Va. GOP ticket: McDonnell, Bolling, Cuccinelli
Bob Brown / Times-Dispatch
Bill Bolling, Bob McDonnell, and Ken Cuccinelli, candidates for Lt. Governor, Governor and Attorney General, respectively, at the GOP convention.
Published: May 30, 2009
Updated: May 30, 2009
SLIDESHOW: |
Virginia Republicans completed their 2009 ticket in Richmond this afternoon, teaming gubernatorial nominee Bob McDonnell with Bill Bolling for lieutenant governor and Ken Cuccinelli for attorney general.
Bolling, the current lieutenant governor and a Hanover County insurance executive, faced nominal opposition from Patrick Muldoon, a lawyer and farmer from Southwest Virginia who said Bolling isn't sufficiently conservative.
Cuccinelli, a state senator from Fairfax County, turned back two others for the third spot on the ticket. In the only real contest of the day, Cuccinelli defeated former federal prosecutor John Brownlee of Roanoke and Arlington County lawyer Dave Foster.
Republicans met at the Richmond Coliseum at a convention that drew more than 7,000 delegates. The GOP fields its ticket about a week ahead of Democrats, who decide nominations for governor and lieutenant governor in a June 9 primary.
Republicans also settled the party chairmanship, choosing to retain Pat Mullins of Louisa County. Mullins, installed about a month ago after a coup brought down Del. Jeffery M. Frederick of Prince William County, defeated a Frederick ally, Bill Stanley of Rocky Mount.
Republicans head into the fall election hoping to end a losing streak that reaches back to 2001. Since then, they've twice been defeated for governor, surrendered two U.S. Senate seats and seen Democrats take back the Virginia Senate.
Leading Republicans is former attorney general McDonnell, an ex-delegate from Virginia Beach who now lives in Henrico County. In accepting the nomination, McDonnell sounded conservative themes, including opposition to abortion and an endorsement of gun rights.
But McDonnell also continued his emphasis on the economy, pledging to create jobs by, among other things, reducing government regulation, promoting offshore exploration of oil and gas, making college more affordable and resisting unionization.
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Reader Reactions
Whee!! Look at me! I’m a snippet of anonymous self-serving commentary! Anyone who doesn’t read me and totally agree with everything I say is a pompously arrogant and obese racist necrophiliac! Whee!! I have an opinion and think people care!!
McConnell claims to be against regulation of business. Has he somehow missed all the claims that a major contributing factor to the current economic mess is the slackening of regulation.
Does Virginia really want a Governor who cannot see that regulation of business and trade practices is necessary?
I think Obama/McCain was 52% to 46% as well last November.
So if Kilgore and McCain can manage 46% I’m gonna stick with that.
I don’t see alot of Dems coming out and voting against McDonnell.
I do see a TON of conservatives coming out to vote againt McAuliffe.
I could almost say McAuliffe is a mirror image of Glimore in alot of ways.
Good article from today on Politico
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/23123.html
To dcaf:
The cadet that you are referring to is Colonel Adnan Barqawi from Virginia Tech. My husband and I were at the convention yesterday…Colonel Barqawi is a former regimental comander with the Virginia Tech Corps cadet. Bottom line, he brought down the house. He made us realize that, like most natural born Americans, we take it all for granted. This young man said it all..he made us remember how lucky we are to live in America, and he also reminded us of how much we should appreciate what we have. He was amazing…no matter what party you are a part of…every American would benefit from hearing what this young man had to say.
I don’t know… Jim Gilmore’s 34% against Mark Warner in last year’s Senate race could represent the absolute bottom number for McDonnell (you want to talk about “destroying the state”? That conversation begins with Gilmore). This won’t be a giveaway election for either party, I think, but McDonnell has an uphill battle.
Well. If Jerry Kilgore got 46% of the vote last go round… McDonnell just needs to scrounge up 4.1%.
No way he can do worse than Kilgore. No freaking way.
I don’t care if Obama sends 10,000 Acorn folks here to knock on every door in the state from now to November.
46% is the absolute bottom number for McDonnel.
Everything is about jobs here in Virginia, and if it isn’t, then it should be. Health care? The more people get private health care coverage, the more jobs will be available in the health care and health insurance industries. Energy? The more power plants, both nuclear and clean coal, we have, the more off-shore exploration we do, the more jobs we’ll have in both the long and short runs. Education? The more high school graduates go on to become college graduates, the better, higher-paying jobs they’ll be able to get.
Bob McDonnell is a far better choice for a “jobs” governor than any of the Democratic candidates. How can you draw businesses to a state if you raise taxes, like the Democratic candidates are proposing? Raising the minimum wage, like Brian Moran favors, may help the people who work at Burger King, but it won’t create jobs. And a perennial favorite Democratic project, light rail, is not a silver bullet for job creation; as much as everyone would like to believe otherwise.
Energy production is, though. A nuclear power plant at Lake Anna and a clean coal plant in Surrey would generate thousands, possibly tens of thousands of jobs and millions in revenue; not to mention making Virginia a national leader in energy. The Democratic candidates are opposed to these measures, though.
I like Creigh Deeds’ idea of transition training funding for people losing their jobs, but it’s a long-term solution. There are people who need jobs now, and they won’t get them by calling for more taxes and picketing businesses, like the Democrats have been doing this election cycle. While trying to draw Hilton Hotel’s corporate headquarters to the Commonwealth, all three Democratic candidates walked in a picket line outside of a Hilton!
The McDonnell-Bolling ticket is the best chance that Virginia has to create not only jobs but prosperity as well. States with the highest tax burdens, like California and New York, are in the greatest amount of trouble these days, while states like Texas, with practically no tax burden at all, are doing great. I’d much rather have a governor who will follow the Texas model of attracting business and revenue.
Okay SCRIBE, with your “where’s my food” whinning of a new-born infant, you apparently don’t even consider voting republican anyway. Your spoiled “me-first” mentality is exactly what’s driving our country and the economy into the toilet. That pork barrel spending for unemployment, leaves Virginia tax payers (apparently, that’s not you…) with a whopping huge bill in another year, when the committment is on the table to provide benefits and the feds will no longer continue to pay for that support. Who gets the bill for all of that? Prepare to dig even deeper into your wallet! I know unemployment is tough - I’ve been there before, and more than once. If you swallow your pride (assuming you have any to begin with), you can truck on down to the unemployment office and file for benefits. They are still there, and have not gone away.
Here we go again. The GOP is all talk,talk,talk. Hard to beleive they had the gall to mention diversity, and then trout out these three look-a- likes. All three appear to be defenders of the status quo policies that have brought their party to the brink of extinction. That the Republicans blocked the “UNEMPLOMENT EXTENTION” stimulas money, is still ringing very loud in my ear. That vote represented more than talk; that vote represented action on their part. And that it “may” have cost Virginia employers an extra $0.013 a day, per worker, is all I need to know about the “PARTY OF NO”! If they really believe Virginia workers are not worth a penny a day, then THEY are not worth my vote!!!
As a reporter, Mr Schapiro’s “factual style” article of today’s convention missed much of what could easily have been mentioned, and would have greatly added to a rather boring article. First of all, was that the convention talked heavily of returning the Republican Party to it’s “core values”, and getting away from trying to be like the Democrats. There were also several very stirring speeches by Bob McDonnell and Sean Hannity, but the two speeches that stole the day were from Pat Mullins, and a cadet whose name I do not know. He was the true hero today. His life story of his dad giving him his entire life savings to pay for him to move to the USA and attend college, his humbled respect to be a part of the American dream, and his ability to call himself an American, and not a Lebanese-American, brought to crowds to their feet many times. His message was that diversity is not America being accepting of different people, but that diversity is really many different people embracing America and being Americans. This cadet reminded us not only how great our country is, what how freedom, personal choice, and responsibility play in the success of all Americans.
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