Terry McAuliffe has made it official, he’s running for governor of Virginia. I ordinarily am not much interested in who runs states that I don’t live in, although I obviously prefer Democrats to Republicans. Mr. McAuliffe is an exception. He represents everything that I see as being wrong with the Democratic Party over the last 16 years. I would actually prefer that a Republican run Virginia than to see McAuliffe raise his profile and influence within the party.

Everyone acknowledges that McAuliffe’s main qualification is his prolific fundraising prowess. He’s a glorified bagman…the nuts-and-bolts-guy of the DLC’s corporatocracy. If he holds a progressive idea anywhere in his head, it is merely a branding decision that makes him distinct from George Allen-Republicanism. It’s little more than a charade. McAuliffe is every bit the Economic Hit Man. He’s a James Carville ‘D’ to Mary Matalin’s ‘R’. They are so in bed with each other that they’re raising each other’s kids. That kind of branding is no branding at all. It’s just a deceit.

The health of the Democratic Party depends on it ridding itself of the soulless moneygrubbers, like McAuliffe, that stole its soul during the 1990’s and delivered one devastating defeat after another. But McAuliffe prospered anyway. That’s how that game is set up. Mark Penn made a killing last year, too.