Will He Or Won't He?
Bolling Mulls Indy Run
Posted: January 4, 2013
While all political watchers have spent the early days of the New Year watching the machinations and mess in Washington, D.C., residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia may very well be looking at their own unfolding political drama as the 2013 race for the governor’s office falls into shape.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has a lock on the Republican nomination and Democratic activist Terry McAuliffe is the frontrunner for the Democratic nod after Sen. Mark Warner declared he would stay in Washington. Speculation about whether he would make a second run at the governor’s mansion, where he resided from 2002-2006, was put to rest late last year when he made clear his intention to remain in the Senate.
In this “off” election year, the governor’s race will indeed be high profile, and the stage is set for it to get even more attention. According to an article by Laura Vozzella on The Washington Post’s Virginia Politics blog, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is indeed testing the waters for an independent bid for the office.
In November, Bolling announced he would drop out of contention for the Republican nomination for governor. He had not sought the nomination in 2009, clearing the way for Gov. Bob McDonnell’s path to the nomination and victory. McDonnell agreed to support Bolling as his successor, but as noted on this page before, nobody told Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli that.
Further complicating Bolling’s bid for the GOP nod was the move by conservatives to change the nomination process for 2013 from a primary to a convention. That clearly gave the upper hand to Cuccinelli, now the presumptive Republican nominee.
In dropping out, Bolling did not endorse Cuccinelli, but many felt he was simply hurt and would tow the party line by the time the race kicks into gear. Not so fast, it seems.
“We’re very seriously evaluating the feasibility of an independent campaign,” Bolling told the Post earlier this week, adding “We’ve done some polling to assess where we might stand in a three-way race.”
Those do not sound like words from a man content to stand on the sidelines and be a good party soldier. The 2005 gubernatorial campaign, which then-Lt. Gov Tim Kaine won, was a three-way race. But then state Sen. Russ Potts of Winchester received only 2.22 percent of the vote (almost 44,000 votes) and was not a factor with an underfunded campaign.
There is little doubt that if Bolling actually pulls the trigger on an independent bid, it will be a much more serious challenge than Potts’ 2005 effort.
The Post reports that Bolling plans to meet Monday with a group of Northern Virginia business leaders. That populous region of the state will go a long way to determining who the next governor is, and whether Ken Cuccinelli’s staunch conservative pedigree will play well in areas that went for President Obama in November is already a question mark.
If you add a moderate sitting lieutenant governor into that mix, it gets even more interesting. Bolling has yet to begin to raise money for any possible bid, and he is prohibited from doing so when the General Assembly is in session. The 10-week session starts on Wednesday.
Many still doubt he will actually take the plunge, and voters in the Commonwealth will likely have to wait until early spring for a final decision. Bolling told the Post he is “continuing the process of due diligence — the biggest piece of which right now is trying to figure out how the people of Virginia would respond to an independent campaign.”
Based on those comments, we expect some other groups may be polling on that same question right now.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has a lock on the Republican nomination and Democratic activist Terry McAuliffe is the frontrunner for the Democratic nod after Sen. Mark Warner declared he would stay in Washington. Speculation about whether he would make a second run at the governor’s mansion, where he resided from 2002-2006, was put to rest late last year when he made clear his intention to remain in the Senate.
In this “off” election year, the governor’s race will indeed be high profile, and the stage is set for it to get even more attention. According to an article by Laura Vozzella on The Washington Post’s Virginia Politics blog, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is indeed testing the waters for an independent bid for the office.
In November, Bolling announced he would drop out of contention for the Republican nomination for governor. He had not sought the nomination in 2009, clearing the way for Gov. Bob McDonnell’s path to the nomination and victory. McDonnell agreed to support Bolling as his successor, but as noted on this page before, nobody told Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli that.
Further complicating Bolling’s bid for the GOP nod was the move by conservatives to change the nomination process for 2013 from a primary to a convention. That clearly gave the upper hand to Cuccinelli, now the presumptive Republican nominee.
In dropping out, Bolling did not endorse Cuccinelli, but many felt he was simply hurt and would tow the party line by the time the race kicks into gear. Not so fast, it seems.
“We’re very seriously evaluating the feasibility of an independent campaign,” Bolling told the Post earlier this week, adding “We’ve done some polling to assess where we might stand in a three-way race.”
Those do not sound like words from a man content to stand on the sidelines and be a good party soldier. The 2005 gubernatorial campaign, which then-Lt. Gov Tim Kaine won, was a three-way race. But then state Sen. Russ Potts of Winchester received only 2.22 percent of the vote (almost 44,000 votes) and was not a factor with an underfunded campaign.
There is little doubt that if Bolling actually pulls the trigger on an independent bid, it will be a much more serious challenge than Potts’ 2005 effort.
The Post reports that Bolling plans to meet Monday with a group of Northern Virginia business leaders. That populous region of the state will go a long way to determining who the next governor is, and whether Ken Cuccinelli’s staunch conservative pedigree will play well in areas that went for President Obama in November is already a question mark.
If you add a moderate sitting lieutenant governor into that mix, it gets even more interesting. Bolling has yet to begin to raise money for any possible bid, and he is prohibited from doing so when the General Assembly is in session. The 10-week session starts on Wednesday.
Many still doubt he will actually take the plunge, and voters in the Commonwealth will likely have to wait until early spring for a final decision. Bolling told the Post he is “continuing the process of due diligence — the biggest piece of which right now is trying to figure out how the people of Virginia would respond to an independent campaign.”
Based on those comments, we expect some other groups may be polling on that same question right now.