Cuccinelli, in between roles as attorney general and gubernatorial candidate, waxes on the economy

If Virginia were a business, it probably wouldn’t allow its chief counsel to simultaneously run for president of the company (both are full time jobs!). Yet according to Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, “Virginia is like a big business competing with others nationally and internationally.” Epic fail on the analogy scale, Cuccinelli.

Virginia’s top counsel made this statement on Friday morning at Foster’s Grill in Alexandria where he unveiled his masterful plan to spur economic growth and increase employment. As an aside, I call on all political candidates and elected officials to forswear the “job creation” rhetoric. It’s a given that political candidates want to “create jobs.” Can anyone imagine a candidate running on a platform of not creating jobs or even reducing the number of jobs?!

In Cuccinelli’s unshaken opinion, “The minute we stop working to improve is the minute we fall behind.” If that’s the case, then a Virginia with Cuccinelli at the helm is on a fateful path to screwed-ville.

While I agree with some of the economic ideas of Cuccinelli (scary!) such as a “small business tax relief commission,” Republican solutions to “increasing flexibility” for small businesses and local governments all too often means lower revenues and a reduction in what many Virginians have come to consider essential government services (e.g., park maintenance, public transportation, etc.).

It’s also the case that Cuccinelli has lied through his teeth so many times, has stood on the far-right political platform for so long, and has conducted himself questionably as Virginia’s attorney general in a number of ways (e.g., running for governor while holding the position of Virginia’s attorney general) that it’s difficult to have confidence in anything that he says.

What kind of individual writes and releases a book while attorney general, runs for a very public and high-profile office while still holding the position of attorney general, and buys stock in a company that he should have done basic research on, first?

Answer: one that cannot be trusted with the welfare of an entire state.