Virginia Governor’s Goal of Remainder of Term? “Getting Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine Elected”
It’s one thing for our elected officials to prioritize highly-politicized issues while in office. It’s different, however, when a politician’s top priority in office is getting one of their friends elected.
That’s exactly the position that Virginians have found themselves in, with their Governor. In a recent interview with Loudoun Tribune, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe spoke frankly about his top priority in office.
What is that priority, you might ask? Well, for starters, isn’t Virginia’s crippling transportation problem, economic development, or education.
His number 1 priority is getting Hillary Clinton elected. Maybe that’s why he has been trying to blanket-restore voting rights for 206,000 felons? Just a thought.
What do you want to accomplish in the remainder of your term?
Clearly electorally, it’s getting Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine elected. Locally, it’s economic development, continuing to do that, continuing to try to close the coverage gap. Virginia has forfeited $7.9 billion (in funds for Medicaid expansion) as of today. That’s our tax dollars we’ve given back to Washington that we could have gotten back that’s gone forever. So trying to come up with a common sense compromise and work with the legislature to bring that Medicaid expansion money back in a way that protects the shareholders and brings that economic activity; as well as continue to grow the economy, work on the issues the attorney general and I work on, community policing, the opiate crisis we have today, childhood nutrition. We have a lot of big issues.
Later in the interview, he elaborated further on his plans for election day.
How confident are you about Hillary Clinton winning the presidency and Democrats winning the Senate?
I’m very confident that Tim Kaine and Hillary Clinton will win. We will have a United States senate seat, the only state in the United States of America that will have a senate seat up and I think the fate of the United State senate will come down to Virginia in 2017. If you look day-to-day, it could change, but right now [polls show] a 50–50 senate, with Kaine breaking ties, so it means the fate of the senate would come to Virginia. So that means next year is going to be busy.
Most people would argue that the top priority of elected officials should be to serve voters. Should Virginia’s Governor be held to a higher standard, or should he be focusing on getting his fellow party member elected?
