Virginia Politics: McAuliffe talk gets more intense

Story by Chris Graham
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Former Democratic National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe’s name first surfaced as a possible ’09 Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate at the Democratic National Convention.

A Draft Terry website popped up last week, before McAuliffe addressed, at his request, a meeting of the Democratic Party of Virginia’s State Central Committee. And now McAuliffe is preparing to embark on a 30-locality tour of the Commonwealth ostensibly to promote Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama, the Washington Post is reporting today.

I say ostensibly, because that tour would also seem to be a perfect launching board for an ’09 campaign.

There are already two announced candidates for the Democratic Party nomination in ’09 – Bath County Sen. Creigh Deeds and Alexandria Del. Brian Moran. McAuliffe, a resident of Northern Virginia, played a prominent role in the Hillary Clinton presidential effort and headed up the fundraising effort for Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign.