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Virginia Capitol C onnections, Winter 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 .V