Va. governor race heats up as Cuccinelli hits McAuliffe for flip-flop

Virginia’s race for the governor’s seat has taken a turn to the hotter, as Republican Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II has indirectly demanded Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe clarify why he located his business outside the commonwealth’s boundaries.

Mr. McAuliffe said he considered building his GreenTech electric car company in Virginia but ultimately went with Mississippi, Politico reports. The question of ’why’ has surfaced on the campaign trail on prior occasions; in December, Mr. McAuliffe was forced to defend his decision at a news conference and said then it was Virginia’s fault he located his business in Mississippi, Politico reported.

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Virginia officials weren’t interested in his GreenTech plant, he said then, Politico reported.

“That’s their choice. Other states … have a very aggressive [effort] to bring manufacturing in. Obviously, Virginia was my first state,” Mr. McAuliffe said in December, according to Politico.

The Associated Press, however, reported that emails between Virginia and GreenTech officials revealed that Mr. McAuliffe failed to provide state officials with enough information on the company to make an informed decision, Politico pointed out.

The Cuccinelli campaign isn’t letting the issue go unchallenged. And in the most recent challenge, Mr. Cuccinelli is focusing on Mr. McAuliffe’s apparent flip-flop.

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“Terry McAuliffe is definitely in the car sales business, because first he falsely claimed that Virginia wasn’t interested in his car company and now he’s blaming the company for the decision,” Mr. Cuccinelli’s campaign manager, David Rexrode, wrote in a release, according to Politico. “Given that Terry McAuliffe was the chairman of the GreenTech, he only has himself to blame for creating jobs in Mississippi that could have been created in Virginia.”