Item in Flier About Opponent Misleading, Campaign Acknowledges

A flier put out by Mark W. Ellmore's campaign days before Tuesday's U.S. House Republican primary in Northern Virginia falsely attributes material to The Washington Post, an error pointed out by his opponent and confirmed by Ellmore's staff yesterday.

Ellmore is running against Amit Singh in the primary for a chance to challenge Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a nine-term incumbent.

The flier, which hit some mailboxes Friday, attributes the following photo caption to The Post: "Amit Singh with his political mentor Libertarian Ron Paul, who reportedly has plans to disrupt the Republican Convention in Minneapolis." Those words never appeared in the newspaper or as a quote elsewhere, and the photograph was not taken by The Post.

A spokesman for the Ellmore campaign said that the item was written by the staff to describe the accompanying photo and that the description of Paul's intentions refers to an article in the Los Angeles Times.

"This was an honest mistake," spokesman Mike Lane said. "This was not something that was a preplanned dirty trick."

Singh's campaign sees it differently.

"We being attacked is one thing, and we expect that. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the political system we live in," Singh's campaign spokesman, Navdeep Singh, said. "But what disturbed us is we see attributed quotes on here that are completely false, completely made up."

He said the campaign worried not just about the flier's effect on the outcome of the vote, but also on the image of Virginia's Republican Party.