Will Ed Gillespie Be the First Victim of McDonnell's Giftgate?

Gillespie with the Chimperator

Make now mistake about my views.  GOP Senate candidate Ed Gillespie is a sleaze bag with sleazy lobbying efforts extending all the way back to his days as a lobbyist for Enron.  Add to that the fact that he is pro NRA and anti-gun control, "pro-life", anti-gay, and wants to gut the social safety net and repeal the Affordable Health Care Act and he is a frightening specter for many Virginians.  Equally troubling is his habit of speaking to GOP extremist groups behind closed doors barred to the media.  Obviously, such conduct suggests that Gillespie is saying things and pushing agendas that he doesn't want the larger public to hear.  The good news?  So far Gillespie is trailing significantly in the polls and some believe his poisonous agenda is being harmed by the fallout from the criminal conviction of former governor Bob"Taliban Bob" McDonnell.   A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at the campaign race to date:

Encouraging polling notwithstanding, Ed Gillespie could be the first casualty of the McDonnell scandal.

The previous week, a poll by Christopher Newport University showed Gillespie behind 22 percentage points. Needless to say, following the release of the Quinnipiac poll, the Republican noise machine was set on giddy.

What Republicans aren’t acknowledging is that Gillespie could be trailing by at least 12 percentage points, if you include the poll’s margin of error, plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

But the continuing absence of Gillespie-friendly super PACs suggests the out-of-state money and media moguls don’t see the Virginia campaign as close. Remember: Gillespie had a hand in the creation of one of the biggest and baddest, American Crossroads.

Politics is expensive enough without throwing good money after bad. And Republicans just don’t have it to spend. Notwithstanding their uncertain odds on holding the Senate, Democrats have remained competitive in crucial red- and purple-state races — Virginia is not among them — because of an impressive cash surge.

Gillespie has a more significant problem, one overshadowed by Quinnipiac’s head-to-head findings: His support among Republicans is soft — 15 percentage points weaker than Warner’s standing among Democrats. In other words, there’s a passion gap.

One explanation may be that Gillespie, a millionaire Washington fixer who parachuted into Virginia politics, isn’t well-known even among fellow Republicans. Warner’s 3-to-1 advantage in television advertising doesn’t help either.  

Plus, for five weeks the McDonnell trial blacked out nearly all news coverage of the Senate campaign, making it tougher for Gillespie to tell his story.

Another possible factor in Gillespie’s lag: continuing suspicion among tea party and libertarian Republicans for the party’s establishment wing, of which Gillespie is a gold-plated example. He was a lobbyist, a White House aide and high-profile hand-holder to candidates, including a future governor in a hurry: Bob McDonnell.  The McDonnell scandal only confirms for tea partyers and their fellow travelers what they already believe: that mainstream Republicans are bought and paid for.

Also, the Republican right alienates the party’s shrinking number of moderates. They’ve been gravitating to Warner since 2001, when he successfully ran for governor. Their continuing support burnishes Warner’s record of bipartisanship.

That nearly two in 10 Republicans, according to Quinnipiac, favor Warner raises the bar for Gillespie. Defeating Warner was always going to be tough. It’s tougher if Gillespie can’t count on a strong, unified Republican base.

Finally, the passion gap may be exacerbated by something many Republicans never believed would happen: A governor — a Republican governor — would be found guilty of corruption.

The episode threatens to damage the GOP with swing voters. It’s demoralized the party’s rank-and-file and thrown Republican elective officials on the defensive on ethics, an issue they’ve ducked for years.

Fair or not, Gillespie, as the consummate D.C. insider, was always going to be suspect on ethics.

Gillespie’s checkered employment history is emphasized by Warner and his allies, including a super PAC that’s already spent $1.4 million on commercials blistering Gillespie as a hired gun for corporate abusers, including gone-bust Enron.

As Gillespie returned to that revolving door — most recently, as a Senate candidate — he was among those counseling McDonnell on ways to control the crisis that was destroying his governorship. Gillespie was chairman of the McDonnell gubernatorial campaign.

Tucker Martin, McDonnell’s communications director and currently a consultant to Gillespie . . .  At one point, Martin was shown an email that included a possible statement to the newspaper in which McDonnell, who as a defendant claimed to be estranged from his wife of nearly 40 years, expressed his loyalty to Maureen.  Among those copied on the email was Ed Gillespie.