Wittman "surprised" by national attention to Ball photos

It was an incident that drew his re-election bid into the national spotlight, even though he had nothing to do with it. Rep. Rob Wittman was facing a low profile, but fiesty challenge from first time candidate Krystal Ball.  It was low profile of course, until suggestive photos of Ball leaked on the internet.

From there Ball quickly became a national media sensation. She appeared on all three national cable outlets and wrote an editorial in the Huffington Post. 

Meanwhile, Wittman himself didn’t comment on the issue, and for the most part wasn’t sought after for his take. In an interview on NBC12 First at 4, the incumbent Republican said he was surprised at the reaction the story recieved.

“There’s so many important things facing this nation, it was surprising to me that we shouldn’t be out there talking about those issues,” he said.  “I was surprised by the nature of the conversation that came about because of those pictures.”

Surprised in particular by the number of national apperances Ball made. An argument can be made that Ball has actually benefited by pictures being released. That was something Wittman did not want to speculate on.

“I guess we’ll see on November the 2nd,” he said.  ”I’m not going to be the judge of how much attention it brought or how much good it was for her or her campaign.”

Wittman also discussed the federal minimum wage and his proposals to cut spending. You can see the entire interview below. A transcript is available at NBC12.com.

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