Virginia: McAuliffe v. Youngkin

Terry McAuliffe won the Democratic Party's nomination for Governor earlier this month, setting up an autumnal show-down with Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin.

There was no suspense in the Dem primary, McAuliffe won with 62% of the vote, and the second-place finisher got only 19% . Nobody was biting nails.

McAuliffe is an old-school political hack, who guaranteed the loan that the Clinton's used to buy their nice new house in Westchester County (pictured above) when they were ready to move out of their leased Pennsylvania Avenue place in DC. He almost immediately thereafter became the head of the DNC and is credited with valuable modernization of the fund-raising machinery there. He also had a big part in running HRC's campaign in 2012.

His opponent, Youngkin, is a former CEO of The Carlyle Group, one of the biggest private-equity management firms in the world. He played a big part in Carlyle's transformation from a partnership into a publicly traded corporation. Youngkin is extraordinarily wealthy, so he doesn't need to concern himself with the funding of his campaign.

My point? Nothing profound. Just that between McAuliffe's fund-raising savvy and Youngkin's wealth, this will be one heck of a high-rolling campaign. Two sizeable war chests buying up air time. I hope my Virginian friends love their political TV ads!

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