Terry McAuliffe and His Complicated Relationship with the Truth

So the Washington Post has finally taken a closer look at Terry McAuliffe... kinda-sorta, anyway. Such as it is. To the extent it is possible to take a closer look at Terry McAuliffe.

Because, you see, there are a lot of questions McAuliffe simply will not address. Worse, there are a lot of assertions McAuliffe makes that either a) can't be proven or disproven; or, b) are purposefully deceptive; or c) are just plain lies.

I dunno. I'm just a simple guy from a tiny upstate town in New York. I've never run for office. I've never run a campaign. And I know politicians are more than a little inclined to stretch the truth around the edges... but sheesh. I'm thinking that if someone wants me to trust them with the keys to the Governor's mansion, well, they'd at least make their lies kinda hard to discover. It's a matter of respect, right?

Let's go to the tape. At least the tape doesn't lie.

McAuliffe's tendency to exaggerate his successes adds to that perception. Describing the apartments he purchased with the union fund, McAuliffe said he "went through every apartment myself, like 1,600 of them, to make sure the toilets worked" -- but then added: "Well, I didn't go through 1,600. But I went through every property exhaustively. Sure I did! I owned them!"

McAuliffe then claimed that his home-building company built 1,300 homes at its peak, but an adviser later clarified that the figure was closer to 800.

many of his biggest deals came in partnership with prominent donors and politicians, creating a portrait over the years of a Washington insider who got rich as he rose to power within the Democratic Party.

McAuliffe is, at his core, a salesman -- and even called himself a "huckster" [...]

Let's ask ourselves a question.

All those years George Bush ran this country with a free hand... All those years Republicans seemed to gain in every single election cycle... Why did the GOP win? Didn't it really have a lot to do with the fact that they were consummate salesmen? Hucksters? I'm being serious here. Karl Rove's minions didn't win because they had better policies; they won because they were experts at identifying what the American people wanted to hear at that point in time and then developing a message around it. It didn't matter to them that their message was one big lie.

Look closely at McAuliffe. Because I think his strategy is pretty much the same.

For example, right now McAuliffe has three significant prongs to his campaign: job creation, job creation and job creation. It's all he talks about: making Virginia competitive and bringing jobs to the state.

And at a candidates' forum in December, in response to Moran's claim to be the only candidate who had run a business and raised a family in Virginia, McAuliffe boasted of launching five businesses in Virginia.

It turned out that all five are investment partnerships, with no employees, registered to his home address in McLean.

Anyway, I've been doing an awful lot of digging into some of the deals mentioned in this article. And I can tell you that the Washington Post went really easy on him. The truth is, they white-washed his record; things are much worse than they tell you. Soon enough, I'll be dumping everything I have.

Comments

[anachoret]

looking forward to your future posts, Mr. Stark.

[VaBeachSwimmer]

Good for you, Mike. Keep it up. It is critical that VA voters know the truth about McAuliffe.

[VaBeachSwimmer]

Good for you, Mike. Keep it up. I did not plan on voting for McAuliffe and it is critical that more people know the truth about him.

[Spesabsquemetu]

I wouldn't vote for that guy if they paid me to- which is illegal, but apparently not when lobbyists are involved. And on that note, Terry could tell you alot about how the whole lobbyists quid pro quo in Washington works, particularly when it comes to votes and lobbyists and how cash buys votes.

[Gidster]

Any politician of any party better be put on notice: YOUR LIES ARE FAR EASIER TO UNCOVER IN THE INFORMATION AGE!!!!

So we now know that any bill, any legislation or proposal to limit Internet acces, or information exchange is a direct attempt to obfuscate the truth from constituents!