At a campaign stop in Yorktown on Saturday, Virginia’s
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli emphasized his political experience in Virginia
and suggested that his Democratic Party opponent for governor, Terry McAuliffe,
is a “carpetbagger.”[1]
Cuccinelli reminded supporters at the campaign event that
his current stint as Virginia’s attorney general and three terms in Virginia’s
Senate give him the experience necessary to start a term as governor smoothly,
without the learning curves of a less experienced Virginia politician.
Cuccinelli noted that “In this state, whoever wins this race
on Nov. 5 has two months without being in office to put together a two-year
budget. That’s not easy to do, especially when you don’t know what you’re
doing.”[2]
In addition to attacking McAuliffe’s alleged lack of
governing experience in Virginia, Cuccinelli has also claimed that McAuliffe
isn’t involved in local Virginia affairs.
Thus, instead of discussing the issues which are most
important to Virginians, Cuccinelli and his campaign are seeking to define
McAuliffe as the outsider in two ways: an outsider in Virginia politics and an
outsider in everyday Virginia affairs.
However, it wasn’t too long ago that Mitt Romney’s
Republican presidential campaign strongly touted his business experience,
implicitly or explicitly arguing that his experience as a businessman would be
more than enough to compensate for his relative lack of political experience.[3]
The Republican Party appeared, on the whole, to love this tag line.
The simple truth is that experience in one political or
private sphere doesn’t make anyone inherently more qualified for a position in
a different sphere, whether it be public or private. That is, just as Romney’s
business experience didn’t make him any more or less fit to be president,
Cuccinelli’s experience as attorney general and state senator doesn’t make him
any more or less fit for Virginia’s governorship.
With regards to the notion that McAuliffe is a “carpetbagger,”
this is clearly unsubstantiated rubbish being generated by Cuccinelli and his
campaign.
Even in these early days of the campaign for Virginia’s
governorship, the Cuccinelli campaign has already demonstrated a remarkable
penchant for estranging the attorney general from the other political party and
its views. According to Cuccinelli, “the Democrats don’t have any penchant for
accuracy or truth.”[4]
Is this the kind of governor that Virginia wants?
[1] http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/dp-nws-cuccinelli-yorktown-williamsburg-20130323,0,1402785.story
[2] http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/dp-nws-cuccinelli-yorktown-williamsburg-20130323,0,1402785.story
[3] http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/12/romney-stresses-business-experience-welcomes-perry-to-gop-race/
[4] http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/dp-nws-cuccinelli-yorktown-williamsburg-20130323,0,1402785.story
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