Ken Cuccinelli’s Incredibly Lackluster Campaign

[DonViejo]

by Lloyd Green Oct 7, 2013 5:45 AM EDT

He’s underfunded, underfavored, and uncool. And Ken Cuccinelli isn’t getting any help from Ted Cruz either. Lloyd Green on how Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate is running scared.

Ken Cuccinelli is running scared. At a Saturday night gala of the Family Foundation, Cuccinelli avoided taking the stage together with the driving force of the government shutdown, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Cuccinelli also dodged joint photo-op with Texas’ junior senator, and let it be known that he asked Cruz to compromise on the budget stalemate. Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate wants to be liked enough by the furloughed federal employees who live in Northern Virginia’s suburbs, but he also wants to associate himself with Cruz, but not too much. That kind of dexterity requires tremendous personal and political talent, which Cuccinelli lacks.

And if a government shutdown isn’t enough to complicate Cuccinelli’s lackluster campaign, there are always the polls and Robert Sarvis, the Libertarian gubernatorial nominee. The latest numbers show Cuccinelli trailing Democrat Terry McAuliffe by about five points, with Sarvis running third, and garnering at least 10 percent of the vote.

Third party candidates are supposed to be asterisks or jokes, but Sarvis is neither, and that’s not good news for Cuccinelli. Sarvis, a software engineer and lawyer, is getting most of his support from white voters, men, and middle aged Virginians. In other words, Sarvis is making a real dent among Cuccinelli’s prime voting base.

The fact that Sarvis is also doing particularly well among voters under 30 further highlights the gap between the Republican Party and younger Americans. There seems to be little that Cuccinelli can do about any of this. Underfunded, underfavored, and uncool is not where any politician wants to be. But, that is exactly where Cuccinelli is right now.

full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/07/ken-cuccinelli-s-incredibly-lackluster-campaign.html

[DFW]

1. Yeah, but have pity on the guy. Look what he's got to work with.

How would YOU like to run an election campaign where the candidate you have to offer is Ken Cuccinelli?

[Mass]

2. They wanted him. They voted for him against the wish of the Republican establishment.

They have to live with him. Hopefully, his loss will be resounding, but unfortunately, even if it resounding, this will not stop the GOP to put crazies on the ballot.

[kwolf68]

3. Was it A Cuccinelli

someone in his family that had a funeral for a miscarried fetus? I may very well be wrong, but I seem to recall a few years back something like this.

[Chan790]

4. That sounds like Rick Santorum and the "Baby Gabriel" story.

Even if you think Colmes crossed the line, you have to admit the Santorums taking their dead child home to be “introduced” to their three living children is pretty bizarre. (The story of the incident seems to have originated in the candidate's wife Karen’s book, Letters to Gabriel.)

Considering Santorum’s hardline Catholic views on abortion (he favors the criminalization of all abortion and supports states’ rights to ban contraception), it’s tempting to read the anecdote through the lens of the pro-life movement’s morbid fetishization of the fetus, from plastic embryos to grisly posters and billboards designed to show that fetuses are human beings.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/03/rick-santorum-s-dead-baby-ritual0.html