(McAuliffe) Venture Threatens to Backfire in Virginia Governor’s Race
When Terry McAuliffe appeared with his good friend Bill Clinton at the ribbon-cutting for Mr. McAuliffe’s electric car company in July 2012, the campaign-style event, complete with “Born in the U.S.A.” blaring, was meant to supply the top line of his résumé as he positioned himself to run for governor of Virginia.
But less than a year later, the company, GreenTech Automotive, has become a potential embarrassment as Mr. McAuliffe campaigns on the slogan “Putting Jobs First” and seeks to keep the spotlight on the conservative social views of his Republican opponent, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the state attorney general.
Mr. McAuliffe resigned as GreenTech’s chairman last year but publicly acknowledged it only this month. Documents have surfaced questioning his explanation for why he located the plant in Mississippi, not Virginia, including memos from Virginia officials expressing “grave doubts” about his business model and suggesting its financing was a “visa-for-sale scheme” for Chinese investors.
Mr. McAuliffe, 56, a legendary Democratic fund-raiser who was chairman of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, said the struggles of GreenTech — which once promised 1,500 jobs but today employs only 78 at its plant — are typical of any start-up in a tough economy.
...
One of the first questions Mr. McAuliffe was asked when he announced his candidacy last year was why GreenTech located its factory in Tunica County, Miss. Mr. McAuliffe said Virginia officials “didn’t want to bid on it.”
But e-mails and documents obtained by PolitiFact under the Freedom of Information Act show that Virginia economic development officials were interested, though deeply skeptical about the company’s prospects.
“We have grave doubts about the business model presented to us,” Jeffrey Anderson, the director of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership at the time, wrote in a memo.
Officials also questioned GreenTech’s plan to attract Chinese investors using a visa program that awards green cards to foreigners who put up $500,000 or more for a start-up business. One development official wrote that she could not “get my head around this being anything other than a visa-for-sale scheme.”
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/us/in-virginia-governors-race-electric-cars-could-backfire-for-terry-mcauliffe.html?pagewanted=all
= new reply since forum marked as read
