Gov. McAuliffe: Hillary Clinton's Message Will Play Well in Virginia

Here in Virginia, the Virginia GOP continues to try to drag Virginia back into the 1950's and thinks that cutting taxes for the rich is the magic formula to "create jobs."   One need only look at Southwest Virginia which largely embraces the GOP Kool-Aid to see that the formula simply doesn't work and that bigotry, religious extremism and the embrace of ignorance are toxic when it comes to attracting new businesses and/or building a growing economy.  The Richmond Times Dispatch reports that Gov. Terry McAuliffe believes that Hillary Clinton's campaign message will resonate in Virginia - at lease outside of the knuckle dragging backwards regions.   Here are excerpts:

Gov. Terry McAuliffe said Sunday that Hillary Rodham Clinton’s message “fits perfectly” with where he is trying to take Virginia as governor.

McAuliffe noted that in 2013 he won Virginia while campaigning on marriage equality, on being “a brick wall” in protecting women’s reproductive rights and on boosting the state’s economy.

Clinton’s message is: “How do you build the economy of tomorrow, not yesterday?” McAuliffe said. “How do you help families? How do you provide pre-K, so that every child has access to early childhood? How do you make sure everybody has access to health care? A healthy, educated workforce, that is what our foundation of our nation is built on.”

He added: “All these issues that Hillary has championed, on pre-K, reform in education, reforming our transportation system — we’ve done that in Virginia. So her message fits perfectly on where we need to go in Virginia.”

“Let her lay out her positive agenda. It’s what I did when I ran for governor of the commonwealth of Virginia in 2013. We had a historic win.”

McAuliffe noted that his 2013 election broke a “38-year trend” in Virginia. Beginning with Democrat Jimmy Carter’s election as president in 1976, the party of the successful presidential candidate lost the governorship in Virginia a year later. That ended when McAuliffe was elected in Virginia following President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012.

“We have brought people together in a bipartisan way around ideas,” McAuliffe said. “And that’s what Hillary can do for this country and that’s what she will do.”

In an April 9 swing state poll issued by Quinnipiac University, 52 percent of voters said Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, while only 40 percent said she is. To counter that Clinton has to talk to the voters, McAuliffe said.