The RPV has a bit of video fun with Terry McAuluffe’s former car company, GreenTech:
Okay, it’s kinda funny. But as a serious matter, I have to wonder whether GreenTech Auto has any traction, so to speak, with the wider electorate. Yes, it’s fishy. Yes, it’s under federal investigation. And of course, the company’s founder rues the day he welcomed Terry McAuliffe on board.
I get all that. But does anyone else care? Probably not. If the numbers from the Quinnipiac poll are an accurate snapshot of the pre-Labor Day voter mood, folks are more interested in someone who shows empathy than in someone who can lead. This resurrects 20 year-old images of Bill Clinton biting his lip and feeling our pain. It was shtick. But it was also very effective. Republicans in general — and Ken Cuccinelli in particular — are incapable of competing on emotional ground.
But he can compete, and do so effectively, on policy. I’ve written that education reform is the way forward for Cuccinelli. It’s an issue that reaches the people he must have in order to win in November: suburban women. The McAuliffe campaign knows this, which is why they are beating Cuccinelli senseless over social issues. Recall that Bob McDonnell was just as hard-core on these matters as Cuccinelli (and at one time, so was Bill Bolling).
McDonnell was able to deflect that withering criticism in 2009 because he had a focus: the economy. That issue was his rock. The Cuccinelli campaign needs something similar. It’s education.
Not GreenTech.
