Sep 16, 2013

Terry McAuliffe profile: McAuliffe leading in polls

erry McAuliffe, Virginia’s Democratic candidate for governor against Republican Ken Cuccinelli, has just finished a campaign event in the back yard of a modest Annandale house. Afterward, he dutifully shakes hands, listens to a couple of heart-felt stories about suffocating financial burden and, as his former boss, Bill Clinton, would do with aplomb, assures them that he feels their pain.

But time is tight, and he needs to be whisked by his campaign personnel to another stop, so he shakes the last hand and ducks into the basement of the event’s organizer, plops into a chair on the side of the stairs.

Exhausted? Weary?

Nah. This is Terry McAuliffe, the whirling dervish of out-sized personalities. When asked why he wants to be governor of Virginia, he immediately begins to rattle off campaign talking points, “what I just talked about out there,” he says, motioning toward the basement door before being politely interrupted.

No, no, no. Not what you said out there.