Sen. Warner Concedes Ad Depicting Foe Is Deceptive

An increasingly nasty Virginia Senate race took a bizarre turn Wednesday, as Sen. John W. Warner’s campaign acknowledged that its new ad contains a picture altered to make it appear that Democratic challenger Mark R. Warner is shaking hands with former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and President Clinton.

The picture--in a commercial that casts Mark Warner as a liberal “political insider”--is similar to one that appeared in the Washington Post and several other newspapers on Oct. 22, 1994, showing Wilder, Clinton and Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.) joining hands at a rally in Alexandria. In the commercial, Robb’s head has been replaced with Mark Warner’s.

While hardly misrepresenting Mark Warner’s politics--the former state Democratic Party chairman has supported Wilder and Clinton and was on the podium at the rally--the idea that the senator’s campaign would release a commercial containing a deceptive photograph sent ripples through both political parties.

When questions began to surface about the picture Wednesday, John Warner’s campaign initially denied responsibility for the content of the ad, which was paid for by the Republican National Committee and released on Monday.

But late Wednesday night, the senator issued a statement blaming the altered photo on his media consultant, Greg Stevens & Co., which also is working for Republican Bob Dole’s presidential campaign. The senator ordered the manipulated image deleted from the commercial, but he stood by its overall accuracy and said he would not pull it off the air.

He said the deception was the result of Stevens taking too literally his order that campaign materials include no reference to Robb, his fellow senator.

The explanation outraged Democrats.

“Does John Warner think the people of Virginia are stupid?” asked Eric Hoffman, a spokesman for Mark Warner’s campaign. “Mark Warner’s certainly not, and the people of Virginia certainly are not. This is a dirty political trick, and how can Virginians believe anything coming from [the senator’s] campaign?”