Virginians’ mailboxes and TVs are becoming free-fire zones for gubernatorial candidates. In a mass-mailing to vote-rich Northern Virginia, Terry McAuliffe pelts his two foes in the June 9 Democratic primary and Republican Bob McDonnell. Meanwhile, a Democratic group, set up solely to attack McDonnell, began airing another television commercial depicting him as insensitive to the jobless.

Terry McAuliffe may have the Clintons, but Brian Moran’s got Camelot. Last night, at Hickory Hill, the famed estate that was at the center of the Kennedy dynasty, one large Irish Catholic family from Massachusetts opened their home to the youngest son of another. Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy, welcomed 278 people to her family’s manse for a fundraiser that the Moran campaign expected to raise $150,000 for his gubernatorial bid.

“When will our politicians realize their jobs are finished?“ humorist P.J. O’Rourke once asked. “When can we say of our political system, ‘stick a fork in it; it’s done’?“ Alas, the answer is: never—not so long as there are elections. It is not enough merely for candidates to proclaim that they will continue to maintain the sound policies and good governance of their predecessors. They must continually promise more, more, and yet still more—no matter how absurd the result.

Bob McDonnell, Republican candidate for governor, is reversing himself and now wants to reduce politics in legislative redistricting. Meanwhile, Brian J. Moran, one of the Democrats angling to oppose McDonnell, is pitching for traditionally GOP military votes by promising tax relief for military personnel overseas. As part of a good-government package with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, McDonnell on Thursday endorsed bipartisan redistricting—an idea he opposed as a legislator.

Here’s one controversy on which all four candidates for governor agree: Keep Guantanamo Bay prisoners out of Virginia. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brian J. Moran said yesterday, after a period of wait-and-see, that he now opposes holding and trying Guantanamo detainees here. He said as governor, his first priority would be keeping residents safe and that he would “do nothing to jeopardize their safety.“

The three Democratic candidates for governor used their final debate to question their rivals’ character and capacity to deliver on their promises. With 20 days left until the June 9 primary, the fifth debate, held at Northern Virginia Community College, featured some of the most pointed attacks among the candidates to date—underscoring the pressure on each to distinguish himself and appeal to the large pool of undecided likely primary voters who could determine the race.

Democrat Brian J. Moran keeps saying he’s a fighter, and Richmond-area voters will start seeing that today in his opening television ad—an attack on the perceived front-runner for the party’s gubernatorial nomination, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe. McAuliffe, running on the economy, is firing back with a spot in which he declares “false attacks won’t create jobs.“

Sure he was for Hillary Rodham Clinton, but Terry McAuliffe backed Barack Obama for president—and he has videotape to prove it. McAuliffe, who was chairman of the Clinton campaign, is knocking down a radio commercial on black-oriented stations by Democratic gubernatorial rival Brian J. Moran that questions his support of Obama. The McAuliffe-Moran duel, coming three weeks before the primary, spotlights the significance of the black vote in the June 9 balloting.

With three weeks left before the June 9 Democratic gubernatorial primary, candidates are pushing out policy proposals. Former Del. Brian J. Moran of Alexandria yesterday rolled out his plan for improved senior care. Moran’s “Silver Virginia” plan proposes creating an “aging czar” in the governor’s office to coordinate services for seniors, eliminating the waiting list for home-delivered meals, increasing fines for people who financially exploit seniors and investing in expanding the state’s weatherization program.

With just more than three weeks left in the contest for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Brian J. Moran is running another radio ad and could air his first TV ad starting tomorrow. The radio ads take aim at opponent Terry McAuliffe, who ran Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid. “Terry McAuliffe may have a lot of big money for his campaign, but don’t let that hide the truth. The truth is, Terry McAuliffe led the campaign that ran the ‘3 a.m.‘ attack ad against Barack Obama.

The proposed coal-fired power plant in Surry County has emerged as one of few issues that clearly divide the Democratic candidates for governor. On Jan. 22, former Del. Brian J. Moran of Alexandria announced his opposition to the plant, holding a news conference outside the Department of Environmental Quality headquarters in Richmond.

When Brian J. Moran was a child and his spinster aunt needed company in her Maine retreat, he was plucked from his friends and shipped north for the summer. When Moran’s father was dying, it was Brian who left college and moved home to nurse him. “He always got the responsibility of being the dutiful son,“ says his oldest brother, Rep. James P. Moran, D-8th.

With former President Bill Clinton in tow, Democrat Terry McAuliffe pitched his business experience as a stronger asset in this fall’s governor’s race than his two rivals’ legislative background. In the third campaign swing across Virginia with the former president known for a record peacetime economic expansion, McAuliffe focused on experience in a strategy to define the rest of the field as part of a legislature that too often impeded progress.

Out-of-state groups have pushed another $1.6 million into the Virginia gubernatorial race, which should help keep dueling TV ads on the air around the state. The latest cash infusion came in during the past week from the Democratic Governors Association and the Republican Governors Association, signifying the high stakes in the election.

NORFOLK Creigh Deeds wedges himself into the rear seat of his used navy Ford Explorer, pushing aside boxes of campaign literature and leaning against the passenger-side window to avoid the hanging suits and shirts in his traveling wardrobe. Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” is on the radio, and a large yellow bag of Halls menthol cough drops rests between the two front seats of the over-stuffed sport utility vehicle. But Deeds, 51—the Democratic state senator from rural Bath County and one of four men who want to be Virginia’s next governor—can’t afford to rest.