According to quarterly reports filed by April 15 with the Virginia Public Access Project, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe has spent $761,895 on his gubernatorial bid so far.

The category where he has spent the most is “staff/political consultants,” at $481,077. After that is “TV/Radio,” at $75,033, and “Office Rent/Utilities,” at $55,586.

McAuliffe’s largest single expenditure is to the Internal Revenue Service, paying them $125,807. His second-largest was $75,033 to Shorr Johnson Magnus, a Democratic political-media firm based in Philadelphia, and his third-highest expenditure was $50,038 to “Paris Associates LP,” which appears to be an Arlington, Va., property manager.

His campaign’s smallest single expense is $4, spent at the Harris Teeter in Matthews, North Carolina.

So far, Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli has spent $568,659 on his gubernatorial bid. His highest expenditure is also “staff/political consultants,” at $219,715. Second-highest is “Mail/Printing/Postage,” at $114,676, and his third-highest is “fundraising,” at $88,029.

The Cuccinelli campaign’s largest single expenditure was $73,492 to The Printing Express; the second-largest was $40,000 to Advancing Strategies LLC, and the third-highest was to the U.S. Treasury.

On January 23, the Cuccinelli campaign paid $1 to the City of Richmond City Council.

“He’s raising money from out of state!” has never quite been the devastating attack that campaigns seem to think it is. But in Virginia, there is at least some difference between the two major candidates in where their biggest donors reside.

The Virginia Public Access Project, which collects and organizes state-campaign finance data, allows you to sort the candidates’ donations by which zip code the donor lists as his residence.

So far this year, Republican Ken Cuccinelli has raised $4.3 million; Terry McAuliffe has raised $6.7 million.

Sixteen of Cuccinelli’s top 25 zip codes for fundraising are in Virginia. His top zip code is Washington, D.C., where the Republican Governors Association gave him $1 million on March 29.

His top 20 include Roanoke (two different zip codes), Bristol, Richmond (four different zip codes), McLean (two different zip does), Centreville, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Abingdon (two different zip codes), Herndon, Burke, and Clifton.

Only five of McAuliffe’s top 25 zip codes are in Virginia — three in McLean, one in Richmond, one in Norfolk. His top zip code is a familiar one, 90210, where billionaire Power Rangers producer Haim Saban gave him $250,000. His other top locales include New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Chappaqua, New York, where Bill Clinton donated $100,000 on March 22.

I wonder how Virginia Democrats feel about their gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, taking five-figure checks in 2009 from mogul Donald Trump, who publicly argued that President Obama’s birth certificate may not be authentic.

Donald Trump is just one of many big name donors funding Terry McAuliffe’s campaign to win the Virginia governor’s mansion this fall, according to newly released financial disclosure reports — and he isn’t even among the most generous givers.

The New York real estate magnate cut McAuliffe a check for a whopping $25,000 in late March, but that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the largest single donation in McAuliffe’s report — a $251,000 gift from billionaire media tycoon Haim Saban in January. That check narrowly bested a $250,000 contribution the following month from Steve Bing, another big fish in the entertainment industry.

McAuliffe raised $4.2 million in the first quarter of 2009, and thanks to Virginia’s permissive fundraising laws, more than 80 percent of his cash came from donors who live outside the state.

The campaign of Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli and the Virginia GOP have been pretty relentless in demanding McAuliffe release his tax returns for recent years. The latest from the Cuccinelli team:

Last July, the Virginian-Pilot editorial board called on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns to “provide a consistent measure of transparency” and said not doing so suggested he had “something to hide.”

Last Thursday, in the spirit of transparency, Ken Cuccinelli released eight years of returns. So far, the McAuliffe campaign has been mum on whether they intend to follow suit. If McAuliffe decides not to release his returns, at the very least, he should explain his reasoning. As is the case with any important election, voters deserve more information, not less.

More on the tax-return issue to come . . .

I am reliably informed that Virginia’s GOP gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, will soon release his tax returns for the past eight years and call for his Democratic counterpart, Terry McAuliffe, to do the same.

In a mirror image of the attack against Mitt Romney last summer, Republicans in Virginia and Washington are ready to point to any delay as a sign that there’s something shady or scandalous in McAuliffe’s tax returns and personal finances. Republicans have a long list of quotes from David Axelrod, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former White House Press Secreary Robert Gibbs, and other Obama campaign officials demanding the release of Romney’s returns, with some comments insinuating or explicitly stating that failure to release the returns indicates criminal behavior.

McAuliffe may or may not release all those returns; as the Virginia Pilot notes, candidates for governor in this state typically don’t release tax return information partly because the state requires them to submit personal financial disclosure statements that are considered public records. And the returns may not reveal much in terms of wrongdoing, but two figures might be intriguing or cause indigestion for the McAuliffe campaign. First, just how wealthy is McAuliffe? Back in 2009, the disclosure forms revealed “a net worth of at least $5.8 million. But McAuliffe is likely worth considerably more because candidates in Virginia do not have to report the exact value of an investment that tops $250,000.”

Secondly, how much as McAuliffe made from his investment/role with GreenTech Automotive in the past four years?

Here’s the old quote to get the spotlight: last cycle’s head of the Democratic Governors Association:

Then DGA Chairman Martin O’Malley on Romney’s failure to release his tax returns: “His failure to release those is a bit of an implicit admission of…guilt…” (Zeke Miller, “O’Malley: McCain Saw Romney’s Tax Returns And He Chose Palin,” BuzzFeed, 7/13/2012)

The Virginia electorate doesn’t appear to be paying much attention to the early stages of the gubernatorial race. The candidates weren’t dominating the news, even before our news cycle became filled with horrific bombings, big votes on gun control, ricin mailings, exploding fertilizer plants, and so on.

Yet at some point, the voters will tune in, and they’ll see two candidates who they don’t know terribly well. So the candidate who gets his ads up on television first may end up setting the terms of the race. 

Republican Ken Cuccinelli leads Democrat Terry McAuliffe (34%-29%), but more than one-third (38%) of Virginians are undecided in the 2013 Gubernatorial election, according to The Roanoke College Poll. Looking only at currently registered voters, Cuccinelli’s lead grows slightly (35%-27%).

The Roanoke College Poll interviewed 629 Virginia residents between April 8 and April 14 and has a margin of error of +3.9 percent. 

As was the case in January, both candidates are largely unfamiliar to Virginians. A majority of Virginia residents do not know enough about McAuliffe (61%) to have an opinion about him, and 45 percent don’t have an opinion of Cuccinelli. Each figure is only one percent lower than in January. Cuccinelli has improved his favorable/unfavorable split marginally (26% – 24%), while McAuliffe remains the same (10% – 16%). 

Cuccinelli could paint a very negative portrait of McAuliffe, the GreenTech problems, the state’s concerns about the company, and so on… but he’ll need the resources to do it.

Over on the home page, I have a look at Terry McAuliffe’s (former, as of December) firm, GreenTech Automotive, and their libel suit against the Franklin Center and Watchdog.org.

GreenTech Automotive makes the “MyCar.”

MyCar is a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle in the US, but can be adapted to 45mph for in Europe. NEVs are low-speed vehicles; and depending upon the state you live in are limited, by law, to 25-35 mph. No highway driving, please.

The GreenTech web site showcases the car in the plant:

The MyCar comes in eight colors: Hello, Atomic, Crush, Race, Mist, Rally, Electric, and Mystic. To the untrained eye, those colors resemble light yellow, darker yellow, purple, red, gray, green, blue and white.

The Republican Party of Virginia is having some fun this afternoon.

Here’s Terry McAuliffe in September 2011, discussing Solyndra on a Virginia-based public television program:

McAuliffe says, “I’m proud to always say of all my businesses and the one I’m doing now with the auto, I do it all with private capital. I use my own money and investor money, I just don’t want the government in my business.”

Strangely enough, that’s the exact month that McAuliffe’s company, GreenTech Automotive, accepted a $3 million loan from the Mississippi Development Authority, acting on behalf of the state of Mississippi. The contract can be found here. Separately, the MDA loaned another $2 million to Tunica County to purchase the site for the factory.

This e-mail from Terry McAuliffe reinforces two points about his campaign for governor. First, he will have an inordinate amount of money for his campaign this year — probably somewhere between $10 million and ∞ –  and he’ll probably be hitting the airwaves soon.

Second, his staff cannot spell, announcing “how we faired” instead of “how we fared”.

From: Andrew Smith <info@terrymcauliffe.com>

Date: April 13, 2013, 11:57:04 AM EDT

To:

Subject: How we faired

Reply-To: info@terrymcauliffe.com

Seton — I have some big news to share.Yesterday, we submitted our first financial report of 2013, and it contained a big number: $5.1 million raised in January, February, and March. That’s the most money any gubernatorial candidate has raised in the first quarter, in at least the last five elections.And while I’m proud of that top line figure, it’s what’s behind it that has me beaming from ear to ear. Here’s exactly how we got to $5.1 million:

• Over 5,100 people pitched in and gave what they could
• In a true display of grassroots support, 73 percent of our donations were $100 or less
• About 3 in 4 donations came from the Commonwealth

There’s no denying it: our grassroots momentum is growing. After all, this isn’t Terry’s campaign — all of us own a piece of it.

Everyone owns a piece of it, hm? Careful. Some of McAuliffe’s investments don’t turn out so well.

Terry McAuliffe’s car company, GreenTech Automotive, is suing the investigative-journalism nonprofit Watchdog.org for libel, seeking $85 million in damages.

“Specifically, as a direct and express result of the articles published by Defendants … investors are wavering in their commitment to provide $25 million in investments already promised to GTA,” the lawsuit said. “GTA … intended to raise $60 million in capital, (and) is now in significant danger as a direct result of the loss of investor confidence in GTA arising from the publication of Defendants’ articles.”

Watchdog.org cited the same documents I did yesterday, with one difference; they quoted an expert who used the term “fraud.”

From Watchdog.org:

Attorneys for GreenTech have contacted us and asked for a retraction of our April 1 and April 3 articles. In particular, they object to the use of the term “fraud” in our reporting. Lest there be any confusion about the point of our articles, we have updated them. To be clear, our articles were not intended to (and did not) accuse GreenTech of committing fraud. Instead, the articles pointed out that the federal EB-5 visa program — which trades U.S. green cards for business investments and which GreenTech has used as a source of capital — has lax oversight, is prone to abuse and fraud, and cannot possibly deliver on its promises to taxpayers and investors. Our articles also quoted sources who criticized GreenTech’s reliance on the EB-5 program — the same criticism that Virginia officials leveled against the company in 2009. We stand by our reporting about the EB-5 program and will continue to investigate this important story. — Editors

If you had a cynical mind, what would you suspect about this lawsuit?

If you wish to help out the good folks at the Franklin Center and Watchdog.org, you can do so here.

UPDATE: GOP lieutenant-governor candidate Pete Snyder moved fast, issuing the following statement regarding the decision by Terry McAuliffe’s GreenTech to sue Watchdog.org over a blog post:

No one should be surprised that Terry McAuliffe and his sputtering company are blaming their business failures on a non-profit organization for scrutinizing their mismanagement. It’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from a Washington insider. Thanks to an amazing team, I’ve been able to build two very successful businesses based in the Commonwealth and create hundreds of good-paying Virginia jobs. I’ve also raised capital and dealt with investors — and trust me, it’s not a blog post that scared investors from GreenTech, it’s McAuliffe’s mismanagement and the fact that GreenTech hasn’t lived up to his hype or created the jobs and cars he promised. Terry is out of his league playing CEO, and clearly he would be out of his league trying to play Chief Executive of Virginia. Just like Terry’s lost investors, Virginia voters see Terry’s management skills as a risky investment.

I wonder if GreenTech’s lawyers will sue over that.

Over on the home page, I take a look at why Virginia officials were so skeptical about assisting Terry McAuliffe’s GreenTech Automotive back in 2009. Besides the usual risks of investment, at least two officials with the state business-recruitment agency feared the company was a “visa-for-sale scheme with potential national security implications.”

What is the purpose of GreenTech Automotive?

The company, founded by Terry McAuliffe, is now a top issue in this year’s Virginia race for governor. Until recently, the controversy over the company centered on the firm’s October 2009 decision to build a plant in Mississippi instead of Virginia. McAuliffe contended that he wanted to build a plant in Virginia, but the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) — the state’s business-recruitment agency — wouldn’t play ball.

“We had sites, we had meetings, and they chose that they weren’t going to bid on it,” McAuliffe declared. PolitiFact looked at the paperwork and rated that assertion false, concluding that “VEDP asked GreenTech to address its concerns and waited in vain for replies.”

But internal communications from VEDP now reveal that the state agency didn’t merely think that McAuliffe’s company had a risky business model. At least two high-ranking officials actually suspected that the company’s real aim was to make money by selling U.S. residency visas to wealthy foreigners.

In an e-mail dated November 17, 2009, Liz Povar, then the director of business development at VEDP, wrote to her colleagues:

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.

The e-mails were revealed pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by PolitiFact; 79 pages of documents were posted online in January.

As I lay out in the piece, companies and the Regional Centers that work with them are not allowed to sell the U.S. visas, but 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.”

Of course, Virginia had a lot of good reasons to be wary of giving special assistance to GreenTech:

On October 22, 2009, Mike Lehmkuhler, the vice president of business attraction at VEDP, assessed GreenTech’s hurdles in withering fashion:

The sales forecasts suggest a completely successful start-up, despite

• no brand recognition
• no demonstrated vehicle performance
• no safety and fuel economy certification from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• no emissions approval from the EPA
• no established distribution network
• no demonstrated automotive industry experience within the executive management team

All of this was to manufacture a product with a quite limited market. Almost no media coverage of GreenTech mentioned the limits of the GreenTech Automotive product:

MyCar is a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle in the U.S., but can be adapted to 45mph for in [sic] Europe. NEVs are low-speed vehicles; and depending upon the state you live in are limited, by law, to 25–35 mph. No highway driving, please.

The video of Terry McAuliffe’s appearance on the home-shopping channel QVC, hawking Inauguration knick-knacks, must be out there somewhere. The New York Times wrote about it at the time:

Eyes gleaming, the saleswoman leaned conspiratorially toward her television audience.

“You can’t find these things anywhere else unless you have inside connections,” she confided, “or you live in Washington, where maybe one or two stores are selling what we have.”

The oh-so-exclusive merchandise? Medallions featuring Bill Clinton’s face, pens featuring his name, envelopes featuring his hometown postmark, books featuring his ideas, and license plates emblazoned with a promise to build a bridge to . . . you know.

All of it is official inaugural memorabilia, and all of it is for sale for the first time to a national audience — for a special price, plus shipping and handling, if you act soon — on the QVC cable shopping network.

Eager to move more merchandise than four years ago to cover the budget for Clinton’s inauguration, the Presidential Inaugural Committee has turned to QVC, which is perhaps better known for hawking gold chains, “Brite Stik Tooth Whitening Pens,” and rear-end-tauteners than flogging items celebrating the inauguration of the president of the United States.

But there on Monday night, sandwiched between a program advertising National Football League merchandise and one pushing topaz jewelry, was Terry McAuliffe, the redoubtable Democratic fund-raiser and co-chairman of the inaugural committee.

One hopes he was either underselling the inauguration or overselling QVC when, standing on Pennsylvania Avenue in suit and tie, he invoked QVC’s favorite adjective to declare: “One of the more exciting aspects of this inauguration is the agreement that we have with QVC.”

McAuliffe’s appearance came in early January 1997.

Then again, McAuliffe told CNN that QVC sold “a quarter of a million dollars” of inaugural memorabilia. Maybe we’ll see him selling McAuliffe for Governor knick-knacks on the channel sometime before November.

UPDATE: Howard Mortman went into the archives and dug up the highlights of QVC’s coverage on Inauguration Day, which did not feature McAuliffe.

The Hotline

January 22, 1997

INAUGURATION: AN HOUR OF PATRIOTISM, HOME SHOPPING-STYLE   

As seen on QVC, between noon and 1 p.m. on Inauguration Day.

12:00     Bob, the host, displays the Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Invitation Set (item L-47400, $240, shipped on 2/20), a”beautiful” invitation that comes in a “beautiful” blue binder.

Bob: “Of course, QVC is completely non-partisan.  It just so happens that he have a Democratic president and vice president going in.  But we ourselves are completely non-partisan.  We just want you to have some of the memorabilia of the democracy.  It’sa proud day to be an American.”12:02     The Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Pin by AnnHand (item L-47392, $45, shipped on 1/21), the Official 1997Presidential Inaugural Plate (item L-47406, $48, shipped on1/31), and the Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Medallion(item L-47385, $36 for bronze through $695 for gold, shipped on1/21) are displayed.

12:04     Bob announces QVC will show the swearing-in: “You’re going to be seeing history in the making.  As history continues on, our country is the only in history that has ever pre-planned the changing of power, and it is a ceremony that allows us to renew our democratic ideals.  It allows us to renew our visions. Maybe reminds us to maybe take a look at our goals and our dreams as well.”

12:05     QVC cuts to a live shot of the administering of theoath of office to President Clinton.

12:06     Bob: “I don’t know about you, but that was pretty electric here at QVC.  And really, when you think about taking us into the 21st century … we have some things to commemorate the electricity of that moment.”

12:08     Dee from California calls about the Invitation Set (item L-47400).  Bob: “What does it mean to you?”  Dee: “It just means so much to me.” 

Bob, later in the conversation: “And, you know, it’s a great day to be an American, too, because we’ve been able to maintain this for 200-some odd years, regularly, all the way down the line.  And it makes you feel good, doesn’t it?”Dee: “It just gives me such a great feeling, I mean, to be part of this, at least to watch it with QVC and C-SPAN.”  Dee, later on: “I’m so glad for QVC for having this thing because it’s never been done before.” 

Bob: “No, this is the very first time, sothere’s a lot of firsts, aren’t there?”  Dee: “Oh, and I’m soexcited. … Thank you a lot Bob, and I like your cooking shows,too.”  Bob: “Thank you, thank you very much.  We’re going to do one tomorrow, ten hours of cooking, starting at noon eastern.”

12:10    QVC cuts to Clinton delivering inaugural address.

12:14     Nancy from Nevada calls about the Pin (item L-47392).

Bob: “How do you plan to wear this?”  Nancy: “On a suit,probably, you know, when I go out for something nice.”

12:17     The Plate (item L-47406) is shown.  Bob: “Imagine, notonly picking up the inaugural plate, but picking up something byone of the great names in the world, Wedgewood.  Combine the twoand you have an heirloom.” 

Bob said the Plate “will give you a great deal of pride and a wonderful sense of being an American and being part of the history of America in this presidential year, this inauguration year.”  Later, Bob corrects himself: the plate is Woodmear china, not Wedgewood.

12:21     Melba from Washington state calls in about the Plate.Bob: “Do you feel good to be an American?”  Melba: “Of course.”

12:23     Helen from Texas calls about the Plate.  Bob: “What does it mean to you as an American?”  Helen: “I can’t really put it in words, what it means to me.”  Bob: “You can feel it though,you feel a sense of pride?”  Helen: “Oh, yes.”

12:24     QVC cuts to tape of Vice President Gore earlier being administered the oath.12:26     Bob shows the Medallions (item L-47385), which “may be the most collectible pieces of any inauguration.  They go back all the way to George Washington.”  Bob notes the Medallions can be purchased through “Easypay” installments.

12:32     The Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Button Set(item L-47402, $9, shipped on 1/21) is displayed.  Bob shows a button portraying “Great Democratic Presidents of the United States.”  The button has Clinton at the center. 

Bob: “Mr.Clinton is the first Democratic President to be re-elected since Franklin Roosevelt, which makes this pin really quite unusual.”

12:36     QVC shows tape of Miller Williams delivering his poem.Bob later calls ‘93 Inaugural poet Maya Angelou “a great poet,nice lady, who read quite a poem.”

12:37     Bob shows the Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural License Plates (item L-47386, $25-$45, shipped on 1/25).

12:47     QVC cuts to a live wide shot of the Capitol.

12:48     Bob shows the Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Tote Bag (item L-47412, $24, shipped 1/21).

12:56     Peggy from South Carolina calls and announces she has ordered the invitation set, the sweatshirt, the book, the plate,the mug, the buttons, the pearls, the pin, the pen, and the totebag.  Peggy: “QVC is just fantastic to bring us this opportunity.”

Virginia Democrats, you’re now stuck with him: Terry McAuliffe is now certifiable — er, certified as the Democrats’ candidate for governor of Virginia.

Undoubtedly, McAuliffe brings some advantages to the race; as perhaps the single biggest fundraiser in Democratic-party history, he will probably raise somewhere between $10 million and ∞ for his campaign this year. With the New Jersey governor’s race not looking competitive, McAuliffe is the only Democrat running statewide this year with a shot, and as a result, he’ll get plenty of support from the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Governors Association, and Organizing for America. Oh, and he’s telling donors and potential supporters that helping him is “a way to get in on the ground floor of Hillary Clinton 2016.”

Pete Snyder, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, is already hitting Terry McAuliffe for his company GreenTech’s October 2009 decision to build a plant in Mississippi instead of Virginia. McAuliffe contended that the state of Virginia’s business recruitment agency wasn’t interested in helping the company. PolitiFact looked at the paperwork and rated that assertion false.

“It’s political garbage and double talk like this that made me get off the sidelines and get into the arena to change things,” Snyder says. (It says something about McAuliffe that even the GOP’s lieutenant gubernatorial candidates are citing him as the poster boy for what’s wrong with politics.)

Late last week, Politico reported that McAuliffe formally left GreenTech back in December, a comment McAuliffe didn’t mention even as he discussed the firm for the past few months, including quite recently.

Make no mistake, Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli will have a tough challenge ahead. But four months into his second bid for governor of Virginia, McAuliffe has surprisingly low name ID and a favorable rating of only 20 percent (Quinnipiac) or perhaps as low as 10 percent (Roanoke).

One good statewide ad campaign could define McAuliffe before this race even starts.

You may recall that when I wrote about Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe’s autobiography, I highlighted the candidate explaining, in his own words, the role of a governor: “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.”

After my piece on , What a Party! My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators, and Other Wild Animals, a couple of Virginia Republicans told me, “he read the audiobook for that book, you know.”

Well, somebody found it and put it up on YouTube.

I know, I know, I’m being unfair. It’s not like the candidate ran around bragging that his political contacts helped his business career.

I mean, except for the time that he did: “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.”

Terry McAuliffe, the Democrats’ likely nominee for governor in Virginia this year, had better study up on the details of the governor’s office. Because this is probably not the last time someone is going to ask him questions to gauge his knowledge about state government.

Back in 2009, the GOP nominee for governor, Ken Cuccinelli, ran for state attorney general against Steve Shannon. Cuccinelli scored big points in a debate by stumping Shannon with a remarkably basic question: “How many divisions are there in the attorney general’s office? Please name each one and briefly explain what each one does.”

Shannon filibustered . . . and filibustered . . . and filibustered. He later dismissed it as “an arcane question, focusing on the bureaucracy.”

Free advice: If you’re running against Ken Cuccinelli, do your homework.

Does Terry McAuliffe remind you of someone?

He’s not really up to speed on the little details of the office he seeks, like what positions are in the governor’s cabinet:

In a recent interview, McAuliffe wouldn’t give specific responses when asked about technical aspects of legislative and governor’s office operations. Asked if he could name the positions in the governor’s Cabinet, for instance, McAuliffe said: “Maybe could, maybe couldn’t. That’s not what I’m going to do here today because that’s not what I’m talking about.”

He’s the kind of fun-loving, daring, risk-taking guy willing to practice law before a Delaware justice of the peace after drinking heavily.

He’s been a pitchman for Inauguration memorabilia on QVC.

He’s talked about how he saved Bill Clinton’s presidency – “the Clinton presidency was on the line”- with his June 22, 1995, fundraiser at the Garden State Convention Center in Somerset, New Jersey.

He’s detailed how he saved the Clinton’s Millennial Celebration, “the greatest party ever on the Mall and at the White House.”

He’s been a Democratic Party fundraiser his entire adult life.

He’s a “party animal” in every sense of the word.

Hey, that’s it!

That’s who he reminds me of! Terry McAuliffe is like a human Spuds McKenzie!

The road before Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign just got a little bit easier. Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling ended his flirtation with an independent bid for governor of Virginia this year:

However, after a great deal of consideration I have decided that I will not be an Independent candidate for Governor this year.  There were many factors that influenced my decision to forgo such a campaign.

First, I know how difficult Independent campaigns can be.  The biggest challenge an Independent candidate faces is fundraising.  You can have a winning message, but if you don’t have the resources to effectively communicate that message to voters you cannot win.  To run a winning campaign I would have needed to raise at least $10-$15M.  That’s a very difficult thing to do without the resources of a major political party and national donors at your disposal.  Based on my discussions with key donors over the past three weeks, I was confident I could raise enough money to run a competitive campaign, but I was not confident I could raise enough money to run a winning campaign. While it is possible that these resources could have been secured over time if the campaign progressed as we envisioned, that was an uncertain outcome and it was too big a risk for me to ask my donors to take.

Second, running as an Independent candidate would have required me to sever my longstanding relationship with the Republican Party.  While I am very concerned about the current direction of the Republican Party, I still have many dear friends in the Republican Party, people who have been incredibly supportive of me over the years.  I have tremendous respect for them and I am very grateful for everything they have done for me.  I value these friendships a great deal and I feel a deep sense of personal obligation to those who have done so much to make my success possible.  I have heard from many of these friends over the past several months.  They have encouraged me to not give up on the Republican Party and continue working to get our party back on a more mainstream course.  Maintaining their friendship and respect means more to me than the prospects of being Governor and I was unwilling to jeopardize these longstanding relationships by embarking on an Independent campaign.

Finally, my decision was heavily influenced by a growing dissatisfaction with the current political environment in Virginia.  Politics is much different today than it was when I was first elected.  In many ways I fear that the “Virginia way” of doing things is rapidly being replaced by the “Washington way” of doing things and that’s not good for Virginia.  As a result, the political process has become much more ideologically driven, hyper-partisan and mean spirited.  Rigid ideologies and personal political agendas are too often placed ahead of sound public policy and legitimate policy disagreements too quickly degenerate into unwarranted personal attacks.  This makes it more difficult to govern effectively and get things done.  While I still value public service a great deal, the truth is that I just don’t find the political process to be as enjoyable as I once did.  Because of this, I decided that the time has come for me to step away from elected office and look for other ways to serve Virginia.

Best to Bolling in his future endeavors, but permit this one question . . .

Is the political process meant to be enjoyable?

I realize it’s only March, but in just eight months, Virginia will be electing a new governor, a new lieutenant governor, and a new state attorney general, and 100 seats in the House of Delegates will be on the ballot.

In the gubernatorial race, you would think the candidates would want their websites up, rocking and rolling. Indeed, Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican nominee, has his up and running, with YouTube videos, a detailed biography, a news page, an events page, and archives going back to October.

Bill Bolling, the currently-Republican lieutenant governor who’s unknown to 72 percent of Virginians, also has a fairly sizable site, including his February 28 statement that he’s deciding whether or not to seek the office of governor as “an Independent Republican.”

But Terry McAuliffe, the energetic former DNC chair who’s the Democratic nominee, has . . . well, a donation page, a place to sign up for e-mails, a Facebook page, and a Twitter feed. No biography or issue pages yet. A bit sparse.

Maybe when they expand the web site, they’ll find room for my rave review of his autobiography.

Hmmmm.

Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli are in a 38 – 38 percent dead heat in their race to become Virginia’s next governor. Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, running as an independent candidate, leaves the race a statistical tie, with McAuliffe at 34 percent, Cuccinelli at 31 percent and Bolling at 13 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Bolling, elected as a Republican, said he will make a major announcement next month, presumably about the governor’s race.

When talking up the possibility of an independent bid, Bolling said earlier this month, “I think there is a definite opening in this campaign for a credible independent candidate… We will have our decision made and announced by March 14.”

Is 13 percent really the threshold of support to be a credible independent candidate? Of course, candidates tend to assess their own viability and credibility with a distinctly non-objective eye. Bolling has been lieutenant governor of the state for eight years, and found himself unlikely to be able to win the gubernatorial nomination over Cuccinelli at the state convention. Bolling and his crew may be angry that the Virginia GOP decided to select their nominee at a convention instead of a primary, but he shouldn’t have any illusions about the likely outcome in that venue as well; in June of last year, Cuccinelli led Bolling 51 percent to 15 percent.

But this may come down to what Bolling really wants to see: his own victory… or Ken Cuccinelli’s defeat.

In Virginia’s gubernatorial race, Republican Ken Cuccinelli’s campaign is making a big deal about one of Terry McAuliffe’s companies, GreenTech Automotive.

In 2009, electric-car company GreenTech Automotive decided to locate its manufacturing plant in Mississippi instead of Virginia — pledging to bring at least 1,500 jobs to that state.

Asked why McAuliffe’s company picked Mississippi instead of Virginia, the Democratic candidate contended that officials at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership — the state’s business recruitment agency — weren’t interested. “They decided they didn’t want to bid on it.”

PolitiFact Virginia extensively reviewed the state records and came to the opposite conclusion:

Records showed VEDP staff were interested in the project and were in the process of its due diligence when GreenTech moved ahead with a plant in Mississippi.

VEDP had “grave concerns” about GreenTech’s business plan. The agency said GreenTech Agency officials had no “demonstrated experience” in manufacturing cars. It doubted the company’s job estimates. It questioned the ethics of GreenTech’s plan to raise money from foreign investors in exchange for U.S. residency.

The record shows that VEDP asked GreenTech to address its concerns and waited in vain for replies. Without those answers, VEDP would not negotiate monetary support for that, or any, project.Contrary to McAuliffe’s claim, there is no evidence the state agency decided not to bid on the project.

Emails show VEDP took GreenTech officials on a tour of potential sites and contacted the company about coming to Virginia almost two years after GreenTech announced it was building a plant in Mississippi.

We rate McAuliffe’s statement False.

The topic may or may not turn out to be a big deal in the year ahead, but McAuliffe was asked about it and is now offering a new spin — it wasn’t his fault, somebody else made the decision.

“They made the decision, the company made the decision,” McAuliffe told a radio host Friday.

McAuliffe must be the most strangely powerless chairman of a company ever.

Over on the home page, I urge my fellow Virginans to marvel at our luck to have the option of Terry McAuliffe for governor this year:

In McAuliffe — a man never elected to any public office at any level — we have a rare combination of skills and experience, detailed at great length, and with great humility, in his 2007 autobiography, What a Party! My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators, and Other Wild Animals.

Within these pages, with McAuliffe’s own words — or the words of his co-author, Steve Kettman — we see that indeed, in this candidate, we have a man to fit the moment.

It’s time for this commonwealth to have a governor who has had a wacky caricature of himself framed upon the wall at The Palm since 1980, marking his influence and stature among the lobbyists and power brokers who meet for steaks and martinis. It’s time for a governor who has spent his adult life rubbing shoulders with the powerful at Pamela Harriman’s house in Georgetown, and who has a regular table at Café Milano. It’s time for a governor who can tell the best stories about Walter Mondale and about the hookers at Walter Shorenstein’s mansion in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Let the candidate explain, in his own words, the role of a governor: “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.”

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.”

You see, Virginians? Standards.

You see, Terry McAuliffe worked his first fundraiser at the age of six. He’s proven to be a groundbreaking innovator in the world of raising money, not merely by writing the infamous White House memo that set up Bill Clinton’s coffees with donors at the White House, but by shooting a commercial on the QVC home-shopping channel in front of the Pennsylvania Avenue reviewing stand, selling Inauguration memorabilia.

You see, Virginians? Class.