YORKTOWN – Presumptive Republican nominee for governor and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said he won’t need on-the-job training if he wins in November, unlike his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, whom Cuccinelli painted as a carpetbagger.
Cuccinelli told supporters at a campaign event in Yorktown on Saturday that his three terms in the state Senate and one term in the Attorney General’s office will allow him to hit the ground running if Virginians send him to the Executive Mansion.
“In this state, whoever wins this race on Nov. 5 has two months without being in office to put together a two-year budget,” Cuccinelli said. ‘That’s not easy to do, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Traditionally the outgoing governor — in this case Gov. Bob McDonnell — introduces the state’s next two year budget with input from his successor, who is then tasked with pushing the spending plan through the General Assembly.
In addition to going after McAuliffe for lack of governing experience, Cuccinelli said the presumptive Democratic nominee was not involved in Virginia at a community level.
Cuccinelli, a native of Northern Virginia, highlighted his own experiences working in the community, from refereeing and coaching in youth basketball leagues to working nights at a homeless shelter when he was in law school.
“(McAuliffe) didn’t show much interest in Virginia until he wanted to run for governor in 2008,” Cuccinelli said. “He’s been here since 1993. I didn’t even meet him until this year. I’ve been active in all sorts of things up there for a long, long time and I’d never crossed his path because he wasn’t engaged in Virginia.”
McAuliffe has not held elected office, but he was head of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005 and has close political ties with former President Bill Clinton.
McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin brushed aside the criticism and said McAuliffe looks to former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner as a model. Warner had not held political office before being elected governor in 2001.
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This article first appeared in the The Daily Press on March 23, 2013.