Gun-control money floods Virginia race...Outside money floods Va. governors race Posted to: Elections Governor Race News Politics State Government Virginia By Julian Walker The Virginian-Pilot © August 15, 2013 RICHMOND Major doses of outside money continue to flow into Virginia’s high-profile gubernatorial race, with nearly $1 million for an anti-Terry McAuliffe advertising the latest example. A $989,500 in-kind donation from the Republican Governors Association is bankrolling a new statewide broadcast and digital advertising push focused on the clouds over Democrat McAuliffe’s electric-car company. GreenTech Automotive was supposed to reinforce McAuliffe’s claim that his business experience is an asset he would bring to the governor’s office. Instead, it has dogged him amid news reports about unfulfilled promises of job creation, the choice of Mississippi over Virginia for its production plant, and federal investigations linked to its pursuit of financial support from foreign investors. Back in 2009, Virginia economic development officials had misgivings about GreenTech’s plans to raise investment through the federal EB-5 immigrant investor visa program. So did federal officials, causing delays in the company’s plans that prompted McAuliffe later to contact top government officials in an effort to remove those barriers. “Using political connections for preferential treatment? Selling visas to wealthy Chinese investors? Terry McAuliffe: A bad deal for Virginia,” the RGA ad says. Before the latest donation, the RGA had spent more than $3.6 million through July to assist Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli. That includes $1.4 million on advertising, according to Virginia Public Access Project data. The RGA investment follows a $500,000 contribution this month by a New York hedge fund manager to a Chesapeake-based political committee just formed to aid Cuccinelli. That donor, Robert L. Mercer, was one of the top funders of outside political groups last year, giving more than $5.4 million to support conservative causes, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Mercer’s gift is one of the largest single donations in Virginia since 1997, when VPAP began tracking money in state politics. Like Cuccinelli, McAuliffe has received advertising assistance from donors with deep pockets. California financier Tom Steyer recently spent more than $400,000 on broadcast advertising critical of Cuccinelli’s 2010 fraud investigation into a former University of Virginia climate change researcher. A billionaire environmentalist, Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action group is paying for the ads. McAuliffe has received nearly $2.2 million from the Democratic Governors Association’s Super PAC. Organized labor groups have given him more than $1 million so far this year, according to VPAP data.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 01:35:24 +0000
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