McAuliffe, Cuccinelli Vie for Women's Vote in Virginia Governor's Race

Planned Parenthood endorsed Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe Thursday, hours after the Democrat bashed opponent Ken Cuccinelli on the abortion issue.

McAuliffe painted his Republican opponent, Virginia's attorney general, as an ideologue Wednesday night at a campaign stop in Lorton. Specifically, McAuliffe focused on abortion. 

"I'm running against a guy who has a social, ideological agenda," said McAuliffe of Cuccinelli. "He has said that it is his goal to see abortion disappear in the United States of America."

Planned Parenthood® Action Fund (PPAF), the political arm of Planned Parenthood, so far has donated a little more than $30,000 to McAuliffe's campaign in Web services, according to Virginia Public Access Project. It has a Web site called Keep Ken Out. Web ads by Planned Parenthood's political arm launched this week.  These ads show an image of Cuccinelli popping up in places "where he doesn't belong," such as weddings and doctors' offices, the Huffington Post reported.

An anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony List, reportedly donated $1.5 million to the Cuccinelli campaign in February, according to Politico.

McAuliffe launched "Women for Terry," Thursday in Richmond, a group of Democratic supporters headed up by former Virginia first ladies. Cuccinelli's campaign is backed by a group called Women for Ken, which launched in April.

When Virginia Republicans meet Saturday in Richmond to select the party’s nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general, Planned Parenthood Virginia PAC says its supporters are planning a rally “to amplify the message that Ken Cuccinelli is wrong for women’s health and wrong for Virginia,” according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Cuccinelli "has led the effort to shut down 20 women's health centers here in Virginia," said McAuliffe. "These women's health centers in Virginia take care of thousands of Virginians, gets them access to quality care. Ninety percent of the work that is done is cancer screening, affordable birth control, preventative medicine, things that women need."

The Cuccinelli camp maintains that McAuliffe's electronic car venture has failed, and that discussing social issues is a diversionary tactic.

“Ken Cuccinelli has been all around the state visiting small businesses and talking about the issues that are top of mind for Virginians: the economy, jobs and empowering middle class families,” said Anna Nix, a Cuccinelli spokesperson, to Politico. “The only candidate focused on social issues, as a diversion from his recent business failures, is Terry McAuliffe.”

McAuliffe pledged that, if elected, he would accept federal Medicaid expansion in Virginia. 

"My opponent is 100 percent against it. I am 100 percent for it. Beginning in January, we can cover 400,000 more Virginians with access to quality, life-saving care," he said. "It's paid for by the federal government for the first three years - 100 percent; 90 percent every year thereafter for 10 years. It will create, with $21 billion coming into our economy over the next seven years… 33,000 new jobs here in Virginia."  

With five months left in the race, McAuliffe has $5,184,962 in on-hand cash as of March 31, versus Cuccinelli's war chest of $2,964,620.

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