Via It hasn’t even been 72 hours since the polls closed in Virginia, but already the state’s 2013 election is getting hot. Terry McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told supports yesterday that he will be seeking his party’s nomination in next year’s gubernatorial race, in hopes of achieving next year what he couldn’t do in 2009.
“After Tuesday, one thing is certain: Everyone needs a break from politics,” McAuliffe wrote in a note to his email list and posted on his website yesterday. So, of course, for McAuliffe that “break” lasted about five seconds, because he is running for Virginia’s top office once again. “I realize that after any election some people’s immediate question is about the next campaign. I want to be straightforward with you: I plan on running for Governor of Virginia in 2013.”
So much for that break. McAuliffe, since losing the 2009 Democratic primary to state Sen. Creigh Deeds (who went on to lose to Bob McDonnell), has mostly been running his electric-car startup GreenTech Automotive. The company got a nice, long look in The New York Times magazine in July in an article that anticipated McAuliffe’s new campaign.
Anyway, there will be no break from politics for Virginia. McAuliffe will be campaigning from now until next November. Not that a break really should have been expected. Republican candidates to succeed the term-limited McDonnell emerged several months ago, with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and Attorney General Ken “The Cooch” Cuccinelli vying for the GOP nod.
McAuliffe called for a “break from politics,” but based on the rest of his note, the DCist fact-checking machine is calling bullshit on that.
