NOTE: The opinions expressed in this post are solely my own. Cross-posted from Blue Commonwealth.
Listen, Terry. I'm sure you're a nice guy. I'm quite positive that a considerable amount of your friends and acquaintances simply adore being around you. Your backstory is impressive - a "by the bootstraps" success story if I've ever heard one. I've seen you on TV over the years - and you seem to be charismatic and have a good sense of humor. I'm sure we'd get along very well having a cocktail at the local watering hole.
But as Governor of Virginia? No. I don't think so. At least not for me.
Let me explain. I respect your Chairmanship of the DNC. I realize that you put the DNC into the black for the first time in its history. I recognize further that one of your hallmarks was the creation of Demzilla, a large (170M) database of potential voters. I applaud those efforts.
But frankly, Terry, I remember all too well wandering the wastelands of Democratic politics from inauguration day in January 2001 to the midterm elections of 2006. Four of those years - February 2001 to February 2005 - mark your tenure as DNC Chair. We lost the Senate in 2002 (Republicans gained a net 2 seats, and saw House Republicans gain 8 seats. In 2004, we lost our Presidential challenge, saw the Republicans gain 4 Senate seats thereby expanding their majority, and saw Republicans gain an additional 3 seats in the House.
It was a dark time. Sadly - it was also your time.
I'm sure you did the best you could given your approach and political worldview. You see, to me, you represent a once successful but now antiquated (not to mention losing) approach to political victory. The general idea is that you fundraise prolific amounts of money and then pick which races are "must-wins" and flood those candidates, districts, and states with that money. You didn't seem to be particularly open to the idea of running a Democrat in every race in every district across the country in any politically meaningful way - in other words, while you might have given lip service to Democratic candidates nationwide, you didn't support them in the most important way possible - with financial assistance.
I think the Democratic primary race of 2008 between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pretty much underscored the story of yesterday's strategy applied to today's challenges. While I know that you did not lead Hillary Clinton's campaign, your political worldview was kind of evident everywhere I looked. Clinton's strategy was all "big state" - focus on the big, Democratic states with enough delegates to secure the nomination. This stood in stark contrast to Barack Obama's strategy, which was to compete in every race all the time. History writes the rest of that tale and points to which strategy was successful.
Indeed - Howard Dean, as DNC Chair, seemed the very antithesis to the Terry McAuliffe days. Dean's 50-State Strategy was the foundation of the success of the 2006 midterm elections, returning control of both the House and Senate to the Democrats. The 2008 elections were further proof of the strength of Dean's vision and strategy. The Democrats captured the White House. They expanded their number of Senators to at least 56 in the US Senate (a gain of 7 seats) and gained a whopping 21 seats in the House.
I guess you could say that I think your election record - one where Democrats lost - compared to Dean's election record doesn't lay very good groundwork for me to consider supporting you.
The Washington Post wrote an article on December 18 talking about the upcoming Virginia Governor's race and the three Democrats who are running - you, Creigh Deeds, and Brian Moran. Here are a few of the more interesting excerpts:
But then McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, burst onto the Virginia political scene in late summer and began scoping out his own bid for governor.
If McAuliffe jumps in, there will suddenly be paths for all three candidates to get the 33.4 percent of the vote needed to win the nomination.
::snip::
With his vast national Rolodex, McAuliffe could amass a record fortune for a Virginia primary campaign if he decides to enter the race. McAuliffe plans to announce his decision Jan. 7.
So ok, Terry. It appears that you're fairly serious about running for Virginia's Governor. So despite the fact that I am unlikely to support you, I moseyed on over to your website to check out your agenda for Virginia. Here's what I found:
The blank space you see is the blog-equivalent of chirping crickets.
Here's the first screen I saw when I hit your site:
So there's nothing particularly wrong with that. You have to raise money to be a candidate in today's political America. So I skipped through to the website, ready to dig into the meat of your agenda for Virginia. Except... there was no agenda for Virginia. Your front page was pretty standard fare - you had a place for people to sign up to support you, to ask you questions, and an area for your own press releases to be featured as news articles. Fair enough. Your About section was a biography. Your Blog section seems to feature the questions you've asked people to submit and your responses. Your News section is just the same press releases from the home page. Your Get Involved section asks for information for those who want to get involved in your campaign. Your Contact section is just that - a generic email address and a PO Box mailing address for your campaign. And finally, you have a Donate section.
It seems that your positions, record, and agenda are missing from your website. So despite the fact that I really did try to find information about what you intend for Virginia - as opposed to what you intend for your campaign - I came up empty-handed. A quick Google search gave me similar, non-position oriented information on your campaign.
There was one article in The Washington Post on December 19 that I found illuminating, however:
But when it comes to spending his own money, campaign finance reports outline how McAuliffe has been far more interested in helping federal versus state candidates for office.
McAuliffe, a wealthy businessman and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has contributed more than $200,000 to presidential, congressional and national party committees since 2000, according to the Federal Election Commission. McAuliffe's wife, Dorothy, has also donated tens of thousands of dollars to federal candidates.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, which tracks money in state politics, McAuliffe has made only one contribution to a candidate running for state or local office in Virginia in the past eight years. On Oct. 28, after it was clear he was eyeing the governor's race, McAuliffe gave Fairfax County Supervisor Sharon Bulova (D) $500.
Come on, Terry. You want to run for Governor of a state but have only donated to a state-level candidate once, when it was quite obvious that you would be running for Governor?
This article at Huffington Post also raised concern. Apparently, you've been state-shopping - your first choice wasn't Virginia. Your second choice doesn't appear to have been Virginia, either. It looks like Florida and New York hold those honors.
Florida
Despite some questionable real estate transactions outside Orlando.. McAuliffe dangled his toes in the water when it came to running for Governor of Florida. The only problem was, Florida expected a chief executive that, you know, actually lived there:
McAuliffe gave his enemies serious ammunition in 2005, when his spokesman was asked about a report that he was mulling a run against then-Gov. Jeb Bush. The flack shot down the report, citing Florida's seven-year residency requirements -- not McAuliffe's undying love for Virginia.
"He's incredibly flattered, but he will not be a candidate for '06," DNC spokesman Tony Welch told The Miami Herald at the time. "He's intrigued by the idea, but the residency requirement is what it is."
To be fair, apparently the constitutional requirement wasn't common knowledge among gubernatorial hopefuls as Lawton "Bud" Chiles was also thinking of carrying on the family tradition until he read in the newspaper about McAuliffe not being able to run and realized the rule applied to him also.
Florida had long been on McAuliffe's mind. As DNC Chair in 2002 he promised, "Jeb Bush is gone" (he was actually re-elected in a 13 point stomping).
And Florida was still on his mind last week, as was linked all the way to Miami, Not Larry Sabato busted Terry McAuliffe forgetting he is running for Governor of Virginia, not Florida.
If not Florida, then...
New York
McAuliffe's home state of New York would have allowed him to move into the state and quickly establish the residency requirements. In fact, he knew the routine well, as McAuliffe had offered up seven figures so that Hillary Clinton could establish New York residency for her senate run.
Unfortunately, there were problems with running for Governor of New York also. When he blew the 2002 Florida gubernatorial race despite his promise, at least he appeared like he was trying to win. Not quite the same in New York, where McAuliffe knee-capped the Democratic nominee while DNC Chair to the reporters of the largest paper in the state:
''I've got to put the resources where we can win elections,'' Mr. McAuliffe said at a lunch with reporters and editors of The New York Times.
[..]
The comments could not have come on a worse day for Mr. McCall, who was hoping to jump-start his campaign today by enlisting the support of Bill Clinton, one of Mr. McAuliffe's closest friends.
This afternoon, the former president appeared with Mr. McCall at a rally in Washington Heights, and later was host at a fund-raising dinner.
Mr. McCall no doubt wanted the campaign message of the day -- not to mention the television news -- to show a campaign energized and enlivened by the famed Clinton charisma. Instead, he was publicly undercut by the very man Mr. Clinton handpicked to lead the National Democratic Party.
As you can imagine, not the best way to build up goodwill among the Democrats necessary for a primary campaign.
So let me sum up what I've learned:
- You were DNC Chair for 4 years.
- You lost House and Senate seats during your tenure as DNC Chair.
- You lost a Presidential election during your tenure as DNC Chair.
- You don't appear to have an agenda outside of spending money for Virginia.
- To be Governor of Virginia was neither your first nor your second choice - you would have preferred Florida or New York.
- You don't appear to be much of a supporter of Democratic Virginia politics and politicians.
So I close with my open - No way, Terry McAuliffe. You're going to try to look backward at old, unsuccessful strategies for buying yourself a Governor's seat when the people you will need to get you that seat are looking for more, better Democrats - not more of the same.