Virginia's governor's race turns nasty

BOB LEWIS, AP Political Writer

MANASSAS, Va. (AP) — Dirty politics is as old as Virginia itself, but an escalating practice of matching insult for insult, allegation for allegation in a season of political scandal is devouring both gubernatorial candidates' efforts to communicate their policy positions.

Don't believe me? OK, outline for me in 15 seconds or less Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli's position on the automatic restoration of rights for nonviolent felons. Same thing for Democrat Terry McAuliffe's position on oil drilling off Virginia's coastline. And no fair Googling the answers.

Ah, the sound of crickets chirping.

Now, in that same short span, tell me about McAuliffe's ties to GreenTech Automotive or Cuccinelli's relationship with Jonnie Williams and his company, Star Scientific.

Whoa! One at a time, folks.

The emerging national narrative about America's only competitive 2013 gubernatorial race is that of a race to the bottom, a fight to the political death between two larger-than-life major-party nominees as different personally and politically as any two people could be, each resolved to make his opponent's considerable flaws fatal.

The already sulfurous atmosphere between the two got another infusion of acid Friday at a forum before business leaders in this affluent Washington, D.C., suburb of northern Virginia.

McAuliffe again assailed Cuccinelli over gratuities from Williams and Star Scientific and portrayed him as a rigid conservative ideologue whose positions on women's reproductive rights, gay rights and climate science would "put up a wall around Virginia" and scare business from the state.

Cuccinelli, however, resurrected a decades-old entanglement from McAuliffe's days in the 1990s as a master rainmaker for the Democratic Party and, more importantly, the Clinton White House to label McAuliffe an "unindicted co-conspirator." The five-minute tongue-lashing Cuccinelli loosed on McAuliffe evoked murmurs and some gasps in the Manassas crowd of hundreds.

The hatchet work continues behind the scenes as well. Both campaigns and their allied political action committees disgorge more press releases and blog posts hyping the opponent's real and imagined failings than those detailing policy positions. And operatives regularly offer journalists neatly organized packages of allegations poisonous to the opposition. Usually, they presume to do so "off the record" or "on background," hoping to keep their fingerprints off any story that emerges.

When the stories check out, the press corps — present company included — sometimes obliges, serving a role in the political ecosystem. In the Machiavellian craft of modern politics, those mainstream media stories become priceless excerpts used and prominently credited in attack ads to lend them greater validity.

Smash-mouth politics usually works. It's intended to create enough doubt, distrust or disgust among an opponent's likely voters that they stay home on election day. This year in Virginia, however, McAuliffe and Cuccinelli are on the verge of taking it too far, says veteran Democratic consultant Mo Elleithee.

"In every campaign, it is incumbent not only to make an affirmative case for your candidate but also to point out contrasts with the opponent. The problem is that too often, campaigns can venture into the area of mutually assured destruction and find they can't make that affirmative case anymore," said Elleithee, who worked for McAuliffe's 2009 failed gubernatorial bid but is sitting out the 2013 races.

Political pros figure the lower the turnout, the better Cuccinelli's chances because of his cadre of conservative supporters who would belly-crawl over broken glass to vote Nov. 5.

The candidates themselves insist they're preaching pure political gospel.

"If you're on the road and you listen to every speech I give every day, I walk through for about 18 minutes exactly what I'm going to do with specifics on job creation, I talk about education, ... what we have to do on transportation," McAuliffe said Friday. Then, with his next breath: "When I talk about differences — a social, ideological agenda, an attack on women, an attack on women's health centers ... referring to gayVirginians as selfless and soulless human beings. I've got to tell you, ... that is not how we make Virginia open and welcoming."

Cuccinelli acknowledged the rhetorical battering he gave McAuliffe on Friday but said he spent more time talking up his own record and proposals. He also said the race was living down to the press's early expectation of a savage campaign.

"In the spring, there were plenty of ... news outlets, before anything had gotten particularly negative, reporting that that was their expectation. I think that some of the media is generating a self-fulfilling prophecy," Cuccinelli said, adding the hard-fought race "includes both the positive and the negative."

Maybe they'll change their tone. They've changed on other things.

Remember those questions earlier about Cuccinelli's and McAuliffe's policy positions? Cuccinelli now supports restoring voting and other rights for people who've done their time for nonviolent crime, but he opposed it a few years ago. And McAuliffe, who thundered against oil drilling off Virginia's shores in his 2009 race, now supports it.

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Bob Lewis has covered Virginia government and politics for The Associated Press since 2000.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

August 11, 2013