An immediate Cuccinelli political comeback was dispelled on
Saturday during a dinner speech at The Homestead Resort. According to one
source, Ken
Cuccinelli stated “I don’t mind not having an elected role in about a month
or so. I’ve been in office 11 years… I look forward to a little bit of a break.
… but I’ll be back with you. I’m not talking as a candidate, but just fighting
for these principles because I believe in them.”
Before anyone except staunch Cuccinelli supporters get too
excited, the attorney general’s words seem more like those of a man still
licking his wounds from a recent election defeat rather than those of someone
who’s given himself enough time to make a resolute long term decision. And if
there is one thing that Virginians should know by now, it’s not
to trust a good deal of what Ken Cuccinelli says.
Cuccinelli’s defense of his election defeat should also
leave anyone interested more than a little suspect about Cuccinelli’s
intentions to stay out of electoral politics. The ‘blame the Republican Party of
Virginia (RPV) for not supporting me’ defense that Cuccinelli has been playing
sets this one-time tea party hero into the role of victim, a good position to put
oneself in if and when Cuccinelli ever decided to re-enter politics.
By setting himself up as the victim of ‘unfaithful’ or ‘compromising’
RPV members, Cuccinelli not only shrugs the blame for the election defeat off
of his shoulders, he also scores cookie points with a Republican Party base
that seems disillusioned with what have been called “establishment”
Republicans.
If we learn nothing else from Cuccinelli’s most recent
public speech to the Republican Party faithful, however, we should be able to
discern a man that is far from being a leader that Virginia wants or needs, a
man who is too proud and too blinded by his own ideological beliefs to concede
blame for his own political defeat. In typical Cuccinelli-fashion, everyone
else is to blame, not him.
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