Governing with 2013 in mind

For a guy who has many reasons to smile -- the presidency of utility giant Dominion, a fat paycheck, such plush perquisites as the rectorship of U.Va., his alma mater -- Tom Farrell often wears a pained expression.

But he managed to beam this past Thursday as high-school buddy Bob McDonnell announced that Farrell would help lead the Republican's gubernatorial transition.

In other words: divvy the spoils, screen prospects for jobs, mete out punishment. Fashion a government that reflects the man who will lead it for four years -- an instinctive conservative who had the discipline to sheath his views in centrist rhetoric and the good fortune to run during a Democratic economic downturn.

Personal loyalty presumably drove Farrell's decision to serve his old friend, though it could have compelled him to decline. To a cynical public, perhaps unaware Dominion executives have molded the administrations of recent Democratic governors, Farrell and McDonnell may be too close.

Farrell gave more than $60,000 to the McDonnell campaign, with Dominion kicking in $47,500. The company was similarly generous with Democrat Creigh Deeds, in whose state Senate district Dominion has a large plant.

Dominion also looked to McDonnell -- as an attorney general and undeclared gubernatorial candidate -- to negotiate new rate-setting rules on utilities that didn't threaten profits. Former regulators complain that McDonnell delivered in spades.

Those heading the McDonnell transition, to a large degree, reflect the voters who put him in office, not Virginia at large.

Farrell is the embodiment of the state's traditional industries, while info-tech cheerleader Bobbie Kilberg reflects the new economy. Both sectors flocked to McDonnell, checkbooks at the ready, because of who he isn't: Barack Obama.

Kay Coles James, who's worked for George Allen, the second President Bush and Pat Robertson, is the personification of the GOP's movement wing, from which McDonnell emerged as a law graduate of Robertson's Regent University.

Whether peddling so-called family values as Allen's human-services secretary, screening job applications for Dubya or running the government program at Regent, James is a reminder that in politics, personnel is policy.

Bill Mims, who succeeded McDonnell as attorney general, has been his whip hand over the legal bureaucracy. A quiet, poised enforcer, in many respects as conservative as McDonnell on cultural and religious issues, Mims has entrée to Democratic circles in which McDonnell remains suspect.

Campaign manager Phil Cox also is on the team, if only to tell the others that wielding power ultimately is a political exercise -- one that should perpetuate the Republican Party and, ideally, elevate McDonnell's heir-apparent, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, to governor in 2013. Bolling rounds out the transition leadership.

It wasn't lost on many that McDonnell the other day referred to his as the "McDonnell-Bolling administration."

Perhaps it was the innocent oversight of a fatigued victor. But some Republicans saw it as a slight that no mention was made of Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli -- a signal that McDonnell will keep his distance from a running mate whose brand of conservatism makes McDonnell's seem wimpish.

Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 6496814 or . Watch his video column Thursdays on TimesDispatch.com. Follow him at twitter.com/RTDSchapiro. Listen to his analysis Fridays at 8:33 a.m. on WCVE (88.9 FM).