Citizens United, the group whose decision to make an anti-Hillary Clinton documentary triggered a landmark Supreme Court case on the First Amendment and political speech, is working on another film: “Fast Terry.”

McAuliffe will probably brag about it, as it’s just one more thing he has in common with Hillary Clinton.

UPDATE: The full “Fast Terry” movie can now be viewed in its entirety here.

This investigation could fizzle… or it could have big repercussions:

President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the Homeland Security Department’s No. 2 official is under investigation over alleged intervention to obtain approval for a company run by a brother of Hillary Clinton to participate in a program that provides U.S. visas for foreign investors, according to an email the department’s inspector general sent to lawmakers Monday night and obtained by NBC News.

The investigation into Alejandro Mayorkas – who currently serves as director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (UCIS), an agency within Homeland Security – was opened in September 2012 based on a referral from an FBI counterintelligence analyst, according to the email. The inspector general probe was first reported by The Associated Press.

“At this point in our investigation, we do not have any findings of criminal misconduct,” the email from the Homeland Security inspector general states. “We are unaware of whether Mayorkas is aware that we have an investigation.”

The probe is based on allegations that Mayorkas personally intervened to win an approval for Gulf Coast Funds Management, a financing company headed by Clinton’s brother Anthony Rodham, after USCIS officials rejected its application, according to an aide to GOP Sen. Charles Grassley, who had received internal USCIS emails about the matter from a department whistleblower.

If Gulf Coast Funds Management sounds familiar, it’s because one of its clients is its client is… GreenTech Automotive, the electric car company that Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe headed up until recently. (UPDATE:  According to Gulf Coast Funds Management’s Form I-924A filed with the U.S. Customs And Immigration Services, GreenTech is GCFM’s only client. This was the case back in 2009, too. )

Let’s walk through this slowly. Gulf Coast Funds Management is a Regional Center, meaning a government-approved private organization that aims to help economic growth in a particular geographic area and that is authorized to line up foreign investors with application slots for federal EB-5 visas.

Congress created the federal EB-5 program in 1990 to stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. To qualify, a foreigner must invest at least $1 million, or $500,000 in either a rural area or an area with high unemployment. The investment must “create or preserve at least 10 full-time jobs for qualifying U.S. workers within two years.” The government makes 10,000 EB-5 visas available each year, with 3,000 administered through the Regional Centers. According to one advocate for the program quoted in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, three out of every four visa recipients come from China.

It would be wrong and false to say that a Regional Center sells U.S. visas, or that there is any court-admissible evidence that its actions or its clients’ actions constitutes a visa-for-sale-scheme. (Hello, GreenTech Autmotive lawyers contemplating a libel suit, like the one you filed against the Franklin Center! Notice the careful wording in that previous sentence!) Nonetheless, at least two Virginia state officials examined GreenTech Automotive’s proposals and reacted with great skepticism:

Sandi et al. Even if the company has investors “lined up”, I maintain serious concerns about the establishment of an EB-5 center in general, and most specifically based on this company.Not only based on (lack of) management expertise, (lack of) market preparation, etc. but also still can’t get my head around this being anything other than a visa-for-sale scheme with potential national security implications that we have no way to confirm or discount. . . . 

This “feels” like a national political play instead of a Virginia economic development opportunity. I am not willing to stake Virginia’s reputation on this at this juncture. 

While the Regional Centers are not allowed to sell the U.S. visas, they are allowed to point out that investment in their projects may qualify a foreign citizen for a residence visa, and they may appear to suggest that one directly leads to the other. For example, at the top of the website for Gulf Coast Funds Management LLC, the Statue of Liberty’s torch is next to the slogan, “Invest in your future with EB-5.”

Gulf Coast Financial Management needed approval from USCIS to expand its regional center to include Tennessee and Virginia parts of “Project Mastiff,” GreenTech Automotive’s plan to manufacture parts in Virginia, build a warehouse facility in Tennessee, and build an assembly plant in Mississippi. The effort to reverse that initial rejection appears to be connected to the inspector general’s investigation into “alleged conflicts of interest, misuse of position, mismanagement of the EB-5 program, and an appearance of impropriety by Mayorkas and other USCIS management officials.”

While  Alejandro Mayorkas is still being investigated, we know McAuliffe was also making efforts to get the Department of Homeland Security, urging them to get U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, urging them to reverse their decision on Gulf Coast Funds Management. Terry McAuliffe, in December 2010, writing directly to Janet Napolitano. Watchdog.org noted that McAuliffe was insisting to DHS that the EB-5 funding that their decision impeded was “crucial” to his company , while telling the public “we are in great shape financially.”

And according to NBC News’ report,  DHS officials acknowledged that the politically-connected McAuliffe and his allies were pushing hard for the decision to be reversed:

In a letter to Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano released Tuesday night, Grassley asked for details about the department’s handling of the company’s application and quoted from an internal agency email about Gulf Coast describing it as a “politically…well connected company” and noting the involvement of Rodham and McAuliffe. However, the author of the email — who is not identified — added after noting the firm’s political connections, “not that I think it matters because it shouldn’t impact how we do our job.” 

Again, the Inspector General could conclude that nothing illegal occurred. We’ll just have to wait and see.

And wonder if the investigation will be resolved before November of this year.

One of the key still-unclear factors in& this year’s Virginia governor’s race is just what mood the voters are in as Election Day approaches. Quinnipiac finds only 8 percent describe themselves as “very satisfied” with “the way things are going in Virginia today,” but 54 percent say they’re “somewhat satisfied.” Another 26 percent say they’re “somewhat dissatisifed” and 11 percent say they’re “very dissatisfied.”

Back in 2009, the top issue was clear — the lingering recession and economic fears — and Republican nominee McDonnell’s simple “Bob’s for Jobs” signs were ubiquitous all over the state. This year, two topics dominated coverage of state politics: a transporation deal that hiked taxes in Northern Virginia and troubling revelations of a wealthy Virginia businessman giving expensive gifts to current governor Bob McDonnell and his family.

However, Quinnipiac finds McDonnell’s approval rating . . . still pretty high — 46 percent approve, 37 percent disapprove. That’s down from a May split of 49 percent approval, 28 percent disapproval, but still not quite as bad as one might think after a month of brutal press coverage. (Also note the same survey finds President Obama slightly underwater in Virginia, with 46 percent approving and 51 percent disapproving.)

So how do Virginia voters feel about the economy? The state’s unemployment rate is relatively low, 5.3 percent. The state slipped slightly in CNBC’s annual survey of best states for business, but from third out of 50 states to fifth. McAuliffe’s economic message is that Virginia could be at the very top with more focus on spending in transporation and infrastructure and education.

Ken Cuccinelli, meanwhile, says his conversations with voters reveal a lot of not-so-obvious lingering economic anxiety.

“The priority is the same for voters, it’s still jobs and the economy,” Cuccinelli told me in a recent interview. “To the extent that we’re technically in a recovery, it’s a pretty weak recovery and it isn’t reaching everybody. Especially with the implementation of Obamacare, you’ve got small businesses that are frozen in place. Heck, our community colleges are pushing their adjunct professors down below 30 hours, and that’s happening in the private sector as well. That’s causing a lot of dislocation. Add to that furloughs and sequestration in the two most economically stable parts of the state, northern Virginia and southeastern Virginia, and you really get a decent amount of anxiety about the economy and job opportunities. So I still find that’s the first focus of voters.”

UPDATE: By the way, one Quinnipiac survey result may offer a key indicator of public cynicism, and why McDonnell’s numbers haven’t tumbled too far: Asked, “compared to most people in public life, do you think Bob McDonnell has more honesty and integrity, less honesty and integrity, or about the same,” 12 percent said “more,” 17 percent said “less,” and 60 percent said “about the same.”

Today’s Morning Jolt features a discussion of Eliot Spitzer’s mental state, whether the sequester counts as a “disaster,” and then this account from the campaign trail with Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli:

On the Pre-Debate Campaign Trail with Ken Cuccinelli

Ken Cuccinelli isn’t showing any sweat.

This is not to say he isn’t sweating; it’s just that he can hide it well as he walks through the Holly, Woods and Vines nursery and greenhouse in Alexandria, Virginia, in a light blue dress shirt, tie, and suit pants while in 80-degree heat with the region’s traditional wet-mop-to-the-face midsummer 88 percent humidity. I, meanwhile, have arrived straight from CNN’s studios in a dark wool suit and can feel my body rapidly dehydrating as Cuccinelli talks to Vanessa Wheeler, the owner and proprietor of the nursery, about the challenges facing small businesses like hers.

Photo credit: Jim. Pretty good for a writer, huh?

The half-dozen other members of the press in attendance aren’t interested in the shipping costs of begonias; the one big topic on their minds is the new revelation about additional gifts and donations from businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. to Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and his family. The latest news means Williams gave a grand total in $145,000 in gifts and loans to the McDonnell family in 2011 and 2012. With any more revelations, the scandal will stop being about a wealthy donor giving expensive gifts in a potential attempt to influence the governor and start being about a wealthy donor who vastly overpaid for alleged influence with a term-limited governor.

Cuccinelli characterizes the allegations against McDonnell as a distraction from what he wants to talk about and what he contends is preeminent in the minds of most Virginia voters, the economy and job creation. (While Virginia’s unemployment rate is relatively low, sequestration and other factors have clouded the jobs outlook in the state.)

NBC’s reporter asks Cuccinelli about his own failure to report gifts from Williams.

“I inadvertently didn’t report some things. I’m the one who went back and found them, and I’m the one who held a press conference and said, ‘hey, here are all my items.’ I missed four or five over the course of four years. That’s part of my commitment to transparency. When I make mistakes, I own up to them. Back in the Senate I supported budget transparency and other changes like that. That’s also a part of why I put out eight years of my tax returns, and I think my opponent ought to do that as well.”

(Cuccinelli also asked the Richmond Commonwealth Attorney to conduct an independent review of his disclosures.)

Cuccinelli feels like he’s got a pretty good defense. He doesn’t merely not do special favors for his donors; he’s something of an ingrate, because as attorney general, he’s actually made decisions and fought suits against them.

“Speaking for my office, the only thing [Jonnie R. Williams Sr. has] ever gotten out of my office is opposition to one lawsuit. So there’s been nothing in our office other than that one case where we came out and immediately opposed their position. . . . The perception is met best by facts, and the fact is that the one occasion that something came across the desk of the attorney general’s office responsibility, they were pushed back on, they were fought, without giving an inch.”

This was a 2011 Star Scientific lawsuit, challenging a sales-and-use tax assessment on tobacco-curing barns the company owns in Mecklenburg, Va.

“Hey, look at my biggest donor in the last ten years. What did they get for it? They got an electricity bill that will drag Dominion’s revenue down $700 or $800 million over the next twelve years. That’s what they’ve got for it. Virginians will continue to get that good policy, regardless of who’s supporting me or not.” He appears to be referring to this case, where the “Virginia Supreme Court affirmed a decision of the State Corporation Commission (SCC) regarding Dominion Virginia Power’s recently concluded base rate case. The court rejected the arguments advanced by Dominion, which would have allowed Dominion to earn a higher return on equity from customers than the SCC’s interpretation of Virginia law allows.” Cuccinelli and his office represented Dominion customers in the court fight.

Cuccinelli is nine days away from his first debate with rival Terry McAuliffe, and there’s a sense he and his team are itching to get the pair on stage, early and as often as possible. Cuccinelli’s campaign proposed 15 debates, with one in every major and minor media market in the state. McAuliffe has countered with five debates, and it sounds like negotiations for the details and rules of the remaining debates are proceeding slowly and with great frustration.

“It took, like, a tractor-trailer to drag him to the [Virginia] Bar [Association] debate,” Cuccinelli sighs during an interview on the ride over to the nursery. “They threatened to walk over one candidate-to-candidate question. So he asks me one, I ask him one. They were going to walk away from the debate for that.”

Why is Cuccinelli so eager to get out on the debate stage with McAuliffe, and so determined to get to ask his rival one question? Well, watch how Cuccinelli used his one question in a debate Steve Shannon back in the 2009 attorney general’s race.

Cuccinelli’s one question: “How many divisions are there in the attorney general’s office? And please name each one and explain briefly what each one does.”

Simple . . . as long as you’ve taken the time to familiarize yourself with the office you hope to win. Unfortunately, Steve Shannon didn’t do the reading.

Shannon responded . . . “So, I’ll talk about that in just a second, but let me go [back] to the 2004 budget real quick . . .” Cuccinelli teased him about not answering the question, but Shannon continued with an answer that meandered slightly more than the Mississippi River:

The first thing is that with the 2004 budget, we had proof that there were Virgina state troopers who were eligible for food stamps. And that budget allowed them to not be eligible for food stamps. We had sheriff’s deputies who were able to get a pay raise. That was important to public safety and important for higher education. We’ve now came to the point of the election cycle where we play a game of gotcha.’ Ken asks questions about the bureaucracy, and then I come back and say, ‘Well, Ken, last week you told a reporter that hitting a cop was a misdemeanor, not a felony.’ Or ‘Ken, are you familiar with the case of Commonwealth vs. Thomas, it’s a Court of Appeals case, very important to the criminal justice system.’ It’s about a prosecutor who went after a drug dealer in possession of firearms. Do you know what the holding in that case was? I know because I was the prosecutor in that case.

But you know what, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really doesn’t matter. Because what matters is that every four and a half minutes, another violent crime is being committed in Virginia. The reality is that presence of gangs is at its worst point since 2000. It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.

[audience begins to chuckle at meandering answer] The reality is, you can laugh, but there are 357 pedophiles right now who are using computers in Virginia to trade child pornography. We know who these people are, we know how to get them, but we don’t devote sufficient resources to them.

But what does Ken want to talk about? He wants to talk about arcane questions. He wants to talk about details of the bureaucracy. You know what? The reality – the reality is that kids are being abused in Virginia right now, and if you want to focus on the bureaucracy you’re clearly going to vote for Ken. But if you want somebody who’s been a prosecutor, who’s going to go after those pedophiles, who’s going to go after those gang leaders, who’s going to go after drug dealers, who doesn’t need on-the-job experience, those are the people who I want to vote for me.”

I asked Cuccinelli, “Is it safe to assume that given the opportunity, you might ask about some of the specifics of Virginia governance, and that you may, perhaps, have some doubts about Terry McAuliffe’s familiarity with all that?”

For the first time in my presence, Cuccinelli really smiles. “Perhaps.”

Cuccinelli and his team expect McAuliffe to try to shift the debate to social issues, early and often.

McAuliffe and his campaign appear to believe that in order to win the governor’s race, they need Virginians to believe that his rival is really Todd Akin. Cuccinelli and his campaign appears to believe that in order to win, they need Virginians to believe that his rival is really Terry McAuliffe.

Finally, in news you can use, Holly, Woods and Vines features Biker Chick Garden Gnomes.

You’re welcome.

Hmmm. Does this anecdote reassure you about Terry McAuliffe’s skill with money?

In late 1999, [Haley] Barbour and Tommy Boggs were planning to open a downtown restaurant called the Caucus Room, which The Washington Post described as a “red-meat emporium” that “will serve up power, influence, loopholes, money and all the other ingredients that make American Democracy great.” Seeking investors, Barbour called McAuliffe and asked for $100,000, which he sent over immediately. A while later, Barbour called back, said they were oversubscribed and sent McAuliffe back a check for $50,000. “So I figure I made 50 in the deal,” said McAuliffe, who never saw a penny more.

Hahahahahaha. Er, no, Mr. McAuliffe, you didn’t “make 50 in the deal”; you gave a retired RNC chair and then-lobbyist $50,000 to start a restaurant. That restaurant is still in business; the Caucus Room restaurant changed its name and is now “Social Reform.” Really.

Then again, perhaps it was money well spent for McAuliffe in terms of influence and favors to be returned, down the road a bit. Haley Barbour, of course, went on to become governor of Mississippi . . . where the state Development Authority gave GreenTech $3 million in loan assistance related to the company’s Tunica County plan and provided $2 million to the county to purchase land for the facility. McAuliffe, of course, was chairman of GreenTech Automotive at the time.

I wonder how many gun-control backers know that the Democrats’ candidate for governor in Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, wanted his party to drop its support of gun control after George W. Bush’s election victory in 2000:

By the middle of 2001, ditching gun control had become conventional wisdom among centrist Democrats. Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., said Al Gore had talked about it too much. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Gore’s running mate, thought gun control had cost the Democratic ticket “a number of voters who on almost every other issue realized they’d be better off with Al Gore.” Terry McAuliffe, head of the Democratic National Committee, in particular wanted his party to drop the issue.

Hey, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, did you know that? How about you, Organizing for Action? After all, you pledged to oppose every senator who voted against the last gun-control bill, including Democrats Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Why would a gubernatorial candidate like McAuliffe get a pass? Because he says he now supports a renewal of the assault-weapons ban?

So he agrees with you, but not when he thinks it could hurt his party politically, like in 2001. You’re going to go all-out for a politician with that stance?

Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, whose term ends in January, is ending what once looked like a quite successful term with a terrible morass of ethics allegations, including disturbing reports of receiving expensive gifts from wealthy supporters and the use of the governor’s mansion for a campaign donor’s corporate event.

Gov. Bob McDonnell on Thursday refused to answer questions on whether he knew that an expensive Rolex watch he received from his wife was, in fact, a gift from Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams Sr.

Following a radio appearance in Richmond, McDonnell was asked whether he realized that the $6,500 timepiece was a gift from Williams — a McDonnell mega-donor and friend whose dietary supplement, Anatabloc, has been promoted by first lady Maureen McDonnell on at least two occasions.

“I’m not going to comment any further on that,” he responded.

The governor did say that his wife did not work for Star Scientific, even as sources said she has received a number of checks from Williams, in addition to numerous expensive gifts that include thousands in designer clothing purchased during a New York City shopping spree in the spring of 2011.

The answers came during and after the governor’s appearance on WRVA. McDonnell, with barely six months left in office, finds himself entangled in three criminal investigations.

For an opposition party, this would normally be a golden opportunity, a chance to campaign in 2013 on the need to clean up Richmond and end a way-too-cozy relationship between elected officials and wealthy donors.

The problem is that the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, is pretty much the living embodiment of a way-too-cozy relationship between elected officials and wealthy donors.

Back in the mid-1990s, McAuliffe was more or less bragging about it:

His closeness to the first couple and the expanding network of political contacts he has built in the Clinton years have also enhanced an enterprise that Mr. McAuliffe has built more quietly: a web of business deals, from telecommunications to real estate, that the fund-raiser keeps far from the public spotlight. His business confederation, a veritable McAuliffe Inc., has generated tens of millions of dollars, but Mr. McAuliffe keeps his affairs so private that he does not even have a business listing in the Washington telephone directory.

His quietly acquired private fortune is illustrative of changes in the political culture here. Raising money for politicians was once a ticket to an ambassador’s post or other influential job in the government. Other presidential money men have hung shingles as lobbyists, openly trading on their access, or peddled influence as lawyers.

Charting a new course, Mr. McAuliffe has transformed the art of raising money for public figures into the art of raising money for himself, leveraging a personal fortune from his political fund-raising contacts.

Mr. McAuliffe lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington but calls a Florida house-building company his main business. And though he is chairman of the Florida company, he was unable to provide its address in a deposition this year. The aide who handles his frenetic schedule has been working out of Mr. McAuliffe’s obscure title insurance company in Florida.

Although the capital is the central nervous system of both his fund-raising and business dealings, Mr. McAuliffe does not have his own Washington office, so when he is in town he often conducts business at restaurants like the Palm and the Oval Room. In lengthy interviews at both restaurants he shed some light on his private deal-making and its symbiotic relationship with his political fund-raising.

”I’ve met all of my business contacts through politics. It’s all interrelated,” he said. When he meets a new business contact, he went on, ”then I raise money from them.”

Among those political contact/business contacts was the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. That organization gave McAuliffe a deal that is unbelievable . . . in the sense that you cannot believe that there wasn’t some other angle that went undisclosed to the public:

In the late 1990s, some of McAuliffe’s business ventures came under investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, which filed suit against two labor-union officials, both of them with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers pension fund, for entering into questionable business arrangements with McAuliffe. Both officials later agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties for their actions, and the union itself had to reimburse its pension fund by nearly $5 million.

In one deal, McAuliffe and the fund officials created a partnership to buy a large block of commercial real estate in Florida. McAuliffe put up $100 for the purchase, while the pension fund put up $39 million. Yet McAuliffe got a 50-percent interest in the deal; he eventually walked away with $2.45 million from his original $100 investment. In another instance, the pension fund loaned McAuliffe more than $6 million for a real-estate development, only to find that McAuliffe was unable to make payments for nearly five years. In the end, the pension fund lost some of its money, McAuliffe moved on to his next deal, and fund officials found themselves facing the Labor Department’s questions…

On October 16, 2001, Jack Moore and another official named in the suit agreed to pay six-figure penalties for their role in the McAuliffe ventures, and the electrical workers union was forced to reimburse the pension fund for its officers’ failure to act “with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence . . . that a prudent person acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use.” McAuliffe was not charged with any wrongdoing; his $2.45 million payday, while a violation of common-sense norms of business propriety, did not break any laws.

Just the guy Virginians should entrust the public treasury too, huh?

Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign for governor in Virginia thinks they’ve caught their rival, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, exaggerating his business accomplishments again:

Did Terry McAuliffe Inflate Claims About His Home-Building Company’s Productivity?

In a speech to Loudoun County Democrats on June 1, 2013, Terry McAuliffe claimed that he “built 6,000 homes” during his tenure at American Heritage Homes.
“I’ve been in real estate; I’ve built 6,000 homes.” [Terry McAuliffe, Remarks to Loudoun County Democrats, 6/1/3013 http://youtu.be/OxpA0b6ys7o]

McAuliffe’s official LinkedIn page echoes the 6,000 homes claim.
“Within 5 years, McAuliffe and his team successfully built the company into one of the largest and most successful home building companies. During his tenure as chairman, AHH built over 6,000 homes and created thousands of jobs in the construction business.” [“Terry McAuliffe,” LinkedIn.com]

During his 2009 campaign, McAuliffe touted a different — yet still inflated — figure.
“McAuliffe then claimed that his home-building company built 1,300 homes at its peak, but an adviser later clarified that figure was closer to 800” [Amy Gardner, “McAuliffe's Background Could Prove A Liability,” Washington Post, 5/3/09]

McAuliffe was Chairman of American Heritage Homes for five years, from 1996 to 2001.
“Chairman, American Heritage Homes, 1996-2001.” [“Terry McAuliffe,” LinkedIn.com]

“Terry McAuliffe also served as Chairman of American Heritage Homes — which he acquired when it was a struggling home building company on the verge of bankruptcy.” [“Terry McAuliffe,” LinkedIn.com]

Data from on Florida property records in counties where AHH operated, cross-referenced with deeds in which AHH was listed as the grantor indicate between 4,378 and 5,341 homes were built under McAuliffe’s leadership, depending on the exact dates of his tenure.

Voters may figure 4,400 to 5,400 is close enough to 6,000. However, this is something of a pattern for McAuliffe, and some of his past exaggerations have been considerably bigger:

McAuliffe’s tendency to exaggerate his successes adds to that perception. Describing the apartments he purchased with the union fund, McAuliffe said he “went through every apartment myself, like 1,600 of them, to make sure the toilets worked” — but then added: “Well, I didn’t go through 1,600. But I went through every property exhaustively. Sure I did! I owned them!”

McAuliffe then claimed that his home-building company built 1,300 homes at its peak, but an adviser later clarified that the figure was closer to 800. And at a candidates’ forum in December, in response to Moran’s claim to be the only candidate who had run a business and raised a family in Virginia, McAuliffe boasted of launching five businesses in Virginia.

It turned out that all five are investment partnerships, with no employees, registered to his home address in McLean.

Apparently Terry McAuliffe is just not a details guy.

From the last Morning Jolt until July 1:

Oh, Terry.

McAuliffe is at it again, hoping you don’t pay any attention to anything but what he says.

While McAuliffe is viewed by many as an entrepreneur and businessman, the Republican campaign has been quick to point out two of McAuliffe’s ventures, GreenTech and new energy firm Franklin Pellets, have shown sluggish growth.

McAuliffe conceded the businesses haven’t taken off as rapidly as he’d hoped during a visit to nearby Loudoun County on June 14.

“I’ve been involved in starting two very 21st-century innovative businesses. They’re both start-ups. They’re both successful today at different elements in what they’re doing. They take time, maybe they take longer than we’d hope,” he said.

Define “successful.”

An upstart electric car company made the promise of providing hundreds of new jobs in North Mississippi almost one year ago. Taxpayers helped foot the bill to land Greentech Automotive, and now they want a return on their investment.

When a company commits to creating hundreds of jobs, it gets people’s attention.

Now model cars are gone from outside of the plant. The only evidence Action News 5 investigators found of any electric car production were a couple of cars whizzing around the parking lot after our crew started filming.

Based on last year’s announcement this facility should be booming by now.

For months, the Action News 5 Investigators asked to get back inside Greentech to see the operation and the Mid-Southerners hired to fill those promised positions. Greentech Vice President Marianne McInerney denied our requests each time, but share 78 employees worked inside.

I’m sorry, did Terry McAuliffe just reveal that if he’s elected governor, Virginia might no longer be a right-to-work state?

“Listen, I’m not going to answer specifics on projects,” he said in response to a question about what is known as a project labor agreement. “You clearly don’t talk about specifics on future projects until you even know what the projects are and what the bidding process will be.”

McAuliffe also declined to say whether he would protect the commonwealth’s status as a right-to-work state or search for ways to make the state more friendly toward organized labor.

“I’m going to work with management. I’m going to work with labor. I’m going to work with everybody to move Virginia forward,” McAuliffe said. “It’s not ‘either-or.’ We are a right-to-work state that has been here for many years, and it’s not going to change. But the focus has got to be not on trying to divide folks. [It] is, how do we work together to grow the Virginia economy to have the most diverse economy to bring in those 21st-century jobs?”

A right-to-work state is one where a worker does not have to join a union to perform a job; union membership (and dues collection) cannot be mandatory.

Virginia’s existing law is clear:

No person shall be required by an employer to become or remain a member of any labor union or labor organization as a condition of employment or continuation of employment by such employer. . . . No person shall be required by an employer to abstain or refrain from membership in any labor union or labor organization as a condition of employment or continuation of employment. . . . No employer shall require any person, as a condition of employment or continuation of employment, to pay any dues, fees or other charges of any kind to any labor union or labor organization.

UPDATE: The Washington Examiner’s Sean Higgins writes that McAuliffe’s other statements suggest that he won’t change the state’s right-to-work laws, but that he was “obviously trying to delicately tip-toe around the whole issue of how far he would go in backing union rights.”

After an introductory ad that put the spotlight on his odd behavior during the births of his children, Terry McAuliffe’s second ad suggests he’s responsible for the passage of a tax-hiking transportation bill in the Virginia legislature.

The ad declares McAuliffe “reached out” to Democrats, and they subsequently supported the bill.

Unfortunately, quite a few Democrats in the state legislature say they don’t remember McAuliffe being a factor in the bill’s passage at all:

Sen. Charles J. Colgan, Manassas Democrat and the longest-serving member of the Senate, was an informal adviser to the conferees as they hashed out differences between the House and Senate versions. But Mr. McAuliffe never spoke to him about it, he said Tuesday.

“When I was there, he didn’t,” Mr. Colgan said…

Several other Democratic aides in the General Assembly also said their offices were never contacted, though they acknowledged that lobbying on the bill was possible.

“There was no contact between Terry McAuliffe and our office and nobody thought he had any impact on the outcome,” one Senate aide said.

McAuliffe may have put himself in a difficult spot, in that no Virginia lawmaker, Democrat or Republican, will want to tell his constituents, “I opposed the legislation, until Terry McAuliffe called me up and persuaded me it was a good idea.”

Also interesting: “When the bill passed, McDonnell and McAuliffe even shared what the governor’s spokesman called ‘a brief congratulatory phone call.’”

Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s campaign looks at the results of the Virginia state GOP convention and sees an opportunity; they feel that they can portray lieutenant-governor nominee E. W. Jackson, the Harvard Law graduate, Baptist minister, law professor, and former Marine, as an unhinged, know-nothing radical, and use him to drag down the Republican candidate for governor, Ken Cuccinelli.

Virginia Republicans, however, note that if the McAuliffe campaign wants to make this race about who’s made the more outlandish statement or who has views further from the mainstream, they’re fine with that. They have the option of pointing to any one of McAuliffe’s views, including . . . 

• McAuliffe’s statement that Fahrenheit 9/11 was essentially fair and factually based, and that there were “legitimate questions” about whether the war in Afghanistan was fought to build an oil pipeline for Unocal.
• His declaration that Osama bin Laden’s video statement released in fall 2004 was designed to reelect George W. Bush: “‘Bin Laden knew what he was doing,’ McAuliffe said. ‘He was scaring the American electorate just before the election. He felt that reelecting Bush would be good for his recruitment in the Middle East.’”
• Then, of course, there’s his belief that the 1980 Reagan campaign was in cahoots with the Iranian mullahs to humiliate President Jimmy Carter in the Iranian hostage crisis.

There’s always a conspiracy around every corner, huh?

Virginia’s Republican candidate for governor, Ken Cuccinelli, is up on the air with his second television ad:

Is it just me, or does the background music sound a lot like an acoustic version of Green Day’s “21 Guns“?

The script:

I’m Ken Cuccinelli.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy.

But they are being overtaxed and over regulated.

I’ve a plan to make Virginia an engine for job growth.

It starts with closing tax loopholes and putting an end to special interest giveaways.

We’ll use the savings to cut taxes for those who’ve earned it: job creating small businesses and middle class families.

The powerful and well connected already get their breaks.

As Governor, I’ll be on your side.

Gee, who do you think he’s alluding to in his reference to “the powerful and well connected”?

Okay, fine, NBC News/Marist poll, you can lead with the news that you find Democrat Terry McAuliffe ahead of Republican Ken Cuccinelli, 43 percent to 41 percent, among registered voters. Yes, it’s probably early to apply a likely-voter screen, as we just don’t know how well each campaign will energize its base voters. When Marist does apply the likely-voter screen, Cuccinelli leads, 45 percent to 42 percent.

But we probably ought to spotlight that 19 percent of registered-voter respondents say they have never voted in a gubernatorial election before.

Cuccinelli’s got a 51 percent approval rating for his performance as state attorney general, with 24 percent disapproval, among registered voters.

Asked about the impact of the sequester on themselves, the poll finds that 54 percent of registered voters say the sequester has had “not much at all” and 21 percent say “just some.”

Hmmm:

“We want somebody who wakes up thinking about jobs, thinking about the economy, thinking about finding a great deal, thinking about training the workforce,” [Democratic Sen. and former Gov.] Tim Kaine said. “That’s why I’m supporting Terry McAuliffe to be the next governor of the Commonwealth.”

Oh, I have no doubt McAuliffe is quite skilled at finding a great deal. The question is, “a great deal for whom?”

Elsewhere in the Washington Post’s coverage, they note, “Beyond education, McAuliffe’s policy blueprint calls for targeted business incentive programs and diversifying the state’s economic base.”

“Targeted business incentive programs.” Oh, I have no doubt that economic assistance under a Governor McAuliffe would be targeted.

As he said in his autobiography:

Let me tell you, it’s a lot easier to raise money for a governor. They have all kinds of business to hand out, road contracts, construction jobs, you name it.

You may scoff: Surely the risk of humilation would prevent him from directing “incentives” to his friends and donors! But as he proudly boasts when discussing the time a casino owner demanded he go up and sing on a stage for a donation, “For $500,000 I don’t mind humiliating myself for five minutes.”

Would a Governor McAuliffe mix politics and business? Heck, he brags about how he does it:

McAuliffe has said that his work in politics has bolstered his business career. “I’ve met all of my business contacts through politics. It’s all interrelated,” he told the New York Times in 1999.

As he summarized it to the Washington Post in 2009:

I’ve done business with people I’ve met in politics, who I went to law school with, who I grew up with . . . Who do you do business with? People you meet in life.

Terry McAuliffe strongly believes that Ronald Reagan’s campaign conspired with the Iranian ayatollahs to prevent the release of the hostages in 1980:

Reagan’s Inauguration hit us all like a kick in the gut, and not just for the obvious reasons. President Carter was racing the clock trying to free the hostages before Reagan was inaugurated, and it didn’t look as if he would make it. Then Inauguration Day came and exactly five minutes after Reagan was sworn in, the U.S. hostages were finally released after 444 days in captivity. A former National Security Council (NSC) staffer named Gary Sick spent years investigating and put together a strong case that a deal had occurred between Reagan’s people and the Iranians to sway the elections by delaying the release of the hostages — and in return for helping Reagan, the Iranians would be rewarded with weapons shipments from Israel.

Let me tell you why I’m sure the Reagan people had a hand in this. First of all, the arms transfers from Israel to Iran began almost immediately after Reagan became president. Second, the main defense of the Reagan people was that it would have been too terrible a crime for Reagan to cook up secret deals with the Iranians in violation of U.S. law, but that is just what the Reagan administration did when it sold arms to the Iranians and used the profits to illegally fund the contra rebels in Nicaragua.

Finally, the key to Reagan’s deal on the Iranian hostages was Bill Casey, a swashbuckling Cold War spy master who served Reagan as campaign manager and CIA Director. Sick’s sources told him that Casey met with the Iranians in a Madrid hotel in July 1980 and again several months later, and made the deal.

— What a Party! pp. 35–36

The first advocate of the “October Surprise” theory was Lyndon LaRouche.

The Israeli-arms-to-Iran deal beginning in 1981 described by McAuliffe was Operation Seashell, an Israeli operation designed to prevent Iran from losing to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, not an American operation. French and Portuguese arms dealers were the intermediaries, not American ones.

Daniel Pipes pointed out that Sick used the “I refused to believe this theory until recently” line in 1991, while publicly espousing it in 1988.

The House of Representatives formed a special task force to invesigate the “October Surprise,” spending $1.3 million and looking at the issue for ten months, looking at tens of thousands of documents, conducting more than 230 formal interviews in ten countries. Indiana representative Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, chaired the task force and concluded that it “found no truth to the accusations that members of the Reagan presidential campaign conspired in 1980 to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran until after the November election.”

Hamilton:

The overall conclusion of the task force is that there is no credible evidence to support the central October Surprise allegations. We found, first, wholly insufficient evidence that officials of the Reagan presidential campaign secretly met with Iranian officials in 1980; no credible evidence that members of the Reagan presidential campaign conspired to delay the release of the hostages;a and no credible evidence that the Reagan administration provided directly, or indirectly through Israel, arms in exchange for a delay in the release of the hostages.

The task force concluded that “nearly all of the individuals claiming firsthand knowledge of the October Surprise allegations were either wholesale fabricators or were impeached by documentary evidence.”

Finally, Newsweek back in 1991:

NEWSWEEK has found, after a long investigation including interviews with government officials and other knowledgeable sources around the world, that the key claims of the purported eyewitnesses and accusers simply do not hold up. What the evidence does show is the murky history of a conspiracy theory run wild.

Casey’s whereabouts during the July “window” are convincingly established by contemporary records at the Imperial War Museum in London. Casey, it turns out, took a three-day breather from the campaign to participate in the Anglo-American Conference on the History of the Second World War. As a veteran of the Office of Strategic Services — the forerunner of the CIA — Casey delivered a paper on OSS operations in Europe during the war. He went to a reception for conference participants on the evening of July 28, and he was photographed there. He delivered his paper on the morning of July 29.

ABC News acknowledged these facts in an update later in June — but still maintained that Casey had enough time on July 27 and 28 to fly to Madrid to meet with the Iranians. A close examination of the conference records by NEWSWEEK, however, demonstrates that Casey in fact was present at the conference sessions in London on July 28. Historian Jonathan Chadwick, who organized the conference, kept a precise, day-by-day and session-by-session record of who was present and who was not. According to Chadwick’s records, Casey was present at 9:30 a.m on the 28th, stayed for the second morning session, leaving after lunch and returning at 4 p.m.

The truth is out there, Terry. Maybe the cigarette-smoking man got to everyone else!

Let me offer two sections from the Morning Jolt newsletter to begin Friday morning. First . . .

Opposition Research, in Fun Graphic Style

The good folks at the America Rising PAC — Matt Rhoades, Mitt Romney’s campaign manager and the research director for George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign, and former RNC research director Joe Pounder and spokesman Tim Miller — launched a Tumblr site; declaring, “This will be our home until we launch the full website.”

Some notable launch material: 

1. Three Sleaziest Terry McAuliffe Political $ Moments (On Video)

#1 - 1988: “I Will Stop At Nothing To Try And Get A Check From You.”

#2 - 2001: “If The Worst Thing You Say About Me Is ‘Terry McAuliffe Has Done Business With People He’s Met Through Politics,’ So Be It. I Plead Guilty.”

#3 - 2007: “It’s A Lot Easier To Raise Money For A Governor. They Have All Kinds Of Business To Hand Out, Road Contracts, Construction Jobs.”

2. America Rising Prepping for Hillary Clinton 2016

3. McAuliffe Flip Flops on Abandoning Wife & Kids For Political Fundraisers

That last bit of video, featuring Terry McAuliffe on “Meet the Press” in 2001, is pretty funny in light of the story of McAuliffe stopping at a fundraiser on the way home from the hospital with his wife and newborn child:

Coming soon to an attack ad near you: Terry McAuliffe describes stopping on the way home from the hospital to attend a political fundraiser, leaving his wife, Dorothy, and their newborn child in the car. The event raised $1 million for the Democratic party.

“Nobody ever said life with me was going to be easy.” Now there is a winning slogan for a gubernatorial campaign.

Ryan Nobles of NBC’s Richmond, Va., affiliate is definitely a reporter to keep an eye on in this governor’s race. First he and his colleagues did a fantastic, fair, tough report on GreenTech Automotive and the plant that it built in Mississippi, and now he has a ten-minute on-camera interview with Terry McAuliffe about his car company.

The interview begins with some top-shelf “word salad” in response to a direct question:

Nobles: If you had to pin down one reason why the company ended up moving to Mississippi instead of starting a manufacturing plant in Virginia, what would you pin as the primary reason for that happening?

McAuliffe: Uh, listen, we tried to put it in Virginia, we had several meetings here. It is what it is. It didn’t work out here. Businesses have to make a decision based upon their own business plans, what they want to do. Every business is unique. We tried, we looked at it, but businesses have got to make decisions what they think their own best interest [sic].

Notice that nothing in that answer says why the company settled in Mississippi. McAuliffe goes on to say, “I never blamed Virginia at all” for the decision to base their operations in Mississippi, but back in December, McAuliffe said, “We wanted to, it was their decision, VEDP, they decided they didn’t want to bid on it.”

Back in December, addressing Virginia reporters, McAuliffe appears to say “we have a thousand employees.” (About 40 seconds into this video; perhaps he means he would like to have a thousand employees.) Earlier this month, Marianne McInerney, a GreenTech vice president, told the Washington Post “the company employs about 10 employees in McLean and 78 in Mississippi.”

You’ll also hear McAuliffe say, “I want a governor who has tried many different things in the field of business.” Funny how that sort of expectation didn’t seem to come into play in the presidency, considering McAuliffe’s strong support for Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, none of whom “tried many different things in the field of business.”

Finally, McAuliffe says he owns a car that is currently parked at GreenTech headquarters. Apparently he once claimed he drove it from his home in McLean to GreenTech’s headquarters in Tyson’s Corner. Presuming McAuliffe takes Route 123, his MyCar’s top speed is in fact the speed limit, 35 miles per hour.

Also in today’s Morning Jolt:

Another Anti-Voucher Democrat, Sending His Children to the Best Private School

Surprise, surprise, the Virginia chapter of the NEA teachers’ union endorsed Terry McAuliffe for governor. Their endorsement is strangely quiet on the issue of vouchers. McAuliffe is pretty quiet on the issue of vouchers; here are his policy views on K-12 education, in their entirety, from his campaign web site:

Education is the single most important thing our kids need to build successful lives. Whether they’re going to invent a product, start a business, or get the job of their dreams, it all starts with the basic skills and confidence that only a good education can provide, and right now we’re not doing enough.

Total funding per student is down even as we’ve got more and more students entering our system. Only 87% of our kids are graduating high school on time.

As Governor, I will support our kids and our schools. We’re going to take the best ideas from around the country and give teachers and administrators the resources and freedom they need to make Virginia a global leader in education.

If this were any shorter, it would be a haiku.

He makes Elizabeth Colbert Busch’s policy-related sentence fragments look like Mandate for Leadership.

At least when he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, McAuliffe listed “vouchers” as part of the policies that made Republicans so terrible.

From the 2009 race:

It was a bit of creative omission, reminiscent of his answer when someone at the Richmond town meeting asked where his kids — aged 17, 16, 14, 9, and 6 — go to school. He said one attends Gonzaga, a Catholic high school in Washington, and four go to the Potomac School in McLean. He didn’t mention that Potomac is a private school.

Current tuition rates for the Potomac School:

Kindergarten – Grade 3: $29,055
Grades 4-6: $31,185
Grades 7-8: $33,440*
Grades 9-12: $33,345

So Terry McAuliffe, who has had four kids going to a roughly $30,000-per-student tuition private school (perhaps there’s a sibling discount), opposes the use of vouchers to send poorer kids to private schools.