The pro-life and pro-abortion candidates for governor in Virginia are essentially tied, according to a new poll conducted regarding one of the few marquee races in this off-year election cycle.
Michael Warren of the conservative Weekly Standard has more on the new poll:
Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe are tied at 38 percent in the latest Quinnipiac poll of the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial race. According to the poll, if Republican lieutenant governor Bill Bolling runs as an independent (as he has suggested he might), McAuliffe would have a small lead at 34 percent to Cuccinelli’s 31 percent and Bolling’s 13 percent. Here’s more from Quinnipiac:
Today’s 38 – 38 percent horse race is almost identical to the findings from a January 9 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University, showing 40 percent for McAuliffe and 39 percent for Cuccinelli. In a three-way race measured January 9, McAuliffe and Cuccinelli had 34 percent each, with 13 percent for Bolling.
“Although the folks in Richmond are paying close attention to the political maneuvering around the governor’s race, most Virginians have not yet begun focusing on it,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Bolling’s candidacy seems to be likely to play a spoiler to his fellow Republican. Cuccinelli, elected attorney general in 2009, is the only serious Republican candidate in the race after Bolling dropped out late last year. Bolling pointed to the state party’s new nominating convention system at which it would have been nearly impossible to overcome Cuccinelli’s well-organized supporters, but the two-term lieutenant governor refused to endorse Cuccinelli in a move that many saw was a precursor to Bolling running as an independent.
Cuccinelli is strongly pro-life and helped pave the way for the state health board to finally crack down on abortion centers in Virginia after reports of shocking abuses at abortion facilities — including the remains of aborted unborn babies in freezers and uncleaned blood splattered on operating room tables.
He said in an opinion that the state government can institute the regulations by executive order but McDonnell said he wanted the legislature to put the regulations in place. In his opinion, Cuccinelli provided legal guidance for the state Board of Health and said more limits can be placed on abortion businesses in Virginia when it comes to healthy and safety standards.
The pro-life advocate also drew praise for taking on Obamacare, which funds abortions and prompts concerns about rationing, in court.
“We often forget the most recognized words from our Declaration of Independence,” Cuccinelli has said. “’We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator – their Creator – with certain unalienable Rights, [of] Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’ And that ‘Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed’. We don’t have any other rights if we don’t have that first one.”
McAuliffe, an abortion advocate who was the national party chair for Democrats, has frequently pushed abortion.
In July 2004, McAuliffe unveiled a new campaign to be headed up by NARAL president Kate Michelman called the Campaign to Save the Court. The goal of the campaign was to scare up pro-abortion votes for John Kerry by telling voters President Bush would appoint more judges to overturn Roe v. Wade if given another term.
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After the Kerry campaign loss, McAuliffe became the head of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and was replaced by pro-abortion former Vermont governor Howard Dean.
n February 2007, the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse canceled a planned speechMcAuliffe had prepared because of his abortion views.
McAuliffe was slated to discuss a book he’d written on his involvement in politics at his high school alma mater, Bishop Ludden High School but officials with the Catholic church said the talk would be inappropriate because McAuliffe is a strong abortion supporter.
The diocese cited an interview McAuliffe gave to a nationally syndicated radio program saying he favors abortion “no question about it.”
