Shutdown Puts Ken Cuccinelli, GOP Candidate For VA Guv, On Defensive

The federal government shutdown disproportionately affects residents of northern Virginia – which, in the middle of a heated state campaign for governor, is not helping the candidate of the party that bears the brunt of the blame for furloughs:

With polls indicating more public resentment toward Republicans than Democrats, the federal work stoppage directly affecting thousands of Virginia residents has forced Republican Ken Cuccinelli on the defensive while giving Democrat Terry McAuliffe an opening in a race that had been neck-and-neck for months. Now, public and internal surveys show voter support has started breaking McAuliffe’s way, with the Democrat leading by 8 percentage points in a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday. The same poll showed that by a nearly 3-1 majority, Virginians opposed Congress shutting down the government in a fight over President Barack Obama’s health care law.

The outcome of the Nov. 5 election in this swing-voting state could provide clues about how the issue will play in next fall’s House and Senate midterm elections — and give both parties a road map as they fight for control of Congress.

Cuccinelli, the conservative state attorney general, has sought to carefully distance himself from House GOP leaders and tea party lawmakers without alienating his conservative core supporters or moderate independents — particularly in the affluent and fast-growing Washington suburbs.

Earlier this month, Cuccinelli called on congressional Republicans to drop their insistence that Congress dismantle the health care law as a condition for reopening the government. Two days later, he appeared at a conservative Christian group’s fundraiser that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also attended. But Cuccinelli didn’t make any public mention of Cruz, the tea party hero who led the Senate GOP’s effort to defund the health care law.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.