George -

If you read today's Daily Progress, you may have seen a story in which I was talking about what seemed to be a scam scheme -- folks going around, saying that they were raising money for John Kerry's campaign, when in fact any such fundraising for Kerry's campaign would violate federal election law in a number of ways.

It turns out, after further investigation, that the Democratic National Committee has been doing canvassing here in Charlottesville, apparently for a month or more. Most of the canvassers have been careful, when asking for money, to be clear that the money was for the Democratic National Committee, which IS permitted. Most of the canvassers have had appropriate identification, although the person who talked with Meg Chavalier, as described in the Progress article, apparently did not.

I am really rather ticked off that no one bothered to tell me what was going on. As I told the DNC honcho with whom I spoke today, I don't insist on people getting permission -- I just want to know. We have been able to get coordination with other canvassing efforts, and with other fundraising efforts, so that we know what each other is doing and we stay out of each other's way. But no one in town seemed to know that DNC had people doing canvassing here. I still don't know what will happen to the information that they garner.

The DNC person with whom I spoke told me that this effort was winding up, anyway. I told her that I hoped none of her people would get arrested after the news story that was printed and broadcast in the last 24 hours.

The bottom line is this -- if someone comes around saying that they are canvassing for the DNC, they are probably legit. But I will repeat what I have been saying for months -- the best way to help John Kerry in this area is to support the Al Weed campaign. Al's campaign will be the core of the canvassing effort, and the core of the get-out-the-vote effort. That effort will obviously benefit both Kerry and Weed. The DNC effort will help raise money for national advertising; the Weed campaign will work to get people to the polls. Both are laudable goals.

- Lloyd Snook (electronic mail, September 10, 2004)