Governor-hopeful Ken Cuccinelli will fund-raise with Senator Mario Rubio this week. Rubio is known for his inclusive stand on immigration. Cuccinelli, not so much. According to the Washington Post:
Republican leaders have conceded that presidential nominee Mitt Romney damaged his candidacy last fall by promoting “self-deportation,” and some have pushed the party to embrace more liberal policies to woo Hispanics and move the issue off the agenda in future elections.
Cuccinelli isn’t quite doing that, but his appearance with Rubio at the tickets-only fundraiser suggests that he is trying to soften perceptions about his stand on immigration.
It’s been a notable shift for a candidate who vocally opposed President George W. Bush’s 2007 push for immigration reform. Asked recently by reporters whether he supports the Senate bill, Cuccinelli replied that he had not read the legislation and specified only that he does not support amnesty for undocumented immigrants.
“I sure as heck would like to see them resolve this issue in some way in Washington,” he said during a campaign stop in Ashburn. “I’m running for governor. That is a state office.”
Immigration advocates said Cuccinelli, who scrubbed a section on immigration from his campaign Web site in the spring, is not fooling anyone with his vague answers. As a state senator, he sponsored legislation aimed at stripping U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants of their right to citizenship, and as attorney general he has embraced policies that would authorize police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest.
Cuccinelli also has been accused by Democrats of comparing immigration policy to pest control.
I don’t know that Cuccinelli said anything about pest control, although nothing would surprise me. I do know that Ken Cuccinelli put in an appearance in August of 2007 at a Help Save Manassas function when he was a state senator. He was not soft-pedaling his stance on immigration at that event. In fact, he fit right in and was one of the most strident political guests in attendance.
Any time Cuccinelli tries to put on a more moderate face for the electorate, he fails. It just doesn’t work. He is what he is. He isn’t a moderate on abortion, birth control, divorce, climate issues or immigration. Some people will like that. Birds of a feather, vote for candidates who reflect their beliefs. However, moderates need to beware. The song Cuccinelli is singing is not the song he usually sings. He is chirping it up for the election is all.
Ironically, Governor Bob McDonnell equivocated about several issues, in particular gay rights and taxes. His conservative base turned their backs on him when he most needs them. Cuccinelli’s attempt to appear moderate just really isn’t working.
My favorite sentence in that article:
“As a state senator, he sponsored legislation aimed at stripping U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants of their right to citizenship, and as attorney general he has embraced policies that would authorize police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest.”
People need to know what he did when he was a state senator.
Why Ken Cuccinelli is losing the Virginia governor’s race
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Cuccinelli’s advisers insist it’s too early to write him off. | AP Photo
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By JAMES HOHMANN | 9/16/13 5:00 AM EDT Updated: 9/16/13 5:59 AM EDT
Republicans can’t believe this is happening: Democrat Terry McAuliffe — whose controversial business dealings and past life as a party moneyman make him a walking negative ad — has taken command of the Virginia governor’s race.
More than a dozen interviews last week with longtime Republican insiders around the Commonwealth yielded near-unanimous consensus that their candidate, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, lost significant ground over the summer and would lose if the election were held today.
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The only real point of disagreement is how wide a margin it would be.
(PHOTOS: Ken Cuccinelli’s career)
“It’s going to be a bath,” one prominent state Republican who wants Cuccinelli to win went so far as to say. Like several others, the person sought anonymity to speak candidly about the state of the race.
Cuccinelli’s advisers insist it’s too early to write him off. “This is still a race,” Cuccinelli strategist Danny Diaz said Friday.
But a contest that looked winnable for Cuccinelli for much of the year has broken against him. Here’s a look at how it happened.
1. The gifts scandal
Gov. Bob McDonnell was expected to be a big asset for Cuccinelli. Instead, the Star Scientific scandal has turned the incumbent into a major liability.
(PHOTOS: Terry McAuliffe’s career)
The constant drip-drip of revelations by The Washington Post — of gifts and loans totaling more than $124,000 from the dietary supplement maker’s CEO, Jonnie Williams, to the governor and his family — was bad enough for Cuccinelli. But the candidate couldn’t easily distance himself from the scandal because he, too, accepted some $18,000 worth of gifts from Williams — and failed to disclose a chunk of them, as required by law.
What’s more, Cuccinelli refused to repay the gifts until last week, when he cut a check for $18,000 to charity. A Democratic prosecutor in Richmond cleared the attorney general of criminal wrongdoing for the disclosure lapse. But attack ads highlighted his refusal to return the gifts, and internal polling showed a spike in voters expressing concern.
“Had he done that initially, I don’t think this would have been an issue,” said a GOP operative.
His campaign hopes that Cuccinelli can now shift the focus to other issues. But if he loses, Star Scientific will be high on the list of reasons he cites.
(Earlier on POLITICO: Cuccinelli, dogged by scandal, gives to charity)
2. A divided GOP
A significant number of Republicans remain on the sidelines in the race. A nonpartisan poll released last week by Purple Strategies, which had Cuccinelli trailing by 5 percentage points overall, found that only 77 percent of self-identifying Republicans currently support him.
Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who dropped out of the race for governor after the state GOP changed its nominating procedure to ensure Cuccinelli would win, said Friday he still isn’t comfortable endorsing Cuccinelli.
“Clearly, this is not just the most conservative, but the most ideologically-driven ticket that the Republican Party has ever put forth,” Bolling said in an interview. “There are a lot of Republicans, like me, very concerned about the direction of the party. We believe for the Republican Party to be a viable party in Virginia, we’ve got be a more mainstream party and communicate a more mainstream message.”
The McAuliffe campaign has capitalized on the GOP dissension, rolling out more than 30 Republican defectors over the past few months, including former Gov. Linwood Holton and several onetime state delegates. Also endorsing McAuliffe are former Republican National Committee finance chairman Dwight Schar and former GOP strategist Boyd Marcus.
And the Democratic establishment has united around McAuliffe, which was not assumed at the start of the year. No Democratic challenger emerged, and while few leaders on the left are crazy about the former Democratic Party fundraiser and businessman, they do support him.
Democrats have both a registration advantage and a lead on the generic ballot in this purple state, carried twice by Barack Obama, which puts the onus on Cuccinelli to solidify support from his party.
Cuccinelli advisers dismiss Bolling as a sore loser and many of the others who actually endorsed McAuliffe as Republicans in name only. They insist they have intense conservative support on their side and believe that big parts of the Obama coalition will stay home rather than turn out for McAuliffe.
“Ken’s voters are more likely to show up,” said a Cuccinelli adviser. “We’re pretty confident we’ll get what we need in an off-year with Obama sucking wind.”
3. Northern Virginia has been neglected
Several Republicans complained that Cuccinelli has not spent nearly as much time campaigning in Northern Virginia as McDonnell did four years ago. A review of all his public events during the month of August shows only a handful of publicly announced appearances in the D.C. suburbs. He made far more stops in places that should be reliably red.
Cuccinelli lives in Northern Virginia’s Prince William County and won election to the state Legislature from Fairfax County. His aides said his recent public schedule does not reflect the depth of his roots and other off-the-books appearances. They have told Republicans that Cuccinelli will have a more public profile in the D.C. media market
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/ken-cuccinelli-virginia-governors-mcauliffe-96834.html#ixzz2f3GuYTR8
Watching is right. What Cuccinelli did as a state senator is critical. So is what he did in his attorney’s practice.
During the heat of the immigration debate in Prince William County, Cuccinelli who was a state senator was thick as thieves with Help Save Manassas. We know their stance.
MSNBC reported that only 77% of self proclaimed Republicans publically state they support Cuccinelli.
Cuccinlli is gonna get his butt kicked in a few weeks
What Cooch is lightening up on immigration. Hmm, some of his faithful followers are NOT going to like that. Or is immigration even issue with the current economic situation? Moon, you are so right, he was right in the thick of it at that event. Of course I kept a safe distance from the dude, but was within ear shot of him.
Don’t get me started on his FALSE claim to care about victims of domestic violence. I’ve seen with my own two eyes in the court room he cares NOT one bit about victims. So much, so that he was willing appeal a protective order. This not set well with the victim, her attorney and most importantly the judge. The victim was granted a full three year protective order. He was just a lawyer then.
Another case of witnessing things with your own two eyes. My own two eyes were taking in the same BS.
The immigration issue was crack cocaine to a certain class of politicians. I’m not sure whether the analogy is best deployed in the sense that they were users or dealers or both, but it sure had addictive properties. The drug has worn off for a lot of people, but anyone with a memory will recall how hysterical (and I mean that in the traditional sense of the word, not in the sense of hilarity) the debate was. Those who fed or encouraged the tone and delusional substance of that discussion are forever marked as people not to be trusted with the honor and privilege of holding public office.
Cuccinelli is definitely branded. He carries the ‘mark.’
Funny how some of those dudes are backing away now that the wind blows from another direction. Actually not really ‘funny.’ Predictable is more to the point.