Add another name from the GOP clown car trying to help save Ken Cuccinelli's (R. VA) campaign:
http://www.politico.com/...
Paul Ryan phoned into a conference call with Ken Cuccinelli on Tuesday evening to warn that the federal government will never follow through on its funding promises to states that expand Medicaid.
The Wisconsin congressman also joined the Republican candidate for Virginia governor in calling for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to resign over the botched Obamacare website rollout.
Whether to grow the Medicaid rolls will be perhaps the biggest decision facing the winner of the off-year election, and Democrat Terry McAuliffe has promised to make it a priority.
“I understand Ken’s opponent is claiming that the Medicaid expansion is going to pay for his many promises,” said Ryan. “I see it as one big empty promise. … So-called free money from Washington isn’t free and isn’t going to come.”
Cuccinelli said Medicaid is “probably one of the top issues” in a race that has drifted away from him. - Politico, 10/22/13
By the way, I'd like to give a shout out to Rachel Maddow for going after another GOP psychopath trying to help Cuccinelli:
http://www.rawstory.com/...
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow poked fun at former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum for his efforts to lead a fundraising “strikeforce” in Virginia on behalf of beleaguered gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, by pointing out that the funds were actually going to Santorum.
“I’m not in the business of giving political advice, but oh my God, Rick Santorum, you are a vulture,” Maddow exclaimed, slamming her hand on her desk. “You are trying to pry one last cent for yourself out of the dying spasms of that poor man’s campaign. You’re rifling the dead guy’s pockets to see if he still had his wallet on him when he croaked.”
But Cuccinelli’s descent into becoming “political carrion,” Maddow argued, has been so thorough that he has been reduced to appearing in front of his voter base with conservative figures like radio host Mike Huckabee and reality show stars Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, while state Republicans are so convinced he is going to lose to Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe that they are moving their financial resources down the election ticket so as to avoid losing more races.
Maddow also noted that Cuccinelli’s campaign did not challenge the statements made in a Planned Parenthood commercial that mentions his opposition to emergency contraception, even in cases involving rape. - The Raw Story, 10/22/13
But I sincerely doubt Ryan's going to be able to help the Cooch at this point:
http://www.politico.com/...
Democratic Virginia gubernatorial hopeful Terry McAuliffe remains up by 7 points, according to a new poll Wednesday.
McAuliffe led his Republican challenger Ken Cuccinelli 46 percent to 39 percent in the Quinnipiac poll of likely voters, essentially the same margin as the 47 percent to 39 percent lead he had earlier this month.
Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis pulled down 10 percent of likely voters.
McAuliffe held on to his wide lead among women and minorities, while Cuccinelli maintained his moderate lead among men and white voters. - Politico, 10/23/13
A key factor to McAuliffe's edge is the shutdown:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/...
Nearly half of Virginia's likely voters–47%–say the shutdown hurt their state "a great deal," according to the new poll. McAuliffe and other Democrats have especially been hitting hard against Republican Cuccinelli for not giving a firm answer over whether he would have supported last week's vote to end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.
"I don't know whether I would have voted for it," he said at an event Monday.
State and national Democrats pounced on that statement.
"Ken Cuccinelli's clear opposition to the bipartisan agreement that reopened the federal government confirms what voters have learned: he will always stand up for his extreme, Tea Party ideology over the needs of the people of Virginia," Democratic Governors Association Executive Director Colm O'Comartun said in a statement.
Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling institute, said one of Cuccinelli's biggest obstacles is failing to win the support of an overwhelming majority of his party.
"Generally over the past decades, especially in southern states like Virginia, Republicans win when they have strong party allegiance among their base," Brown said. "One reason McAuliffe is ahead is that he wins 92% of Democrats while Cuccinelli has only 81% of Republicans. If Cuccinelli can't bring more Republicans home, he is likely to be toast." - CNN, 10/23/13
McAuliffe has also been slamming Cuccinelli's economic plan for Virginia:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
For McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, the question of business incentives has a personal connection. After his failed 2009 gubernatorial bid, he started work on building GreenTech, an electric car company he founded before resigning as chairman last year.
In deciding where to put the firm’s manufacturing plant, government incentives were among the items on his shopping list. While Virginia officials were still considering his plans, the company received millions of dollars in incentives from Mississippi and began operations there. As McAuliffe sees it, business incentives can be pivotal.
“Incentives play a critical role in making Virginia a competitive state in which to grow or locate your business,” McAuliffe said in response to a questionnaire from the Virginia Economic Developers Association. “For many years, Virginia was able to get by without having a robust incentive program by virtue of our proximity to the federal capital and the tremendous amount of military spending in Virginia.”
McAuliffe has promised to expand Virginia’s already broad array of incentive programs to better target growing industries, including biotechnology.
Cuccinelli, the state’s attorney general, is more circumspect. He says incentives have value, but he worries that they put too much power in the hands of state officials to pick economic winners and losers.
Cuccinelli has promised to analyze the long list of the state’s incentive programs — which range from tax breaks for businesses that establish on-site day-care facilities to grants for firms that create more than four jobs in a year.
“Incentives have a place,” Cuccinelli told the nonpartisan Virginia Prosperity Project. But, he added, “my measure of success of a good tax incentive is one that helps beyond the business that is targeted, so that it helps the rest of the community that is paying for it.”
He said the best job-creation tool is to lower taxes across the board, which he said would enhance Virginia’s business environment for all companies.
McAuliffe, who has said he would not raise taxes, called Cuccinelli’s tax-cut proposal “fiscally irresponsible” because it would drain badly needed revenue, leaving the state unable to make needed investments that also help the job market, including transportation and education. - Washington Post, 10/22/13
By the way, I understand why the Virginia Democratic Party had to take these posters down but as a fan of puns, I'm a little bummed:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The Democratic Party of Virginia has decided to remove a series of sexually suggestive campaign posters targeting Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli's anti-sodomy stance, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The posters, which included slogans like "Don't let election day go down without you" and "Get your head in the game," warn college students that Cuccinelli "wants to make oral sex a felony," referencing the Virginia Attorney General's support for the state's "crimes against nature" law, which outlawed sodomy as well as oral sex. The law was struck down earlier this year by a federal appeals court.
Virginia TV station WAVY first reported on the posters when they popped up at Norfolk State University earlier this week. Democrats have since decided to take down the posters and apologized for the racy messages. - Huffington Post, 10/22/13
By the way, it's really important that we make sure people vote the straight Democratic ticket because the Republican running for Cuccinelli's old job may have a shot:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Democrats are saying that the Republican candidate seeking to fill the shoes of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), who is abandoning the seat for a shot at the governor's mansion, is just as bad for women as his predecessor.
As the Virginia governor's race increasingly looks to be a lock for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, Republicans and Democrats alike are pivoting to the Virginia attorney general race in which state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) is in a tight battle against state Sen. Mark Herring (D).
Democratic National Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and other Virginia Democrats are stumping for Herring on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Republican State Leadership Committee recently announced it was going to pour $1.35 million into Obenshain's campaign, according to National Journal.
Polling has remained tight in the race but, noticeably, Obenshain won the endorsement of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which refused to endorse Cuccinelli (or McAuliffe or libertarian gubernatorial candidate Robert Sarvis for that matter). The endorsement praised the Republican state senator for running one of the more "more positive statewide campaigns in recent memory" -- a clear shot at McAuliffe and Cuccinelli who have runs highly negative campaign, even by national standards.
Substantively, attacks in the race have ranged from energy policy to the government shutdown to issues like women's health and abortion. Obenshain has said the focus of his campaign is on fighting human trafficking, regulatory reform, and fighting government excess. One important difference between the Cuccinelli campaign and Obenshain's campaign as of late is that Obenshain seems to have fielded and kept his own ground on attacks over social issues and women's rights. - TPM, 10/23/13
Luckily for us, we don't have to worry too much about the Virginia Lt. Governor's race thanks to this guy:
http://hamptonroads.com/...
Challenged by a Jewish audience to defend his assertion that non-Christians are followers of "false religion," Republican candidate for lieutenant governor E.W. Jackson backed off to some degree.
The evangelical Christian minister from Chesapeake has been on the defensive for declaring in a sermon in Northern Virginia last month that people who don't follow Jesus Christ "are engaged in some sort of false religion."
Appearing Tuesday night at a forum at the Simon Family Jewish Community Center sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Jackson qualified his remark. He didn't mean it to apply to Jews, he said.
"I'm a Christian. I'm a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ," he said. "Of course, like every Christian, I believe that he's the only way. But we understand that Christianity came out of Judaism. We have deep and profound respect for Judaism. We do not view Judaism as a false religion. I can't say that about everything. But that is true of Judaism."
The moderator, Joel Rubin, pressed Jackson further, asking him: "Is Islam a false religion?"
Jackson replied: "Look, I'm running for lieutenant governor. I'm not running to be theologian of Virginia. I am a preacher. That means I've got to serve people who are atheists and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Mormons and of every background. So I don't want to try to get into a theological analysis of what I think of various religions." - The Virginia-Pilot, 10/23/13
State Senator Ralph Northam (D. VA) is crushing Jackson in the polls. The election is Tuesday, November 5th. If you would like to get involved with any of the Democrats running for top offices, you can do so here:
http://terrymcauliffe.com/
http://www.herringforag.com/
http://www.northamforlg.com/