Former DNC head to run in Virginia
Terry McAuliffe joins two other Democrats and a Republican seeking to be the next governor.
RICHMOND, Va. - Former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe said Saturday that he intends to run for governor of Virginia.
After months of speculation, McAuliffe announced his intentions in a video posted on his Web site. In the video, McAuliffe said he would make his intention to run official on Wednesday as part of a weeklong campaign kickoff.
The stops include town-hall meetings in Hampton Roads, Bristol, Richmond and other communities, where McAuliffe will put forth plans for job creation, education and renewable energy.
"Over the coming months we will travel to every corner of the commonwealth to ask all Virginians to join our campaign to get the economy moving again," McAuliffe said in the video.
In November, he established his campaign committee, Friends of Terry McAuliffe, with the State Board of Elections; secured the services of strategist Mike Henry; and began touring Virginia, but had not made his candidacy certain.
McAuliffe, 51, faces two other Democrats who have been active for nearly a year in an already contentious nomination fight to succeed Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine.
State Sen. Creigh Deeds narrowly lost the attorney general's race in 2005, and former House Democratic Caucus chairman Brian Moran is also in the race.
The Democratic nominee will face Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell, who is unchallenged for his party's nomination, in the Nov. 3 election.
A native of Upstate New York, McAuliffe has lived in Virginia for about 17 years. He lives in the Washington suburb of McLean.
McAuliffe brings to the race a national fund-raising base and profile that neither of his potential primary rivals could match. As chairman of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, McAuliffe helped her raise tens of millions of dollars. And as DNC chairman, he helped restore the fiscal health of a party that was broke and dispirited after Al Gore's wrenching 2000 presidential loss.
But McAuliffe also brings a political portfolio well to the left of Democrats Mark R. Warner and Kaine, who toiled in the state party for years before they were elected governor by campaigning as moderates.