Ken Cuccinelli isn’t showing any sweat.
This is not to say he isn’t sweating; it’s just that he can hide it well as he walks through the Holly, Woods and Vines nursery and greenhouse in Alexandria, Virginia in a light blue dress shirt, tie, and suit pants while in 80 degree heat with the region’s traditional wet-mop-to-the-face midsummer 88 percent humidity. I, meanwhile, have arrived straight from CNN’s studios in a dark wool suit and can feel by body rapidly dehydrating as Cuccinelli talks to Vanessa Wheeler, the owner and proprietor of the nursery, about the challenges facing small businesses like hers.
The half-dozen other members of the press in attendance aren’t interested in the shipping costs of begonias; the one big topic on their minds is the new revelation about additional gifts and donations from businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his family. The latest news means Williams gave a grand total in $145,000 in gifts and loans to the McDonnell family in 2011 and 2012. With any more revelations, the scandal will stop being about a wealthy donor giving expensive gifts in a potential attempt to influence the governor and start being about a wealthy donor who vastly overpaid for alleged influence with a term-limited governor.
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This article first appeared on National Review Online on July 11, 2013.