Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign stop in Yorktown sought to define his opponent, Terry McAuliffe


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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