VIENNA, VA. — Terry McAuliffe, Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, had a rare morning off from campaigning before he was to be at the Viva Vienna Memorial Day street festival, so he spent it throwing out old bottles of salad dressing.
It started when a jar of Kansas City barbecue sauce caught his eye, and it occurred to him that he might have picked that up when he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, which was a lot longer ago than the shelf life of barbecue sauce. That led to an examination of the expiration dates of every bottle in the fridge. After that he started on the soup cans in the cupboard. Then it was time for the fair.
If it's possible for a human being to be in constant motion, McAuliffe comes close. His booming voice has a way of refocusing the mind, like a 6-foot-2, 205-pound human weather front hurling thunderbolts that make people stop what they're doing and examine the source.
His boundless energy -- he watches action movies to fall asleep -- has served him well over three decades of Democratic politics. He once wrestled an alligator for a $15,000 contribution to Jimmy Carter's reelection campaign, prompting the then-president to inquire about his health. Most people know him as Bill Clinton's chief fundraiser and golf buddy, and as Hillary Rodham Clinton's never-surrender presidential campaign chairman who antagonized supporters of Barack Obama by pushing her candidacy long after it was obvious Obama would be the nominee.
But McAuliffe's greatest strength could be his greatest problem here in the Old Dominion, where he is locked in a three-way race for the Democratic nomination. His opponents have sought to frame him as more Washington than Richmond, a slick fundraiser who never held public office but thinks he can run the state.
"Terry is kind of an operator," said Stu Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst in Washington. "That gives him contacts and resources in high places, but it also makes it a little difficult to sell him to people who think of themselves as Virginians, not Hollywood celebrities or Palm Beach billionaires, but regular folks who live in Norfolk."
Funds and flair
Democrats have been on a roll in once-reliably Republican Virginia: two consecutive governorships, a U.S. Senate seat and Obama's victory, the first for a Democrat in a presidential election here since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
