Cuccinelli continues his attempts to define McAuliffe as an outsider for following market principles

In his latest you-can-only-make-money-as-long-as-its-in-Virginia criticism of Democratic Party candidate for governor, Terry McAuliffe, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign seems adamant about wrapping the ‘outsider’ mantel around the former’s shoulders.

The “attack” came Friday while the favorite for Virginia’s Republican Party nomination was attending an economic development conference in Charlottesville, the 2013 Virginia Economic Developers Association Spring Conference. His leading opponent, Terry McAuliffe, a successful businessman himself, was also at the conference.

Cuccinelli’s comments (can we please stop using the term “blasted” to describe political affronts?! Last I checked, no one has been hit with a high-power projectile) were in reference to a 2009 decision by Terry McAuliffe to establish an automotive plant, GreenTech Automotive, in Mississippi rather than Virginia.

After buying GreenTech Automotive from China over three years ago, the automotive plant and its 1,500 jobs were moved to Mississippi following a refusal by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership to bid on the plant.

During a news conference in 2012, McAuliffe described the situation: “We had sites, we had meetings and they chose that they weren’t going to bid on it. I have to go where obviously they’re going to put incentives.”

The irony of the Cuccinelli campaign’s tar-and-feathering of McAuliffe for going where the incentives are should be apparent. Cuccinelli has preached free-market principles like a prophet of capitalism sent from on high only to turn around and criticize his political opponent for using those same principles (i.e., incentives) to create a profitable business.

Thus, Cuccinelli’s campaign is playing a dangerous political messaging game that could just as easily backfire on ‘Kook’ just as much as it could help him. After all, isn’t Cuccinelli implying that McAuliffe shouldn’t have followed the best business deal to establish his company? Why that would be akin to socialism (at least in the barely perceptible expansiveness of the Republican Party definition of ‘socialism’!!).

It seems to me that McAuliffe is the real embodiment of a 21^st Century American capitalist, one who believes and follows free-market principles while not forgetting about the community, the state, or the country that gave him the opportunity to thrive economically. That is, McAuliffe believes in giving back as much as taking.

Cuccinelli knows he won’t win on most fronts so he’ll continue to attempt to shape the image of McAuliffe as an ‘outsider’. The only problem for Cuccinelli is that this approach won’t work either.