While far too many of my former Republican compatriots continue to guzzle down Christofascists Kool-Aid, some are waking up to the reality that the 2013 GOP statewide slate is not only frightening but also poisonous for Virginia's future. Now, Boyd Marcus, campaign consultant to Jim Gilmore, George Allen, and other true remotely sane conservative Republicans, has come out and endorsed Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. Even more stunning, he is now advising the McAuliffe campaign. Not surprisingly, the GOP Kool-Aid drinkers are livid with Marcus. Here are highlights from the Miami Herald:
Boyd Marcus, a veteran Republican political consultant whose client list has included U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and former Gov. Jim Gilmore, is endorsing Democrat Terry R. McAuliffe and advising his campaign against GOP nominee Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia's neck-and-neck race for governor..
The announcement by McAuliffe's campaign, confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday in a phone interview with Marcus, rocked Virginia politics and exposed the clearest sign to date of bad blood within the GOP between its establishment and the tea party conservatives who comprise Cuccinelli's ardent army and control the state Republican Party machinery.
Marcus, who most recently guided the aborted gubernatorial campaign of Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, became a paid adviser to McAuliffe knowing it would sever many longtime GOP ties for him. But he felt it necessary.
"I was looking at the candidates, and I saw Terry McAuliffe as the guy who will work with everybody to get things done," Marcus told the AP in a telephone interview.
In a statement announcing the endorsement, McAuliffe's campaign quotes Marcus as saying, "I've never before supported any Democrat, but this election Terry is the clear choice for mainstream conservatives."
Democrats were giddy at Marcus' defection. A Democratic National Committee noted the news in a blast email, gloating that it was "just the latest example of dysfunction and infighting within the GOP, and the Civil War that is pulling the party apart."
Marcus's defection struck even the GOP's establishment figures as a breathtaking apostasy, an action tantamount to Marcus forever forsaking the party.
"How can you ever go back?" former Lt. Gov. John H. Hager, a moderate Republican, said in a telephone interview. "Basically, it's Boyd's move to hang it up. Maybe this is his ultimate move."
Virginia GOP Chairman Pat Mullins was furious over what he viewed as a betrayal.
Marcus was the architect behind the 1997 campaign in which Gilmore harnessed public hatred for the personal property tax Virginia localities assess on privately owned cars and pickup trucks, allowing the Republican to win in a rout behind the slogan "No Car Tax!"
Marcus served as the governor's chief of staff during Gilmore's term from 1998 to 2001. He earned the nickname "the Prince of Darkness" among political adversaries — and even a few allies — who grudgingly acknowledged his ability to almost invisibly achieve political or policy objectives.
I love it!! Would that some of my former compatriots would wake up to reality and flee the Cuccinelli-Jackson-Obenshain triumvirate. Yes, Karen, I am talking about you among others.
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