On June 9, Virginia Democrats held a primary to choose a gubernatorial candidate. Terry McAuliffe, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, placed a distant second to a Virginia state legislator, Creigh Deeds. See this story. McAuliffe spent the most money, and had been endorsed by former President Bill Clinton, and had once been considered the front-runner.
But McAuliffe received bad publicity less than two weeks ago, when Theresa Amato’s book about the Nader 2004 campaign was published. The book, “Grand Illusion: the Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny” revealed that McAuliffe had told Nader in early 2004 that Nader must not get on the ballot in 19 particular states, and that if Nader agreed, McAuliffe would steer campaign contributions to him for his campaign in 31 other states. The press asked Nader to corroborate the story, and he did so, and that made the news.
LOL, great!
McAuliffe’s loss could be contributed more to the Washington Post stories about using his political connections to promote his business dealings. McAuliffe’s attempts to remove Nader from ballot were met generally by approval by Democrats. It is unlikely that news of the extent of those efforts would have changed their votes.
In the end, however, I believe McAuliffe lost because he never truly led. There was not enthusiasm for any of the candidates for the race. Democrats would have been happy with any of them. The proof is that the endorsement of the Washington Post was enough to push Creigh Deeds from last place to first place.
The big disappointment for supporters of alternative political parties is that Virginians will only have the choice between a Democrat and a Republican in all three of the statewide elections in the Commonwealth.
I met McAuliffe when he crashed a CPAC (Conservative) conference back in February 2003. He was going around to all of the display tables smiling and sticking his hand out to everyone (Republicans) as if to say “Hey, I know I’m your sworn political enemy – I’m here crashing your party in plain view and I’m proud of it. Go ahead and try to kick me out while I’m smiling and being fake friendly.”
What a jerk.
And he has a limp-fish girlie handshake too. Yuck!