Health & Fitness
Governor McDonnell and the Failed Campaign to Become VP
We have recently seen news that Governor Bob McDonnell is not being vetted for a VP slot, I think this is a good time to go through the chronology of his campaign and how it all came unraveled.
Since we have recently seen news that Governor Bob McDonnell is not being vetted for a VP slot on the Romney ticket, I think this is a good time to go through the chronology of his campaign to become the Vice President and how it all came unraveled.
November 2009: Bob McDonnell overcomes an anemic series of attacks on his character based on his grad school thesis that critics said denigrated working women and argued against equal rights for homosexuals.
October 2010: Governor McDonnell visits Iowa and New Hampshire to campaign for Republicans in the pending mid-term election. Those are two interesting choices, and for a governor in the first year of his term to be campaigning on a national stage is an interesting choice.
Find out what's happening in Fredericksburgwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
August 2011: Gov. McDonnell is named the new chair of the RGA as Rick Perry begins to contemplate a presidential run as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney.
Summer-Fall 2011: Gov. McDonnell appears at a handful of fund-raising events with presidential candidate and predecessor as head of the RGA Rick Perry. He deliberately stops short of endorsing Rick Perry at any of these events, which was an interesting choice considering all of their policy similarities and reported personal friendship.
Find out what's happening in Fredericksburgwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
(For a great example of this, see: http://hamptonroads.com/2011/07/bob-mcdonnell-and-rick-perry-talk-2012)
January 2012: The Governor officially endorses Mitt Romney the night before the South Carolina primary. He misread the tea leaves on this one and came out too early, as the big news story that day wasn't McDonnell's endorsement but was instead yet another resurgence of the Gingrich campaign. But McDonnell's endorsement was likely an attempted signal to Southern conservatives that Romney was a good candidate and the likely winner. Up until this point he has positioned himself well.
February/March 2012: The VA legislature moves on a number of social issues, including the infamous transvaginal ultrasound bill. The bill itself is ultimately weakened at the Governor's request, but at this point not only has the damage been done by the left but social conservatives were left unsatisfied by the compromise. Meanwhile, the Governor is ridiculed on Jon Stewart's late night show.
(http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-february-21-2012/punanny-state---v...)
March 2012: Patch blogger Arnold Smithson predicts that McDonnell's VP run has ended whether the Governor is aware of it or not.
http://fredericksburg.patch.com/blog_posts/overstepping-a-mandate-and-en...
April 2012: in his final piece of self-promotion, "Opportunity Virginia", a PAC setup to support the Governor, spends several hundred thousand dollars on ad time across the state of Virginia and DC running an ad touting Governor McDonnell's job creation record. This is seen as a video resume aimed at attracting Mitt Romney's attention.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjAvJNIuthk)
May 2012: Governor McDonnell admits he hasn't been vetted by Mitt Romney for a role as VP, and admits he is planning on finishing his term as VA Governor through 2014.
Things could still change, but as I said in March there are too many better choices for the VP slot. McDonnell will have to hope people forget by 2016 if he has any remaining hopes for a national political career. If not, there's still possibly a Senate run in his future.
