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V

irginia

C

apitol

C

onnections

, W

inter

2017

27

What are your most memorable

moments serving as a

Senator?

I think of some of the characters

I served with. I think the most

colorful individual I served with was

Senator Hunter Andrews. He was

very vocal, had a brilliant mind and

was great to work with. I sat beside

him on the Senate floor for about

eight years. He was a very brilliant

guy, very smart. He was a great orator

and would say some remarkable

things; he was certainly one of my

favorites.

Then there’s EdWilley. No one will

ever forget him. He was more colorful I

suppose and more serious than Senator

Andrews. Senator Willey was the most

powerful man I ever saw and I’ve

been all over this Commonwealth and

country. I’ve never seen a single person

who had the authority and had the power

he had. If you wanted your bill to pass,

you got Senator Willey to speak for it.

You want to kill somebody’s bill, you

got Senator Willey to speak against it. He

spoke for your bill it passed; if he spoke

against it failed.

Senator Madison Marye was also

very colorful; he was a great storyteller.

John Chichester also was an excellent

senator.

There have been so many fine people

who have served in this body and I think

if the people of Virginia knew the forty

people as I do they would be pretty proud.

They are all really good people.

During your numerous campaigns

for office — there is a theme of

“honor in politics” — How do you

define “honor in politics”?

I think that you can’t respond to the

things people say about you. Some are total

falsehoods. My opponent had a picture of

President Obama and me and it looked like we

had our arms around each other. The caption

was

“Senator

Colgan and President Obama are collaborating to increase your

taxes.” I’ve been accused of being friendly with people who have

been in jail because of some sex offense. I did not respond to it. I

tried to keep my cool and not respond to it. Many things like that

occur and they are very insulting. Every time I got a nasty bulletin

in the mail from my opponent I would send out a nice one with

some enthusiasm and very positive. I’ve tried to keep it positive. I

guess it worked since I won by 10%.

The Honorable Chuck Colgan

Excerpts from an interview published in the Spring 2012 issue

of

Virginia Capitol Connections Quarterly Magazine

By Mike Belefski

Any comments about your ‘Rocky’

re-election campaign theme?

I got a lot of discussion out of it because people still see me

in a 7-Eleven and holler “Hi Rocky.” It was really a very good TV

commercial and I think we got a great deal of mileage out of it.

Michael E. Belefski, is President of CPC CORPORATION, a

Communications and Marketing Firm specializing in Performance

Management Analysis in Business, Law and Political Systems. He

can be reached at

cpccorp@verizon.net

.

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