According to this item in Politico, Terry McAuliffe’s campaign for governor could be serving another end: as a shakedown cruise for Hillary Clinton’s possible presidential bid in 2016. And the link between the two is being sold like so many stays in the Lincoln Bedroom:
…McAuliffe and some of his top allies have suggested to big donors and consultants that supporting his campaign is a way to get in on the ground floor of Hillary 2016, several donors and operatives told POLITICO.
Not that everyone is happy with this old-fashioned access peddling:
The success or failure of McAuliffe’s campaign is a chance to measure Clinton’s strength and organization in a critical swing state that now rivals Ohio as the pivotal swing state for winning a presidential election.
McAuliffe’s campaign and most of its surrogates have officially discouraged the perception that he’s running a Hillary Clinton farm team, while some Clinton insiders privately bristle at suggestions by McAuliffe’s allies that his campaign will pave the way for her potential run.
It’s also unclear whether Clinton has privately endorsed the McAuliffe team’s fundraising pitches; thus far, she’s left the campaigning and fundraising to her husband.
And some of us will recall that Bill Clinton made a campaign swing through Richmond in 2009 for McAuliffe’s first gubernatorial campaign. It wasn’t much of a crowd pleaser and in the end was of no help to candidate McAuliffe, who got swamped in the primary by that tower of political might, Creigh Deeds.
But times have changed substantially since then. The shadow of the brutal 2008 contest between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama is long forgotten, Bill has become the true elder statesman in Democratic eyes (helped enormously by his star turn at the Democratic convention last summer) and McAuliffe is the all-but-coronated party nominee. There really are no impediments, then to McAuliffe privately painting his campaign as Hillary’s toy.
If we put good taste, and the whiff of selling access, aside. Far aside.
All of this is a gift to the Cuccinelli campaign. Used wisely, it could provide him with enormous dividends.
