Payback's a bitch:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Climate scientist Michael Mann has teamed up with NextGen Climate Action in a new web video posted last week, urging Virginians to vote against Republican Ken Cuccinelli in the governor's race.
Mann, a former University of Virginia professor, has been the subject of Cuccinelli's anti-climate science attacks. Beginning in April 2010, Cuccinelli attempted to use his position as the state attorney general to subpoena Mann's records and email correspondence, in order prove that the scientist's research constituted "fraud" against taxpayers in the state. The effort dragged on for two years and cost UVA hundreds of thousands of dollars, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
Mann, who is now the director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, campaigned against Cuccinelli in the state in July. Now he's taking to the web, accusing the attorney general of "trying to attack the science of climate change by attacking me." Mann's entry into the Virginia campaign marks an unusual step for a climate scientist.
"One would like to think that the attorney general would be representing the people of his state. Unfortunately, Ken Cuccinelli chose to spend the taxpayers' money, forced the University of Virginia to spend $600,000 defending itself, and untold millions of dollars mounting this attack," Mann says in the video, posted last Tuesday. "Those millions of dollars could have been used to help Virginians already start to cope with the impacts that we're already seeing of climate change." - Huffington Post, 10/17/13
Glad to see Mann return. Meanwhile, another poll shows Terry McAuliffe (D. VA) continuing to lead Ken Cuccinelli (R. VA):
http://www.timesdispatch.com/...
Three weeks from Election Day, another poll shows Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe hanging onto a lead over Republican Ken Cuccinelli, while the third-party candidate pulls double-digit support.
Buoyed by strong support among women, McAuliffe leads 46 percent to 39 percent among likely voters in a poll released Tuesday by the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University.
Libertarian candidate Robert C. Sarvis received support from 11 percent of the likely voters, and 4 percent of voters remained undecided.
“If the Sarvis numbers hold through Election Day, Virginia could elect its first governor with less than 50 percent of the vote in nearly 50 years, since Mills E. Godwin Jr. won 48 percent of the vote in a three-way race in the election of 1965,” said Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center. - Richmond Times Dispatch, 10/16/13
The poll also shows State Senator Ralph S. Northam (D) crushing E.W. Jackson (R) in the Lt. Governor race, 51/39 and a close race between state Senators Mark Obenshain (R) and Mark Herring (D), Obenshain is leading Herring by one point, 46/45. Here's another poll that has McAuliffe in the lead:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Democrat Terry McAuliffe continues to widen his lead over Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) in the gubernatorial race, according to a new NBC4/NBC News/Marist poll released on Thursday.
The poll found McAuliffe leading Cuccinelli 46 percent to 38 percent. That's a three-point increase from the poll's previous results last month, when McAuliffe lead 43 percent to 38 percent. The most recent poll also found Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis pulling in 9 percent of likely voter support. - TPM, 10/17/13
And McAuliffe keeps on building his support:
http://www.politico.com/...
Terry McAuliffe may have bagged the endorsements of transportation advocates in the contest to become Virginia’s governor, but voters aren’t necessarily won over by his support for the state’s plans to pour billions of dollars into new infrastructure.
McAuliffe backed the state’s $1.4 billion a year infrastructure law. He supports the Silver Line extension to Dulles Airport. He wants to build a light rail connecting Virginia Beach and Norfolk and add two lanes to a highway running along the state’s southern border.
His opponent, Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, opposes all of those plans and the tax hikes needed to pay for some of them, and he has sought to portray the transportation choice for voters as between “Union Terry” and “Frugal Ken.”
The push to invest more in infrastructure has won over many local politicians, editorial writers and business groups, but it hasn’t necessarily played as well among voters. It’s a problem that transportation backers have seen on the national level, where they have struggled for years to turn increased transportation funding into a populist cause. - Politico, 10/17/13
Meanwhile, the Cooch is out trying to win over female voters:
http://www.newsplex.com/...
Ken Cuccinelli has a woman problem in his quest for the governor's seat in Virginia. The latest poll out of Christopher Newport University shows a 14-point gender gap, with Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe receiving more than half of the female vote.
With three weeks to go before Election Day, Cuccinelli is hoping to narrow that gap and Wednesday he got a helping hand from South Carolina Governor and Tea Party favorite, Nikki Haley. During a campaign rally at the Republican Victory Office in Sachem Place in Albemarle County, Haley appealed to women voters.
"What is amazing to me is you can't just go and say, you were winning on woman's issues because everyone woman knows we're smarter than that," Haley told the crowd. "We don't decide based on one issue. We decide who we're gonna vote for based on a lot of issues." - Newsplex, 10/16/13
Might be too late for ya Kenny boy. Even the Washington Post knows he's going to lose and is already preparing for a McAuliffe governorship:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
McAuliffe’s overall success or failure would hinge largely on whether his world-class schmoozing and salesmanship could overcome strong resistance from the Republican-dominated House of Delegates.
He would have to hire a lot of smart help to offset his lack of knowledge of Virginia state government. He also would have to rein in his mercenary tendencies and set a needed example of rigorous integrity in Richmond.
Although the election is nearly three weeks away, recent opinion surveys have consistently shown McAuliffe ahead of his Republican opponent, Ken Cuccinelli II.
If he wins, McAuliffe would surely create a new style for the office. More colorful and showy than his predecessors, he would become Virginia’s Salesman in Chief, touring the nation and world pressing companies to invest in the commonwealth. - Washington Post, 10/16/13
But at least the Cooch still has the Duggars on his side:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Before her husband warned the crowd that Obamacare could lead to waiting lists for surgeries and before her oldest son deplored the president for bossing around state governments, Michelle Duggar shared some parenting advice with the hundreds of local moms and mostly female Liberty University students gathered in a school parking lot.
“As I train my kiddos, I tell them, we are going to be involved. We are going to make a difference for the cause of Christ,” said Duggar, the 47-year-old Arkansas mother of 19 children who has gained a dedicated following through the TLC reality show “19 Kids and Counting.” “And that is to stand for the values that God holds dear. . . . And we need to get behind those candidates that believe those values and help them to win.”
One such candidate, Duggar said, is Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, the Republican who is running for governor and is lagging in the polls. His photo was plastered on the side of a bus that carried the Duggar family — well, most of it — during a five-stop, three-day tour of the state this week.
The tour, sponsored by the Family Research Council’s political arm, started in Lynchburg and ended in Woodbridge in Prince William County, with stops in Richmond, Virginia Beach and Fredericksburg. The family spoke passionately about faith, family and freedom — plus abortion, education, health care, birth control and home schooling. The kids played religious tunes on violins and cellos and bowed their heads in prayer. - Washington Post, 10/16/13
By the way, I'm also happy to see Virginia Democrats still fighting this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Virginia elections officials say they have already purged nearly 40,000 names from the voter rolls, despite an ongoing lawsuit filed by Democrats seeking to keep those voters registered.
The Democratic Party of Virginia filed suit in federal court earlier this month over plans to purge as many as 57,923 names ahead of November’s gubernatorial election between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Ken Cuccinelli. State officials pushed for the purge based on evidence from a multistate database that the voters had subsequently registered in other states. Democrats say the list is riddled with errors.
Democrats are seeking an injunction that would order the purged voters restored to the rolls. A U.S. District Court judge is scheduled to hear arguments Friday.
In a court filing late Tuesday, the State Board of Elections said it has already purged 38,870 names, while keeping more than 11,138 on the rolls after county registrars conducted their own reviews. Another 7,285 have been left on the rolls but designated “inactive,” which technically keeps them on the rolls but requires them to fill out extra paperwork to cast a ballot in next month’s elections. - Washington Post, 10/16/13
Hopefully that will get resolved. By the way, even though the shutdown is over, McAuliffe is still attacking Cuccinelli for it:
Thousands of Virginians are back at work today after Congress finally ended the unnecessary, damaging government shutdown.
But my opponent's not focused on that progress. Instead, he told a reporter yesterday he was "disappointed" with the resolution of the shutdown.
The real disappointment here is that Ken Cuccinelli continues to put his Tea Party allies ahead of struggling Virginia families. Will you make sure your friends who vote in Virginia know about this?
http://action.terrymcauliffe.com/...
Virginia's next governor will make critical decisions that impact the lives of millions. We cannot afford for those decisions to be made by someone so ideologically beholden that he'd characterize the end of this damaging shutdown as anything other than progress.
Thanks for standing with me, and sharing to make sure your friends know what's at stake.
http://action.terrymcauliffe.com/...
- Terry
You can click here to share the graphic:
http://action.terrymcauliffe.com/...
