Back when Hillary's campaign was essentially dead to everyone except for campaign insiders, McAuliffe would come out on the shows and always have a positive spin of some sort.  It never made a whole lot of sense, but it was still entertaining in a sort of "Baghdad Bob" kind of way.

If he really does come out and campaign for Obama he will start to get some cred within the state.  Before all of this talk of him running for Governor I didn't even know that he lived in Virginia.  Even with some cred, I don't know if I would vote for him, but he would seem less like a carpetbagger...

I have no idea what's up, anybody else have an idea where Webb's at?

After all his Obama bashing while on the Hillary campaign, I'm not inclined to support McAuliffe for governor.  Coming out for Barack seven weeks before the election strikes me as too little too late.  "Campaigning hard" for someone who is already going to win the state (yes, I'm that confident) smacks less of support and bridge-building and more of the opportunism of hitching his wagon to a rising star.  What he hasn't realized is that Obama's star has already lifted off and he missed his chance to get on board.

Man, I hope a lot of people don't think like that.  This is going to be really close, and really tough, but it's doable.  That's why we need everyone - including talented, charismatic Democrats like Terry McAuliffe and respected Republicans like Linwood Holton - out there campaigning for Obama the next 48 days.

The 538 blog, which was very accurate for the primary, has the projection at:

Obama 48.8 and McCain at 51.0 --

Even with the recent favorable polling there's a slight tilt towards McCain.  The new registrations are going to help, but it's still going to take work.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Every vote counts -- and any votes that McAuliffe can help swing are important too.  They all add up.

Does anyone know how many new voters have been registered in VA so far, between the campaign for change and other non-partisan groups?

today.

283,000 votes added since Jan. 2008 -- mostly in Dem leaning districts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

The GOP cites a 200,000+ registration number for the 2004 election -- saying that it had no impact on the 2004 vote (e.g. Bush's margin was over 200,000 votes in 2000 and 2004).

I haven't been able to find any hard numbers to put the 2008 in context.  There was a story in 2004 about voter a steep increase in the request of voter registration forms, but no apples to apples comparison to put 2008 and 2004 into context.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Linwood Holton was a principled Republican who became a Democrat when his party drifted.  He sent his kids to public school when Virginia was fighting integration with Massive Resistance.  No one has campaigned harder in red-leaning southwest VA for Tim Kaine, his Democratic son-in-law than Holton.

McAuliffe is a manic, self-promoting, Barack-bashing, opportunist who wants to be Governor.  Let there be no doubt that, despite whatever good he said about Obama in the final 48 days before the election, it was all for the purpose of hitching his own wagon to the rising star.  I'll give Terry credit for knowing what I posted on Sept 17 to be true; Barack was going to win VA- and he did.

don't like Terry McAuliffe and his disgusting conduct during the primary doesn't even make the top ten. If he thinks just campaigning for Obama is going to win people over he is badly mistaken.

It is riddled with errors and, uh, stuff that isn't exactly the truth.  My big beef with McAuliffe is that he headed the DNC during our steady decline into oblivion:  2000, 2002, and 2004.  He knew what the Republicans were doing to suppress and even cheat with votes, but didn't do a DARN THING about it.  Finally, he has the nerve to blame Kerry for his boneheaded move to make the Democratic National Convention five weeks earlier than the RNC, which spelled disaster:  the Swift Boaters attacked, the Kerry campaign was stuck with public financing (they had to make the same amount of money last five weeks longer than Bush), and were faced with a torturous decision of coming back hard (and that means money, not just a press release) against the Swifts or saving that dough for the fall.  Many pundits think it was the wrong move to save the money for October, but the disaster found its roots in McAuliffe's poor decisions made as the DNC chairman.

Between him running Democratic prospects into the ground during his tenure at the DNC, and his absurd bullsh****ing during this presidential primary season, I do not think McAuliffe is worthy of being governor.  I think Virginia can do better than him, and there are many fine Democrats in Virginia up for the job.

I just wouldn't favor him for governor.  He has not been the kind of Democrat I am looking for to grow our party.

In all honesty, it has been a while since I read McAuliffe's book, and I never was able to get through the whole thing,  but my recollection is that it was basically anecdote after anecdote about how hilarious and smart he is and how tight he is with the Clintons. I met him once, and had the opportunity to talk to him for a few minutes, and he struck me as very arrogant and completely uninterested in meeting anyone who wasn't a major mover and a shaker.  I have talked to some other local dems who have had the same sort of encounters with him -- he never thought he would need any of us so he didn't bother being cordial.  I wish him no ill will, and hope his surrogacy pays off for Senator Obama but would ask him to please go campaign in another battleground state and leave our gubernatorial primary alone!  We have enough problems as it is.  

I hope somebody goes with him, to show him around the state. He's surely never been south of 66, or perhaps the Beltway.