Sure, what Terry McAuliffe needs to get elected governor of Virginia is better staff than he had in 2009

Pick your poison -- D vs. R

"[S]ome Democrats said privately that both McAuliffe and his team were disillusioned after the [2009] primary loss, making it unsurprising that a different cast would be in place this year."

-- from Ben Pershing's WaPo report, "Building campaigns,
McAuliffe cleans house while Cuccinelli keeps old hands"

by Ken

It doesn't seem to happen as often as it used to -- crackpot right-wing lurkers denouncing us here at DWT for bad-mouthing their slime-sucking heroes while giving a pass to what they view as satanic Democrats. Is it possible that people have actually noticed that there aren't a lot of Dems of whom we're especially enamored?

You'd think, as GOP office-holders and -seekers have been overwhelmingly reduced to life forms that should be confined to cages, there would be an opening for better Dem candidates. Foolish illusion! As we've discovered, almost the exact opposite has happened: The money-worshipping powers-behind-the-Dem-scenes have gleaned the message that all they have to do is throw out candidates who are microscopically better than the pathological specimens occupying the R slot on the ballot.

Maybe this is why I can't resist stories about the upcoming Virginia governor's race. With fake-moderate Gov. Bob "Good Hair" McDonnell term-limited, the GOP nomination has fallen almost by default to one of the more toxic specimens in the political firmament, AG "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli, about as extreme a statewide office-holder as I'm aware of, and a candidate to the right even of his state's extremely conservative party. As we know, passed-over Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who has been showing surprising independence in exercising his tie-breaking power in the deadlocked State Senate, abandoned the idea of running as an independent, even though a lot of people -- himself and myself included -- thought there might be an opening for a non-sociopathic Republican candidate. The problem: money. Bolling just didn't see where the kind of money he would need to mount a serious challenge was going to come from, and that by itself would have been enough to scare off lots of potential donors who would have worried that they were throwing their money down the drain.

Now you'd think that a candidate as loathsome as Cuckoo Ken might present an opportunity for a serious Democratic candidate. Instead the best Virginia Dems have been able to come up with his Mr. Moneybags, Terry McAuliffe. You'll recall that Moneybags Terry already made a run for the governorship last time around, and finished a distant second in a dismal Dem primary field.

What makes the Virginia gubernatorial contest so emblematic for me is that up against a dismal and likely vulnerable GOP candidate, the Dems are prepared to put up . . . well, nobody. And one of the political guidelines I believe in is that you can hardly ever beat somebody, no matter how appalling a somebody, with nobody.

Now you or I might have drawn the lesson from Moneybags Terry's previous shot at the governorship that the campaign never got to the basic issue: that it's virtually impossible to give voters any reason why they should vote for the guy. Naturally, this isn't at all the lesson that our Terry drew. He's not exactly laying all the blame for 2009 on staff, but it doesn't seem entirely coincidental that his 2013 team is almost entirely new.

Building campaigns, McAuliffe cleans house while Cuccinelli keeps old hands

By Ben Pershing, Washington Post

Four years after his failed campaign for Virginia governor, Democrat Terry McAuliffe brings to a second bid the lessons of a disappointing loss and a statewide network of contacts. But hes not bringing his staff.

For the tight race against Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, the Republican nominee, McAuliffe has hired a new cadre of aides and consultants, forgoing nearly all of the team that piloted him to a distant second-place finish in the 2009 Democratic primary. By contrast, Cuccinelli is sticking with the core of operatives who ran his attorney general campaign, and has hired some key players from Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's orbit in Richmond.

Both campaigns -- coterie of pollsters, fundraisers, admakers and turnout specialists -- will be widely watched because Virginia's gubernatorial contest is considered the most competitive proving ground for Republicans and Democrats ahead of next year's midterm races and the 2016 presidential election.

While Cuccinelli's retention of longtime aides is a strategic move to stick with what has worked, McAuliffe's decision to go with a new team is unusual because candidates, even those who have lost, rarely clean house so thoroughly.

"I'd say 100 percent turnover is quite unusual," said Republican operative Kevin Madden, who worked for Mitt Romney's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. "Usually what you have is a core nucleus of folks that have worked for you for a long time."

The benefit, Madden said, is that "campaigns go through some very difficult times . . . and it's usually that familiarity that the former staff have with each other that helps you through those times."

Patrick Hallahan, a longtime McAuliffe confidante, is the lone aide from the last race who is back for the second round, now as a senior adviser. But former campaign manager Mike Henry is now chief of staff to Sen. Timothy M. Kaine (D). Top adviser Mo Elleithee and pollster Pete Brodnitz are working with other clients. From the press shop, Delacey Skinner has moved on to a consulting business, and Elisabeth Smith is an adviser to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D).

Although circumstances differ with each aide, some Democrats said privately that both McAuliffe and his team were disillusioned after the primary loss, making it unsurprising that a different cast would be in place this year.

Jessica Taylor, who analyzes gubernatorial contests for the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, said a clean slate made sense given McAuliffe's poor performance in 2009.

"What Democrats in the state say [McAuliffe] has to do is run a different campaign, a more disciplined campaign . . . ," Taylor said. "Especially four years later, he probably thought it was time to bring in some new blood." . . .

I suppose it's too much to hope that Moneybags Terry might grasp that the fundamental problem with any political campaign he may wage is the candidate. The result is a dismal choice for Virginia voters this November.

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