Last night, someone broke into a campaign office of Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) in Charlottesville, VA. According to a report the campaign filed with the Charlottesville police, someone entered the unoccupied office between 2 and 5:30 a.m. by busting in a window screen. The perpetrator then took information on polling place locations and deliberately distributed it in the wrong neighborhood, Perriello’s campaign says:

[Campaign spokesperson Jessica] Barba said they noticed the stolen materials had been distributed to the wrong voters today, when canvassers out in the area around the University of Virginia began seeing students who had the door hangers with the incorrect polling place. Perriello said it was clearly meant to “confuse student voters,” and the campaign has sent canvassers out today to clear up any confusion.

A sign for Hurt’s campaign was also left in front of Perriello’s office. “The only thing that leads us to believe that they are Hurt supporters is that it appears to be an attempt to suppress our vote, but also when our staffers arrived at 5:00 in the morning in the office, there was a Hurt sign planted outside of the office building, which definitely wasn’t there when they left before,” Barba told the Huffington Post.

Hurt’s campaign, meanwhile, has explicitly accused Perriello supporters of staging the break-in. “Apparently, Perriello supporters are so desperate for sympathy that they staged a mock break in by drama students from UVA looking for extra credit,” Chris LaCivita, a Hurt campaign strategist, told Politico in an e-mailed statement.

Perriello is in his first term in Congress, but is locked in a tight and very high-profile race; President Obama held a campaign event for Perriello on Friday, saying he was “one of the best congressmen Virginia has ever had.” This weekend, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor held an event for Hurt.

This isn’t the first time Perriello has been targeted — earlier this year, a gas line at the home of Perriello’s brother was severed after Tea Party activists posted the address online.

On Monday, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) went on MSNBC and hit Democrats for going into “hiding” this summer, implying that they weren’t planning to peak with their constituents during the August recess:

CANTOR: [Y]ou look at the difference now of what we’re about as Republicans and what Democrats are about the course of this August recess. I would venture to say that Democrats have gone into hiding, whereas John Boehner and I and the rest of our conference are out there, taking our message to the people, talking about the specific things that they can expect if we’re a majority. And we’re frankly shocked — we’re listening to people, and I think the Democrats have demonstrated they’re unwilling to do that, and their agenda reflects that.

Today, however, two Virginia newspapers have editorials criticizing two GOP congressional candidates for banning the media from their closed-door events with Tea Party activists. Both state Sen. Robert Hurt (running for Virginia’s 5th district) and incumbent Rep. Bob Goodlatte (Virginia’s 6th district) have agreed to speak to the Lynchburg Tea Party’s Aug. 5 meeting, even though the media will be shut out. Tea Party Chairman Mark Lloyd said that the members wanted to have a “one-on-one type of setting without the lights and microphones” and claimed that at a May meeting — where there were two tv stations and a newspaper reporter — “nobody could see anything because of the cameras and all that.”

Today, two local papers have taken the two men to task for this arrangement. From the News & Advance:

Both [Goodlatte and Hurt] are public servants and both are running for public positions that deserve public scrutiny. Yet, neither candidate objected to excluding the media from the meeting.

What exactly is the tea party’s problem with allowing the media to sit in on the proceedings at the Monte Carlo restaurant? Are there some secrets that Hurt and Goodlatte want to share with the members — or that the members want to share with the Republican candidates? Who knows? [...]

Democracy gets a little messy at times, especially the way it’s conducted in the United States. The media often take seriously their responsibility to report to the public what public officials are saying and doing. And those cameras and lights do create distractions on occasion. Anyone who has attended a presidential campaign event knows all about that.

But do those distractions mean the public should be excluded from proceedings on the campaign trail? Certainly not. It is one of the ways the public learns about where the candidates stand on the various issues that surround the current campaigns for Congress.

By excluding the media from Thursday’s meeting, the Lynchburg Tea Party is serving only itself. But maybe that’s what this third party political movement is all about.

The Danville Register & Bee contrasts what Goodlatte and Hurt are doing with Rep. Tom Periello (R-VA), who “held town hall meetings in every city and county in the Fifth District last year and will do the same again this year. Perriello has no fear of meeting with people who disagree with him and having his answers recorded. Even people who strongly disagree with his votes give Perriello high marks for standing up and taking the heat.”

Ironically, Goodlatte has also stressed that he would like to make Congress more transparent, and earlier this year, he criticized Democrats for not letting the media (C-SPAN) cover the health care negotiations. Hurt’s campaign posted a letter to the editor to its website that praised the state senator for his “transparent voting record.”

Democratic lawmakers are increasingly coming out and reporting incidents of harassment in response to their vote for health care reform. In addition to previously reported vandalism in Kansas, New York, Ohio, and Arizona — as well as disturbing threats surrounding Reps. Tom Perriello (D-VA) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) — lawmakers have received images of nooses sent to their offices and had their personal information publicly distributed. At least 10 lawmakers have requested extra security after receiving death threats, and Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL) said that “he knows several Democrats who have told their spouses to move out of the home districts while the lawmakers are in Washington.”

The response from the GOP leadership in Washington has been disappointing. They have continued to incite their base with dangerous rhetoric — such as RNC Chairman Michael Steele this week saying that voters should “start getting Nancy ready for the firing line” — and shied away from outright condemnation of the harassment. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said the violence and threats were “unacceptable,” but seemed to encourage the “anger” by telling people to put it into political campaigns: “I know there’s anger, but let’s take that anger and go out and register people to vote, go volunteer on a political campaign, and let’s do it the right way.”

Today, Perriello went on CNN and called out the GOP leadership — in particular, Boehner — for his “offensive” and “outrageous” response:

PERRIELLO: I thought it his statement was fairly outrageous. What he was saying was, for those of you who are threatening people’s children, we want you to channel that anger into the campaign. No, we want those people to go to jail. [...]

People doing these things outside of the law, these people need to be prosecuted, not brought into the campaign room. Those who are simply upset about health care and have every right to do so, they need to be part of the political process, in the same way that all of those who support health care do.

Watch it:

Just as disturbing as comments tacitly egging on the anger are ones that blame the Democratic lawmakers themselves for the incidents:

– The spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee said that while his organization doesn’t condone the harassment, it should be pointed out that Perriello and others aren’t the real victims. “Central and Southside Virginians are the ones who are going to have the bear the burden of increased taxes,” he said. “What you’re seeing is a frustration among his constituents who believe he’s not listening to them.”

– Fox News host Greta Van Susteren asked Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) yesterday about his “response” to the news that Stupak and others had been “threatened or intimidated.” Hatch immediately responded, “People are upset and really angry, and they’re tired of people making promises and not living up to them,” and only after additional questioning by Van Susteren, finally replied, “I think people have to quit doing things like that.”

– Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) condemned the “inappropriate behavior,” but blamed Democrats for “fanning these flames.” “I’m a bit concerned about how it’s been handled around here in a public way because I think it just tends to fan the flames,” he told The Hill.

As Perriello pointed out in his interview today, both Virginia’s Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli — a proud Tea Party activist — have issued strong condemnations of the harassment of Perriello and his family.

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