Cuccinelli: It’s time to pivot back to conservative principles

Cuccinelli’s race to lose. VA will vote red in 2013 because there won’t be enthusiasm to turn out for The Won.

22044 on February 15, 2013 at 2:28 PM

I received this email from Cuccinelli’s campaign today. Worth a read!

Good afternoon folks –

On Saturday, the Cuccinelli campaign went over to Terry McAuliffe’s office in Rosslyn – which offers a scenic view of the Potomac River and Washington D.C. – and delivered an autographed copy of The Last Line of Defense to the former DNC Chairman for his 56thbirthday. As Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook reports: 2013 WATCH: Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, is 56 today and his Republican opponent, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, sent him an autographed copy of his new book, “The Last Line of Defense.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Cuccinelli told the Washington Free Beacon that his book strongly encourages states to push back against a federal government that has become too powerful and aggressive in implementing their agenda. Ken Cuccinelli argues in his new book, The Last Line of Defense: The New Fight for American Liberty, that states protect individual liberty against an expansive federal government. “States, as the founders intended, really do have a role in pushing back” against the federal government, Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general and likely Republican gubernatorial candidate, said in an interview about his book, which was released on Tuesday. “We’ve never seen an administration so aggressive, with such frequency, trampling the law and the constitution like this,” he said, referring to the Obama administration. He highlighted the Federal Communication Commission’s efforts to regulate the Internet as “the most brazen” example of federal overreach. The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the FCC to stop trying to regulate the Internet in 2010 but the FCC voted 3-2 to regulate it anyway, Cuccinelli said.

And what has to be a devastating letdown for Terry McAuliffe and his liberal D.C. allies, Bacon’s Rebellion reported that there’s no political hay to be made from the book. If you’re doing opposition research on Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and you’re looking for evidence of a wild-eyed culture warrior, you’ll find thin gruel in his new book, “The Last Line of Defense,” … The book chronicles the struggle of the AG and his conservative peers in other states against the Obama administration’s unconstitutional power grabs in pursuit of an expansive, big-government agenda. Abortion, gay rights and other culture-war touchstones make no appearance. … [I]f your interest is simply to dredge “The Last Line of Defense” in search of wild and intemperate remarks, as seems to be the case from some early reviews of the book, save yourself the time. You won’t find anything…”

Following the coverage of his book, the Cuccinelli campaign stayed on offense and slammed Terry McAuliffe for blaming his own company for creating jobs in Mississippi, that could’ve easily been created in Virginia. As Politico reported: GreenTech, McAuliffe’s electric car company, looked at building its new plant in Virginia but ultimately chose a site in Mississippi. In a release obtained by POLITICO, Cuccinelli’s campaign is charging that McAuliffe has changed his story about what happened. ‘Terry McAuliffe is definitely in the car sales business, because first he falsely claimed that Virginia wasn’t interested in his car company and now he’s blaming his company for the decision,’ Cuccinelli campaign manager David Rexrode writes in the release. ‘Given that Terry McAuliffe was the Chairman of the GreenTech, he only has himself to blame for creating jobs in Mississippi that could have been created in Virginia.’ The question of why GreenTech chose Mississippi has come up before in the Virginia governor’s race, and Cuccinelli’s campaign is likely to keep hammering away at it.

Meanwhile, the National Review Online reported that McAuliffe – who was the Chairman of GreenTech Automotive – must be the most strangely powerless chairman of a company ever. “In 2009, electric-car company GreenTech Automotive decided to locate its manufacturing plant in Mississippi instead of Virginia — pledging to bring at least 1,500 jobs to that state. Asked why McAuliffe’s company picked Mississippi instead of Virginia, the Democratic candidate contended that officials at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership — the state’s business recruitment agency — weren’t interested. ‘They decided they didn’t want to bid on it.’ … McAuliffe was asked about it and is now offering a new spin — it wasn’t his fault, somebody else made the decision. ‘They made the decision, the company made the decision,’ McAuliffe told a radio host Friday. McAuliffe must be the most strangely powerless chairman of a company ever.”

Finally, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on McAuliffe’s self-inflicted wound. The Republican Virginia Attorney General, who has never been shy to throw a punch, this week is taking a swipe at Democratic rival Terry McAuliffe over McAuliffe’s decision to locate his GreenTech Automotive company in Mississippi rather than Virginia. The McLean-based businessman and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee suffered a self-inflicted wound early in the campaign when he claimed that Virginia wasn’t interested in having his company locate in the commonwealth. The claim was rated “false” by Politifact Virginia and had McAuliffe backpedaling in a recent radio interview.

That’s all that is happening in the Virginia’s Governor Race. Make sure to stay tuned for more exciting news from the campaign.

22044 on February 16, 2013 at 1:21 PM