George,

No sooner had I written to you about the Tingley campaign's second strike when the third strike occurred. At about 1:00 this afternoon, I got a call from a cheerful woman who identified herself as calling from the Tingley campaign. She gave me a three-minute spiel -- the word "progressive" was mentioned maybe fifteen times but there was no mention of the arch-conservative Homebuilders' Association of Virginia that Tingley was president of in 2003 -- and asked me to support Tingley on June 14th. I responded by asking her where she was calling from. She said: "The Kim Tingley campaign." I said: "No, I mean what state are you calling from?" She tried to avoid answering the question but finally conceded that she was calling from the great Commonwealth of . . . Iowa. I was not impressed.

I hope Kim made a lot of money building affordable homes because this campaign is costing him a pretty penny. (As of the April 15th campaign finance filing deadline, Kim had a grand total of zero contributors to his campaign, so I think it's safe to assume that his is a self-financed effort.) To what effect all these expenditures, I'm not sure. We'll find out on June 14th.

Jeffrey Rossman (electronic mail, May 24, 2005)