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No one would confuse Terry McAuliffe with a policy wonk. The Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Virginia is more likely to be found slapping backs than cracking books. He has ascended in the political world through prodigious fundraising, not breakthrough thinking. All of which makes it even more telling that in his race against Republican Ken Cuccinelli, McAuliffe has almost completely embraced President Obama’s agenda on social issues and the environment. Virginia Democrats historically have sought a cautious middle ground on such questions, largely in hope of holding culturally conservative blue-collar, evangelical, and rural white voters long considered indispensable to statewide...

Hillary Clinton will campaign with Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D) this weekend. It will be Clinton's her first public campaign event since she left the Obama administration in February.

Hillary Clinton will campaign with Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D) this weekend. It will be Clinton's her first public campaign event since she left the Obama administration in February. Clinton will officially endorse McAuliffe at a "Women for Terry" event in Northern Virginia on Saturday afternoon, McAuliffe's campaign announced. This will be the former secretary of State's third event for McAuliffe, after hosting two fundraisers, and her first public campaign stop in years. The Clintons have long been close with McAuliffe. He headed the Democratic National Committee while President Clinton was in office and was a top fundraiser for...

Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Preibus called for Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to return campaign donations they received from a man who pled guilty to identity theft of the terminally ill.Clinton, Reid, and the DNC all received donations from Joseph Caramadre. Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe invested $47,000 in an illegal business in which Caramadre applied for annuities and bonds with the stolen identities of dying people.Caramadre donated $27,000 to McAuliffe’s last gubernatorial campaign in 2009 and hosted a fundraiser for the former DNC chairman. McAuliffe and his campaign immediately vowed to...

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) may be a slick politician and perhaps the next governor of Virginia, but that isn’t stopping the Washington Post from musing about his reputation as an embellisher and exaggerator on the campaign trail. Case in point: It’s a standard nugget in Terry McAuliffe’s stump speech, a tale of government procurement gone so bad that $800 taxpayer-funded chairs blocked the careers of 100 would-be nursing students. Very little of it is true. Here’s how the Democratic candidate for governor has been telling it: McAuliffe met a college president who grumbled about having to buy campus...

What I find most interesting here is that McAuliffe and a bunch of important people and entities — including Flanders’ law firm, the former Cranston Chief of Police, a large-scale bookie once sentenced to prison, and a monsignor who was a top official for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence — all found their way into this same get-rich-quick scheme. It’s smells a lot like something designed for people who think they’re too important to follow the law. I’m not a lawyer, but I can tell you this — if anyone ever approaches you with a guarantee that he can...

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was one of dozens of investors with a Rhode Island estate planner charged with defrauding insurers by using the stolen identities of terminally ill people, according to court documents filed Wednesday by federal prosecutors in Providence. McAuliffe’s name appeared on a lengthy list of investors with Joseph A. Caramadre, an attorney and accountant who obtained the identities of dying people to set up annuities that ultimately cost insurance companies millions of dollars, the documents say.

McAuliffe to donate funds from convicted Rhode Island businessman to charity Terry McAuliffe's name popped up today on a list of investors who bought annuities from a Rhode Island businessman who pleaded guilty in 2012 to stealing the identities of terminally ill patients. The convicted businessman, Joseph Caramadre, was also a donor to McAuliffe's failed 2009 bid for the Democratic nomination for governor of Virginia. Caramadre donated more than $26 thousand to McAuliffe and hosted a fundraiser for the candidate. Caramadre(Court sketch of Caramadre courtesy of WJAR) According to our NBC affiliate in Providence WJAR, there is no evidence that...

CRANSTON, R.I. - Terence McAuliffe, the former chairman of the national Democratic Party, was one of hundreds of people who invested in variable annuities that used terminally ill patients as the annuitants. McAuliffe and others became owners of the investment instruments through Cranston estate planner Joseph Caramadre. Caramadre pleaded guilty to stealing the identities of terminally ill patients and using that information to falsely apply for annuities and bonds with death puts. Prosecutors said Caramadre cost insurance companies between $37 million and $48 million from the scheme. Caramadre, with the help of a partner, would use personal information from terminally...

Election officials have compiled a list of 57,000 names of Virginians thought to have moved and put down roots elsewhere in the country. Election officials want to cross-check the names of nonresidents against the voter-registration lists and cross off the names of everyone who shouldn’t be voting in Virginia. Terry McAuliffe is obviously polling well among the dearly departed because his party tells the court that “the need for relief is urgent.” The lawsuit argues that “the [State Board of Elections] is rushing to complete the purging in time to have the desired effect on the upcoming election.” The appropriate...

The first round of Virginia gubernatorial polls conducted since the start of the government shutdown (remember: NoVa. Bureaucrats and contractors. SO many bureaucrats and contractors.) are out; I definitely wouldn’t go so far as to say that Cuccinelli “doomed,” but with both camps running ads disparaging the shutdown and trying to link to other guy to the ‘DC dysfunction,’ it doesn’t look like the situation has improved Cuccinelli’s fortunes. The first poll, via Politico, has McAuliffe at 54 percent and Cuccinelli at 44 percent in a one-to-one contest:

GOP efforts to demonize the EPA’s climate change regulations haven’t found a groundswell of support in Virginia, where voters are more likely to favor the rules than oppose them, according to a new poll commissioned by POLITICO. The poll, conducted by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling and the Republican firm Harper Polling using automated survey methodology, found that 45 percent of likely voters support new EPA climate regulations for coal-fired power plants, an issue that has become a flashpoint in the Virginia governor’s race. Thirty-three percent of likely voters say they oppose the regulations and 22 percent aren’t sure.

Terry McAuliffe said Tuesday that he supports new Environmental Protection Agency rules on carbon emissions, taking a clear stance for the first time on an issue that has become a key flashpoint in the Virginia governor’s race. … Asked about the issue again Tuesday during a tour of the Tyson’s Corner technology firm MicroTech, McAuliffe initially avoided a clear position again, saying: “I think we have to look at when the permits [for new coal plants] come in and look at how it applies and what the regulations are.” When a reporter pressed McAuliffe on whether he supports the guidelines...

A new Hampton University poll in the Virginia governor’s race shows Democrat Terry McAuliffe leading Republican Ken Cuccinelli II by 5 points in a contest that still appears up for grabs, pollsters said Thursday. The margins between the GOP and Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general were as close or closer.

Well isn’t this special… The ad opens by pointing out the hundreds of decisions that women make each day, from picking groceries to buying homes. “And we make them ourselves,” says the narrator, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Votes. “But Ken Cuccinelli is intruding on our most personal decisions.” Richards lists off some of Cuccinelli’s stances, including his call for a ban on all abortions, “even when a woman’s health is in danger.” “Cuccinelli doesn’t trust women,” Richards says at the end of the ad. “So how can we trust him to be governor?” Because going to the abortion...

With the embarrassment the three “er”s—Switzer, Wiener, and Filner—have created for the Democratic Party, one would think they would want to steer clear of scandal-ridden candidates. But—no. Terry McAuliffe is, once again, hoping to become the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia when voters go to the polls next month. Among his friends, McAuliffe is known as The Macker—which my sources tell me is a play on the Yiddish “Macher,” meaning: “Big shot. A man who is (or thinks he is) really important. Usually refers to someone who is showing off in some way.” I don’t cover campaigns. I write...

Recently, I wrote about “Stealth Socialism” in the US. That is a termed coined by Florida Democrat Alan Grayson. It refers to the Federal government takeover of the healthcare industry (Obamacare), the Treasury market (Fed manipulation), bailouts (GM, Chrysler, banks, etc), etc., etc. Remember, the architects of Obamacare, the Center for American Progress, estimate that Obamacare will create 4 million new jobs over the next ten years. And then there is another Stealth Socialism boondoggle for government cronies: green energy! First, the Obama Administration declared war on coal powered plants and is shutting down even more … even though the...

The Great Debate: McAuliffe’s All Show No Go Performance By John Fredericks If you like music, circus ring ponies and a light show than you were likely enamored by Terry McAuliffe’s gamesmanship performance last night at the nationally televised Virginia gubernatorial debate hosted by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce in Northern Virginia. McAuliffe’s all show and not much go brusque debate exhibition highlighted his one major vulnerability as this tiresome campaign’s final six weeks ticks down: he’s heavy on pizazz and light on substance. This reality was present all night as the grand presenter used his prime time showcase to...

Back in June, Equality Virginia Advocates announced our statewide endorsements. With Terry McAuliffe as Governor, Ralph Northam as Lieutenant Governor, Mark Herring as Attorney General, and LGBT-friendly leaders in the House of Delegates, we can keep the pendulum moving toward equality. Time is running out to make sure that the right leaders get elected to the House of Delegates. The stakes are high: this election could mean the difference of having Delegates who support the LGBT community or having discriminatory and backwards-looking Delegates who could care less about equality. Who would you rather see win the vote? Turnout is key...

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe's (D) website was updated Monday to show his commitment to bring Colorado-like gun control to the commonwealth. In the section titled "Investing in Virginia's Urban Centers," TerryMcAuliffe.com now contains the heading, "Support Common Sense Gun Control Measures." Under that heading, it says McAuliffe "will support mainstream and majority supported gun control measures like universal background checks, limiting the size of magazines, and a return to the 1-gun-per-month rule." The limitation on magazine capacity is a Colorado-like gun control measure that will put law-abiding Virginians at a disadvantage the moment it is enacted. This is because...