Cuccinelli’s plan to pressure McAuliffe to release tax returns could backfire on the VA AG

If we believe the Republican Party narrative (which we, of course, shouldn’t), Democrats (i.e. socialists) aren’t very good at the whole money-making game that we call capitalism. Well, don’t tell Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, Terry McAuliffe. On Tuesday, McAuliffe released abridged tax returns for 2009, 2010, and 2011. In 2011, McAuliffe made a respectable $8.2 million, including close to $1.9 million in capital gains income.

Since Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli released close to a decade’s worth of tax returns last week, his campaign  has heaped a boatload of criticism on McAuliffe for failing to do so himself and show Virginians that McAuliffe is THE actual capitalist success story.

Cuccinelli wound up releasing a total of 225 pages of tax returns to the media while forbidding copies to be made and expunging some personal information. According to his (no doubt fudged) 2012 tax return, Virginia’s libertarian prince (in name only) raked in $194,398 (taxpayer money, mind you) and $30,000 for writing his unreadable book (if Cuccinelli only made $30,000 for writing his book then he’s certainly not the individual Virginians want negotiating for their futures!).

Okay, so there are the ‘facts’, but really, who cares? The mainstream media (e.g., The Washington Post) story line sounds exactly like this: “The tax drama has brought new controversy to the nationally watched contest, one of only two gubernatorial races this year.” What controversy, what drama?! You, the mainstream media, have made this issue out to be more than it is!

Unless a social scientist with too much grant money and time on their hands releases a study with the profound and undisputable conclusion that individual wealth is a perfect predictor of candidate policies while in office, how much money candidate A makes is really immaterial (up to a certain point) in terms of their fitness for office. In fact, in some circumstances, strong individual wealth is an advantage for advocates of progressive policies.

Mitt Romney, to give one example, wasn’t attacked for being wealthy, he was attacked because he made his wealth by ushering at least thousands of Americans out of their jobs. You are free to make money in America, just not at the expense of your fellow countrymen and women. It’s a thing I like to call being a decent human being.

That said, it’s difficult to understand what Cuccinelli’s game plan is in moving to pressure McAuliffe to turn over his tax returns. What McAuliffe’s tax returns show is that he is a competent businessman who is well-off but not absurdly so; well-off enough, as well, to resist pressures from special interests who can ply the middle-income politician with economic favors and sweetheart deals.

Oh yeah, but let’s not forget about the ongoing/unfolding relationship between Cuccinelli and his bro, Jonnie Williams Sr. How about releasing more information on that sordid relationship, Cuccinelli?!