T-Mac bounces back

As any longtime reader of this column well knows, we have an inordinate amount of affection for Terry “the Macker” McAuliffe, the Democratic party operative legendary for his fundraising prowess and appetite for political theater. You may abhor his politics, but McAuliffe is one of those outsized personalities who manages to make the process fun, even when headed for sure defeat (this is, after all, the guy who secured a $15,000 contribution to Jimmy Carter’s 1980 re-election campaign by agreeing to wrestle an alligator).

So it goes without saying that the Macker’s continued presence in Virginia’s political scene fills us with no small amount of joy. Sure, he might have had his well-coiffed head handed to him by Creigh Deeds in the 2009 Democratic gubernatorial primary, but that humiliating loss seems to have done nothing to diminish his boyish enthusiasm.

Stung by accusations of egregious carpetbagging in 2009, the McLean-by-way-of-Syracuse, New York, native has been hustling over the past few years to up his Old Dominion bona fides. Both as a businessman and a politician, McAuliffe has been working assiduously to win over Virginia’s voters. On the business front, he has tried to reinvent himself as a “green jobs” impresario, promoting projects like the conversion of the shuttered Franklin International Paper factory into a renewable-energy plant. On the political front, McAuliffe has been a whirling dervish of party building, crisscrossing the Commonwealth to speak at events for Virginia Senate, House, and even Fairfax County Board of Supervisors candidates. More importantly, he’s putting his money where his mouth is, and will be hosting a fundraiser for the Senate Democratic Caucus next month.

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