WaPo:
Virginia is a state with no limits on how much an individual, corporation or union can donate to a candidate running for state office, and some say McAuliffe could wage an $80 million campaign — triple what Kaine spent four years ago — if he is the Democratic nominee. …
A friend of the Clintons, McAuliffe raised more than $200 million for Bill Clinton in the 1990s. As chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005, he oversaw $500 million in party fundraising. McAuliffe chaired Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, which raised about $220 million. …
Advisers to Moran and Deeds said they had been expecting that it would cost about $3 million to win the June 9 primary, but McAuliffe could spend triple that amount, launching a wave of television advertisements early in the spring that could drown out his opponents’ messages.
The rules are the rules, and T-Mac has prodigious fundraising skills – I don’t hold any of that against him. But I’m no great fan of his politically, and I’m hoping we’ll still see a competitive primary. Even though there won’t be a GOP contest, I think the primary date (June 9) gives us plenty of time to turn around and run a strong general election campaign no matter who our nominee is.
The WaPo piece does point out that Jim Webb beat Harris Miller in 2006 despite getting outspent 4-1, so anything is possible – but that was a flukey, extremely low turnout race. I suspect attention will be much greater this time. And I’ll be very interested to see what the first polls show.
among the Democratic party in Virginia, especially after being the chair of the campaign which kept calling Virginia an insignificant state (well, at least they had the common sense to not refer to NoVa as communist country or Fake Virginia, or some nonsense like that).
Anyone else with me, or are people more patient than I think?
I have to say, I’m neither a resident of Virginia nor a reflexive TMac hater. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Let him campaign.
Given the zillions he is going to spend, Terry may well end up winning the general over McDonell, but I can’t say I love his chances. I am not delighted to read this story.
As a Houston Rockets fan and someone who doesn’t support McAuliffe, can we stop referring to him as T-Mac. When someone criticizes T-Mac I have this reflexive instinct to defend him and so this is confusing me.
But seriously, McAuliffe was alays going to be a formidable candidate as there are few democratic pols with a rolodex deeper than him. The one thing that could hurt him is that the names at the front of that rolodex, the Clintons, won’t be of too much help. It would be nothing unusual if Hillary Clinton Senator from New York helped out a candidate for Gov. of Virginia. But Hillary Clinton Secretary of State simply won’t do that.
On the other hand there are IMO a couple of key differences between this and the 06 senate primary. First, that was a 2 person race while this is 3. It goes without saying that the more legit. candidates the better as your required share of the vote decreases. The other being that a lot of national politicians were endorsing Webb, I re-call John Kerry being the most high profile of them. I don’t expect too many national or hih profile Virginia pols to throw there support behind anyone.
There goes my first contribution to Creigh Deeds
Virginia has no limits on campaign contributions? That seems like that needs to be fixed.
Are most state-election laws similar?
TERRY McAULIFFE EXTREMELY UNIMPRESSIVE ON TV
Terry McAuliffe was a guest on Chicago Tonight, a local public affairs TV show, about one year ago.
If you watched the show, you can understand why the Democrats lost the 2004 presidential election and struggled in other elections while he was the chairperson of the Democratic Party.
Based on what I saw, this is a man of little substance and few ideas, and is absolutely clueless about what voters are looking for.
He had this weird, all-knowing, smug grin on his face as he told host Phil Ponce that he understood why John Kerry lost the presidential election. He said there were four reasons — detailing these reasons as if he was Christopher Columbus and he had just discovered America.
One of his reasons made sense — the GOP’s Swift Boat campaign against Kerry.
You could sit here from now until the end of time and you couldn’t guess the other three. Here are some hints:
* Bush’s performance in office meant nothing.
* Kerry’s performance as a U.S. senator meant nothing.
* Kerry’s plan for the future of the nation meant nothing.
* Bush’s plan for the next four years meant nothing.
* All the events of 2001-2004, whether it be Sept. 11 or the Iraqi war, meant nothing.
Isn’t Terry McAuliffe the one who frontloaded the Democratic primary system even more so the Dems would have a winner in February, 2004 — before most of us voted?
He’s a one-trick pony — money is everything.
Shalom,
ZWrite
he may be a prodigious fundraiser, although a rolodex only gets you so far. raising money for bill clinton in the 90s is a whole different thing than raising money for terry mac.
i must admit though, that the ridiculous way that the “lefty blogosphere” got byrned last year (in VA-11) really reduced their credibility in my eyes. if “not larry sabato” hates him, i’m willing to give him a second look. the VA blogosphere, like most state blogospheres, is probably small, probably heavily based in the most democratic/liberal part of the state, and probably spends most of its time talking to itself.
that doesn’t mean its not important or doesn’t move some votes and some money, just that it is not determinative.
i love this website and i think people have great info and clever comments, but we are fooling ourselves if we think we have the power to dissuade a political heavyweight from running for an office. hell, if we had any power, we’d have gotten blagojevich to quit 2 months ago.