If money talks in politics, voters will be hearing a lot from the three Democratic candidates for governor during the next week. Perhaps Terry McAuliffe will be the loudest, with $1.2 million to spend in the countdown to next Tuesday’s primary. That trumps Brian J. Moran’s $707,000 cash balance and is about twice the nearly $522,000 held by R. Creigh Deeds.

In the final dash to the primary, one Democratic gubernatorial hopeful shopped for votes in a Richmond retail district. Another flooded mailboxes in Northern Virginia. The third dialed for dollars. Former Del. Brian J. Moran of Alexandria hit Carytown, telling small-business owners around a table in Jean-Jacques Bakery and Café that he, too, ran a small business and “had all the headaches that you do.“

Emphasizing jobs, Terry McAuliffe is extending his TV advertising to pricey Northern Virginia in the run-up to the Democratic gubernatorial primary. R. Creigh Deeds is retooling his advertising, weaving into a fresh spot on less costly downstate stations an editorial endorsement by The Washington Post that says the Bath County senator has the best chance of defeating Republican Bob McDonnell.

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.

In July 2007, when Terry McAuliffe was living and breathing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential candidacy 24/7, he squeezed in time as the headliner at a fundraising reception in Alexandria for an unlikely beneficiary: Brian J. Moran. Moran, then-chairman of the Virginia House Democratic Caucus and readying to run for governor, was harvesting dollars for his personal political-action committee. Little did McAuliffe or Moran know, they would become opponents for their party’s gubernatorial nomination.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and all four candidates for governor yesterday faulted Liberty University’s decision to revoke its recognition of the campus Democratic Party club on moral grounds.

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.