McDonnell Continues to Garner Praise

Here is the Wall Street Journal's take on the VA Governor's race:

Expect to start hearing a lot more about this: The Virginia’s governor’s race of 2009, as a test of whether Republicans know how to recover from a disastrous 2008 election cycle. “The guessing game about whether Republicans can bounce back is intensifying in Virginia thanks to the 2009 gubernatorial race–the first big political race of the Obama era,” writes Jennifer Rubin of The Weekly Standard. “Eight times since the 1970s, Virginia has elected a gubernatorial candidate from the party opposite to the one which captured the White House the prior year. Even aside from this historical trend, Republicans like their chances in Virginia.” Democrats, Rubin writes, “lack a dominating candidate like former governor and now senator Mark Warner or his successor, Tim Kaine, and are headed for a hotly contested primary. Former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe is spending heavily to overpower two other contenders, Brian J. Moran, until recently a state delegate, and state senator R. Creigh Deeds.”

Republicans, meanwhile, “have already settled on a candidate, Virginia attorney general Robert McDonnell. He is a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Army, a father of five (whose daughter just returned from service in Iraq), a Northern Virginia native, and a Catholic. He is conservative on social issues, but known for his bipartisan, workmanlike approach as AG and for his attempts to forge a deal on Virginia’s knottiest issue: transportation. Republican strategists think they finally may have a candidate suited to win across the state….There is certainly nothing ‘Old Virginia’ about McDonnell. He appears to be the quintessential Northern Virginia businessman.”



Here's an excerpt taken from the Washington Post:

Democrats face a formidable opponent in Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell, the GOP's nominee-to-be.

Unlike some past GOP candidates in Virginia, McDonnell starts the campaign with a unified Republican base.

McDonnell, who will run on a ticket with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R), can spend the next 10 months reaching out to suburban voters in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. (He grew up in Fairfax County and has spent his adult life in Virginia Beach.) McDonnell also plans to reach out to African American voters.