Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli told a student at Norfolk Technical School on Tuesday that there is a "good chance" he'll run for governor.
At first, it seemed Cuccinelli had slipped and inadvertently broke news on an issue about which he has hedged to reporters for months — that he would challenge Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2013.
Before too much of a frenzy started to build, a spokesman for the attorney general chimed in, pointing out that Cuccinelli had not specified when he might run for the top job.
Cuccinelli's timing may be everything, especially to a presumptive GOP candidate such as Bolling, who has been biding his time in a second term as lieutenant governor after making way for fellow Republican Bob McDonnell's successful gubernatorial run in 2009.
But if history is any judge, time is on the attorney general's side. For most of the past 60 years, whether a Virginia attorney general runs for governor is not a question of if, but when.
Of the past 11 elected attorneys general who preceded Cuccinelli, all but one — Democrat Robert Young Button, who served from 1962 to 1970 — have run for governor.
The most recent, of course, was McDonnell, who served as attorney general from 2006 to 2009, before resigning to run for the top job.
But running for governor from the attorney general's perch does not guarantee the keys to the Executive Mansion. In fact, it's closer to a 50-50 proposition. Since 1958, five of the 10 attorneys general running for governor have won.
Cuccinelli has maintained that he plans to run for re-election to attorney general in 2013 but has left the door open for a possible gubernatorial run. McDonnell, a powerful broker in the GOP, has signaled his intention to support Bolling as his successor.
But serving two terms does not necessarily put an attorney general in better position to win election as governor. In the past 60 years, the only one to do so successfully was Democrat James Lindsay Almond, who served as attorney general from 1948 to 1957, and won the governorship in 1958.
The other two-termers in that period — Andrew Pickens Miller (1970-77) and Mary Sue Terry (1986-1993), both Democrats — lost their bids for Virginia's highest statewide office.
Your chances aren't any better if you're a lieutenant governor. Five of the past 12 lieutenant governors preceding Bolling have gone on to become governor. But of the three lieutenant governors elected to serve two terms since 1946, none has run successfully for the top job.
Two-term Democratic Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr., who served in office from 1990 to 1998, lost the governorship to Republican Jim Gilmore, a former attorney general.
Lt. Gov. AES Stephens, who served from 1952 to 1962, lost the Democratic gubernatorial nomination to attorney general Albertis Sydney Harrison, who went on to become governor.
And Lewis Preston Collins II, elected in 1946, died in 1952 while serving as lieutenant governor.
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