Just as Virginia Democrats were rounding out their statewide ticket for the fall elections this week, their party standard-bearer, Terry McAuliffe, was objecting to a rule for the first scheduled gubernatorial debate that would allow the candidates to ask each other one question.
Democrats were poised to fill out their slate of statewide candidates in primary elections Tuesday ahead of a fall contest sure to draw heaps of national attention, outside money and national political tea-leaf reading.
Terry McAuliffe and Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II used a forum in Richmond on Thursday hosted by an open-government watchdog group to ding one another on, perhaps fittingly, on a purported lack of transparency thus far in the Virginia governor's race.
A new poll shows Democrat Terry McAuliffe leading Republican Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II by 5 percentage points in the Virginia governor's race, though both candidates are having a tough time winning the hearts of voters.
A senior Virginia state senator on Tuesday blasted a campaign ad from Democrat Terry McAuliffe as a misleading "example of self-puffery" — a development that comes as Mr. McAuliffe and Republican Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II try to soften their public images early in the high-stakes gubernatorial contest.
Virginia Republicans will put up an unquestionably conservative ticket in the fall elections, a prospect delighting the party's base and presenting a crystal-clear contrast with Democrats in what is likely to be the marquee election of 2013.
Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II will formally accept the Republican nomination for governor Saturday, but he'll stand alone at the top of the GOP with neither the man he hopes to succeed nor his onetime rival for the nomination in Richmond to help him unify the party.
When Virginia Republicans convene in Richmond on Friday to anoint their candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, there will be one conspicuous absence.
It will be a sad day for this state if we Virginians decide to put a carpetbagging, crony capitalist in the governor's mansion come November ("Cuccinelli camp says McAuliffe's job-creation record is 'biggest joke' for April Fools' Day," Web, April 1).
