.

4. His surrogate, Bill Hay, is not helping the TEA party with his one sided false attacks.  Hay recently even said Joe the plumber had Verga checked out by an FBI agent.  Talk about an illegal abuse of our constitution. Bill needs to come out and either deny this ever happened or tell the whole truth about this.  Using the federal government this way reeks of illegal activity.  Did Joe check out the other candidates also ?  Is Hay just bluffing as he often does or does this smell as bad as it seems ?

5. Verga seems to have learned his politics from Tom Perriello in that what he says is often in a haze of contradictions and half truths that barely stand up.

For an example, here is the email Verga recently sent to his fellow candidates to try and bully them out of the race.

"From Laurence.

Yesterday my campaign filed our end of the year finance report, which included over $217,000 cash on hand. "

(Truth-he does have 217,000 but he donated 97% of his total raised to this point. No grassroots and no one else either in three months of raising money)

"We have only begun of our fundraising efforts, as we didn't raise money during last year's election and focused November and December on raising awareness about my campaign, which included appearances on the Laura Ingraham Show and op-eds in RedState and Human Events.

This weekend Joe the Plumber is endorsing my campaign and appearing with me at three events across the 5th District."

(Truth- Laura and Joe did appear.  Verga paid for both so the so called endorsement were bought and paid for. What is that worth ?  Who will he trot out next ?  How much will he pay for the next one ?  His DC firm put him on RedState and Human events that have a total audience in the 5th of about a hundred people.  His tours through the district by himself and the most recent with Joe have been abject failures with fewer than twenty people total in Danville and Lynchburg.  No one wants to see this totally negative man.)  He has almost zero real support.

"I believe that I am the conservative candidate most likely to defeat the NRCC backed tax-raiser, State Senator Robert Hurt. I believe this for three reasons: "


Grassroots Support-I have the most significant grassroots support in the race, receiving the endorsement of Bill Hay, the chairman of the Jefferson Area Tea Party, the largest in the state. Off the record I have also been given the support of other tea party leaders, potential third party candidates, and influential community leaders  "


(True- he has Bill Hay.  But Bill has never been elected as the JATP head by the TEA party.  The TEA party itself, including the JATP, has never endorsed Verga.  The other TEA party people in the district certainly shunned him and Joe on his recent trip as did all of the unit chairs who he personally called)  (It would be nice if just one community leader had ever shown up at a single one of his events.  Think Tom Perriello here.)  If grassroots support is no one showing up when you visit and you have sent out direct mail and called and you get fewer than 20, then yes you have no grassroots support


"Organization-I have the strongest organization in the race, with Alex Cortes as my campaign manager and Matt Mackowiak as my General Consultant. Cortes founded a $1.5 million 527 organization in 2008 and worked last year on Gov-Elect Bob McDonnell's campaign. Mackowiak works with candidates across the country, is a regular analyst for Fox News and MSNBC and formerly was the Press Secretary for Senators Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Conrad Burns.   We are building a first rate consultant team to carry us through to victory in the June primary and again in the November general election. "


Cortes, what was the Pac ? No one else can find it. Who did he raise the money from and what happened to the 527 ? Worked on Bob's campaign ? He  was an intern and then a gofer.  Nice guy. No leader of anything.  Think Perriello.  Mackowiak- a DC insider- press man, no grassroots experience and just what we need in the 5th.  Think Perriello


"Fundraising-Out of all the conservatives in the race, I have the strongest ability to raise the money necessary to be competitive with Hurt. Not only can I invest a significant amount of my own resources into the race, but my organization's ability to garner national press and endorsements will be invaluable to raising substantial funds from outside donors.   We have an aggressive schedule of fundraising events in January currently in place and we will continue from there. "


Fundraising ? His history shows his future. He just can't get any money from anyone of substance or the grassroots.  Does he call his Joe adventure part of his aggressive January schedule ?  He clearly lost money on it .  Outside donors ?  Look for him or attack dog Hay to go after other who get money outside the district .  Perriello Junior Verga has spent about 70,000 already mostly to consultants.  Do we want a congressman who has no support in the district from small business and individuals ? Do we want a consultant driven person ?

All of this, along with his early financial filing, was an attempt to bully others out of the campaign.

Exactly who is Verga ?  Why did he move to Charlottesville ?  What really is Verga Trust/Consulting ?  Where are their records ? What will Verga do if a kidney becomes available tomorrow or in July ?  How long will he be out of the campaign ? Will we have to do a NY 23 and have the district committee nominate because of this man's naked desire for power ?

Verga has lost his way in this campaign and there is little sign that he has any base other than negativist Bill Hay whose blog is so bad that nothing there has any credibility anymore.  Bill, your Perriello stuff is good, but when you put your Verga hat on, you just are not believable.  


Verga has probably the most DC based campaign of anyone and it has no traction anywhere but his own pocketbook.  Today he, through his attack dog Bill Hay, put out the opinion of another DC consulting firm that Ken Boyd's survey was no good.   The truth that it shows is that Verga has spent a lot and gotten nowhere. We don't need a bunch of hired guns from DC telling us what to think.


Clearly Lawrence, your bullying email has not worked.  No one else agrees with your judgement. 


Verga needs to sit back, listen to himself and not consultants.  He needs to think about his family first, get his transplant, and get out of this race.   It's all your money. Joe didn't draw.  The money sucking DC consultants will drain you dry and move on to another campaign. Go out with class and a nice pocketbook.  You did loan the money so you could get it back.