KEN CUCCINELLI THROWS THE KITCHEN SINK AT TERRY MCAULIFFE DURING FRIDAY'S FORUM

KEN CUCCINELLI THROWS THE KITCHEN SINK AT TERRY MCAULIFFE DURING FRIDAY'S FORUM

August 8, 2013, Politico

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WATCH DEBATE HERE:

http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/269960/188/WATCH-Cuccinelli-McAuliffe-at-Virginia-governors-forum

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Ken Cuccinelli slams Terry McAuliffe at forum By: James Hohmann August 9, 2013 01:16 PM EDT MANASSAS, Va. — Republican Ken Cuccinelli threw the kitchen sink at his Democratic opponent Friday, using a forum here to unload the most blisteringly negative and far-reaching attacks yet of an already nasty governor’s race.

The attorney general highlighted Terry McAuliffe’s role in several Clinton-era scandals and called the underlying job-creator rationale for his candidacy “all a lie.”

“He’s the person who invented the scheme to rent out the Lincoln Bedroom and proudly bragged about selling seats on Air Force One for political donations,” Cuccinelli told hundreds of local business leaders in a dark and chilly auditorium on the George Mason University campus. “He’s an unindicted co-conspirator in a union election money-laundering case! He has famously given over a million-dollar gift loan to the president of the United States!”

McAuliffe gave Bill Clinton a loan to buy his first home when he left the presidency after a handful of other Democrats declined to. The “unindicted co-conspirator” shot was a reference to the 1999 trial of the Teamsters’ former political director for a scheme in which McAuliffe allegedly urged Democratic donors to donate to the Teamsters president’s reelection in exchange for the union spending big sums helping Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection.

Speaking to reporters after the 90-minute event (each candidate took 45 minutes of questions alone on the stage), McAuliffe called his opponent desperate but did not specifically respond to what he dismissed as “misleading” charges.

“He’s on the wrong side of every major issue, so all he can do is personal attacks,” the Democrat said, going on to attack Cuccinelli for his position on abortion, contraception and gay rights.

Cuccinelli mocked McAuliffe for claiming to have created 100,000 jobs during his failed 2009 bid for governor. Then he highlighted a Washington Post report from last week that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating GreenTech, the electric car company McAuliffe once led and quietly left at the end of last year.

“Claiming to create more jobs than Bill Gates? That’s my opponent,” he said. “His company … is currently under investigation by the SEC, another federal agency and Congress for fraud and multiple investigations for a scheme to sell visas to wealthy Chinese investors, at least one of which was a known security risk.”

Cuccinelli copped to his failure to initially disclose gifts received from Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams, but he said he handled it differently than McAuliffe would have.

“When I made mistakes in reporting my financial disclosures, I was the one who discovered it,” he said. “So what did I do? I called a press conference to own up to it. And my name has been cleared. That stands in stark contrast to Terry McAuliffe.”

McAuliffe again reiterated his call on Cuccinelli to pay back $18,000 in gifts from Williams.

Cuccinelli noted that while Gov. Bob McDonnell (who has returned the gifts) received a Rolex watch and took huge loans, he did less tangible things like borrow empty houses and eat a Thanksgiving dinner.

“I’ve returned what I can,” he said. “If I could write a check … I would. That’s just not something I can do.”

During the forum, Cuccinelli also attacked McAuliffe for refusing to release his full tax returns — even after he demanded that Mitt Romney do so last year.

“Transparency is about trust. I’ve been transparent, and Terry hasn’t,” he said. “You may not always agree with me, but you’ll always know where I stand.”

The forum was sponsored by four Northern Virginia chambers of commerce (Reston, Loudoun, Prince William and Fredericksburg), so the focus was on economic issues. Much of the discussion was about transportation, Medicaid expansion and tax policy.

Asked about the race’s race to the bottom afterward, Cuccinelli said he spent three-quarters of his time outlining a positive case for why voters should support him, but that the press will focus only on the negative.

While McAuliffe referred repeatedly and always to “my opponent,” Cuccinelli mostly called McAuliffe “Terry.”

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