On the Pre-Debate Campaign Trail with Ken Cuccinelli

Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty July 11, 2013 On the Pre-Debate Campaign Trail with Ken Cuccinelli Ken Cuccinelli isn't showing any sweat. This is not to say he isn't sweating; it's just that he can hide it well as he walks through the Holly, Woods and Vines nursery and greenhouse in Alexandria, Virginia in a light-blue dress shirt, tie, and suit pants while in 80-degree heat with the region's traditional wet-mop-to-the-face mid-summer 88 percent humidity. I, meanwhile, have arrived straight from CNN's studios in a dark wool suit and can feel by body rapidly dehydrating as Cuccinelli talks to Vanessa Wheeler, the owner and proprietor of the nursery, about the challenges facing small businesses like hers. Photo credit: Jim. Pretty good for a writer, huh? The half-dozen other members of the press in attendance aren't interested in the shipping costs of begonias; the one big topic on their minds is the new revelation about additional gifts and donations from businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. to Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and his family. The latest news means Williams gave a grand total of $145,000 in gifts and loans to the McDonnell family in 2011 and 2012. With any more revelations, the scandal will stop being about a wealthy donor giving expensive gifts in a potential attempt to influence the governor and start being about a wealthy donor who vastly overpaid for alleged influence with a term-limited governor. Cuccinelli characterizes the allegations against McDonnell as a distraction from what he wants to talk about and what he contends is preeminent in the minds of most Virginia voters, the economy and job creation. (While Virginia's unemployment rate is relatively low, sequestration and other factors have clouded the jobs outlook in the state.) NBC's reporter asks Cuccinelli about his own failure to report gifts from Williams. "I inadvertently didn't report some things. I'm the one who went back and found them, and I'm the one who held a press conference and said, 'Hey, here are all my items.' I missed four or five over the course of four years. That's part of my commitment to transparency. When I make mistakes, I own up to them. Back in the senate I supported budget transparency and other changes like that. That's also a part of why I put out eight years of my tax returns, and I think my opponent ought to do that as well." (Cuccinelli also asked the Richmond Commonwealth's attorney to conduct an independent review of his disclosures.) Cuccinelli feels like he's got a pretty good defense. He doesn't merely not do special favors for his donors; he's something of an ingrate, because as attorney general, he's actually made decisions and fought suits against them. "Speaking for my office, the only thing [Johnny Williams Sr.] ever gotten out of my office is opposition to one lawsuit. So there's been nothing in our office other than that one case where we came out and immediately opposed their position . . . The perception is met best by facts, and the fact is that the one occasion that something came across the desk of the attorney general's office responsibility, they were pushed back on, they were fought, without giving an inch." This was a 2011 Star Scientific lawsuit, challenging a sales and use tax assessment on tobacco-curing barns the company owns in Mecklenburg, Va. Cuccinelli goes on: "Hey, look at my biggest donor in the last ten years. What did they get for it? They got an electricity bill that will drag Dominion's revenue down $700 or $800 million over the next twelve years. That's what they've got for it. Virginians will continue to get that good policy, regardless of who's supporting me or not." He appears to be referring to this case, where the "Virginia Supreme Court affirmed a decision of the State Corporation Commission (SCC) regarding Dominion Virginia Power's recently concluded base rate case. The court rejected the arguments advanced by Dominion, which would have allowed Dominion to earn a higher return on equity from customers than the SCC's interpretation of Virginia law allows." Cuccinelli and his office represented Dominion customers in the court fight. Cuccinelli is nine days away from his first debate with rival Terry McAuliffe, and there's a sense he and his team are itching to get the pair on stage, early and as often as possible. Cuccinelli's campaign proposed 15 debates, with one in every major and minor media market in the state. McAuliffe has countered with five debates, and it sounds like negotiations for the details and rules of the remaining debates are proceeding slowly and with great frustration. "It took like, a tractor-trailer to drag him to the [Virginia] Bar [Association] debate," Cuccinelli sighs during an interview on the ride over to the nursery. "They threatened to walk over one candidate-to-candidate question. So he asks me one, I ask him one. They were going to walk away from the debate for that." Why is Cuccinelli so eager to get out on the debate stage with McAuliffe, and so determined to get to ask his rival one question? Well, watch how Cuccinelli used his one question in a debate Steve Shannon back in the 2009 attorney general's race. Cuccinelli's one question: "How many divisions are there in the attorney general's office? And please name each one and explain briefly what each one does." Simple . . . as long as you've taken the time to familiarize yourself with the office you hope to win. Unfortunately, Steve Shannon didn't do the reading. Shannon responded, "So, I'll talk about that in just a second, but let me go [back] to the 2004 budget real quick . . ." Cuccinelli teased him about not answering the question, but Shannon continued with an answer that meandered slightly more than the Mississippi River: The first thing is that with the 2004 budget, we had proof that there were Virgina state troopers who were eligible for food stamps. And that budget allowed them to not be eligible for food stamps. We had sheriff's deputies who were able to get a pay raise. That was important to public safety and important for higher education. We've now came to the point of the election cycle where we play a game of gotcha.' Ken asks questions about the bureaucracy, and then I come back and say, 'Well, Ken, last week you told a reporter that hitting a cop was a misdemeanor, not a felony.' Or 'Ken, are you familiar with the case of Commonwealth vs. Thomas, it's a Court of Appeals case, very important to the criminal justice system.' It's about a prosecutor who went after a drug dealer in possession of firearms. Do you know what the holding in that case was? I know because I was the prosecutor in that case. But you know what, at the end of the day, it doesn't really doesn't matter. Because what matters is that every four and a half minutes, another violent crime is being committed in Virginia. The reality is that presence of gangs is at its worst point since 2000. It's not getting better, it's getting worse. [audience begins to chuckle at meandering answer] The reality is, you can laugh, but there are 357 pedophiles right now who are using computers in Virginia to trade child pornography. We know who these people are, we know how to get them, but we don't devote sufficient resources to them. But what does Ken want to talk about? He wants to talk about arcane questions. He wants to talk about details of the bureaucracy. You know what? The reality – the reality is that kids are being abused in Virginia right now, and if you want to focus on the bureaucracy you're clearly going to vote for Ken. But if you want somebody who's been a prosecutor, who's going to go after those pedophiles, who's going to go after those gang leaders, who's going to go after drug dealers, who doesn't need on-the-job experience, those are the people who I want to vote for me." I asked Cuccinelli, "Is it safe to assume that given the opportunity, you might ask about some of the specifics of Virginia governance, and that you may, perhaps, have some doubts about Terry McAuliffe's familiarity with all that?" For the first time in my presence, Cuccinelli really smiles. "Perhaps." Cuccinelli and his team expect McAuliffe to try to shift the debate to social issues, early and often. McAuliffe and his campaign appear to believe that in order to win the governor's race, they need Virginians to believe that his rival is really Todd Akin. Cuccinelli and his campaign appears to believe that in order to win, they need Virginians to believe that his rival is really Terry McAuliffe. Finally, in news you can use, Holly, Wood and Vine features Biker Chick Garden Gnomes. You're welcome. Eliot Spitzer: Former Governor, Candidate for Comptroller, Lunatic? The New York Post's John Podhoretz offers an anecdote about Eliot Spitzer: True story: Five years ago, a few months after Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace, I was having breakfast with a friend who'd just suffered a serious and painful loss when a civic project in which he deeply believed and in which he had sunk a great deal of capital went bust. Spitzer, in jogging gear, came into the restaurant, spotted us, and ran over to the table. "So you're out of business?" said the ex-governor with a bizarre grin. "I mean, come on, it was never going to work, right? You knew that, right?" His behavior was so glaringly inappropriate, so tonally deaf and such a weird assault for a man who had supposedly been humbled as he had been humbled, that I figured something out I had not understood until that moment: Eliot Spitzer is nuts. I don't mean he's nuts in a tinfoil-hat sense. I mean that he doesn't respond to reality in a normal way, and therefore misjudges reality and himself. Podhoretz lays out previous examples of odd, bizarrely hostile or risky behavior from earlier in Spitzer's career, including using the state police to gather dirt on political rivals. (Hey, how did that story get so completely overlooked?) I'm certain you'll be shocked to learn Spitzer blamed rogue staffers, breaking the law without the boss' knowledge or consent, for that one. March 12, 2008: Governor Eliot Spitzer admits he was unfaithful to his human shield, Silda. But perhaps a big reason Spitzer currently believes that he's ready to return to public office, and that his past scandals are ancient history, is that a lot of high-powered folks in the media were ready to forgive and forget within a few months of his resignation. Spitzer resigned March 12, 2008; he wrote a Washington Post op-ed in November, and he signed a deal to write columns for Slate by December 2008. (The innocuous tagline for his Post op-ed: "Eliot L. Spitzer was governor of New York from 2007-08 and state attorney general from 1999-2006.") By September 2009, he was an adjunct professor at City College of New York. By April 2010, Spitzer was guest-anchoring MSNBC programs, and by June 2010, CNN decided that this was the guy they wanted kicking off their prime-time news coverage, along with Kathleen Parker. (Really, what did she ever do to deserve that assignment?) Few things are quite as depressing as this little nugget in a New York magazine piece about the state of the television-news industry: "In June, he announced that he would hire the famously black-socked and disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer. [CNN head Jonathan] Klein faced stiff internal resistance to hiring Spitzer. When one CNN executive expressed to Klein the concern that viewers risked being turned off by Spitzer's hooker scandal, Klein had snapped, 'I don't give a [f-word].'"  Is this insanity thing catching? Anyway, it seems that wherever Spitzer went, he found people who had no problem entrusting him with a prominent role at their institution despite his previous glaring misdeeds. Spitzer's CNN show flopped, and was canceled by July 2011; but by March 2012 he was back in cable news, replacing Keith Olbermann on Al Gore's Current TV. Slate, MSNBC, CNN, CUNY . . . all of these institutions decided they had no problems hiring Spitzer, and in CNN's case, giving him one of their most plum jobs, anchoring the 8 p.m. hour. So why would those networks scoff at his return to high office? Matt Hadro noticed that CNN wasn't eager to mention their past hiring of Spitzer: Spitzer was originally hired by CNN as a liberal voice, to co-host a prime-time show with "conservative" Kathleen Parker that debuted in October of 2010. When Parker left the show months later in February of 2011, Spitzer – originally hired for his liberal bias – became the sole host of In the Arena, which was canceled later in July. Yet CNN only disclosed this information twice in its seven reports on Spitzer's candidacy for New York City comptroller. Did any of Spitzer's co-workers witness the kind of odd outbursts and behavior that Podhoretz describes? Do any of Spitzer's former colleagues share the opinion that he's not merely shameless or brazen, but not quite right in the head? And should a person with those issues be trusted with high office? Former congressman David Wu, what do you think? "ROAR!" Thank you, Congressman. ADDENDA: Chad Pergram, who covers Congress for Fox News, notices, "Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., says pulling out food stamps from farm bill reminds him of sequestration. 'And with sequestration, disaster happened.'" Looking at the IRS scandal, the NSA and the Snowden fiasco, our Egypt policy, the Syrian bloodbath, the Obamacare implementation, peace negotiations with the Taliban, and so on . . . isn't sequestration perhaps the least disastrous thing that's happened lately? NRO Digest — July 11, 2013 Today on National Review Online . . . MARK KRIKORIAN: Long before the first amnestied immigrant gets a vote, the immigration bill will be a political disaster for the GOP. A Political Trainwreck. JONATHAN STRONG: A meeting on immigration reform highlights fault lines in the House GOP. House Divided. JONAH GOLDBERG: Why aren't "civil libertarians" outraged about the invasion of privacy Big Government involves? Civil Libertarians and the NSA. VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: With hate speech, it's the perceived ideology of the perpetrator that matters most. Supposed Crimes of the Mind. KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: The FCC is spending billions subsidizing phone service for high-end ski developments and golf resorts. The $100,000 Obamaphone for Millionaires. ELIANA JOHNSON: The junior Kentucky senator is taking a personal approach to winning over various minority groups for 2016.  'Rabbi Rand Paul.' IAN TUTTLE: Doctors are doing what's necessary to keep Guantanamo Bay hunger strikers alive, not torturing them. Mos Def's Force-Feeding Agitprop. CONRAD BLACK: There is reason to worry about Egypt, but the army is going in the right direction. The Legitimate Egyptian Coup. CLIFFORD D. MAY: An Egyptian mystery with no easy answers — and no heroes. Murder on the Democracy Express. JOHN WOHLSTETTER: Not all democracies are created equal. How to Think about Egypt's Revolution. IMPROMPTUS: Jay Nordlinger on politics, Snowden, broccoli, and more. Weiners and Spitzers, &c. To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com Save 75%... Subscribe to National Review magazine today and get 75% off the newsstand price. Click here for the print edition or here for the digital. National Review also makes a great gift! Click here to send a full-year of NR Digital or here to send the print edition to family, friends, and fellow conservatives. Conservatives — stay healthy! Get plenty of Vitamin Sea on the next National Review cruise. Visit www.NRCruise.com for complete information. Follow Tweet Listen Send National Review, Inc. Manage your National Review subscriptions. We respect your right to privacy. View our policy. This email was sent by: National Review, Inc. 215 Lexington Avenue, 11th Floor New York, NY 10016