If anyone thought that Ken Cuccinelli’s $100,000 gift to a nonprofit that provides services for the homeless is a sign that he’s losing his adversarial edge, you really have nothing to worry about.
Roz Helderman reports the Attorney General-Elect has responded directly to Claire Guthrie Gastanaga’s (Virginia’s first woman Chief Deputy AG) criticism about the relative absence of women in Cuccinelli’s administrative appointments.
Here are the money quotes.
Claire’s ability to run her mouth helped us get votes. … She scared the beejesus out of enough people about what would happen if Steve Shannon was elected Attorney General”…
“The folks we have will represent every single Virginian in their position. Claire’s attitude is quite contrary. Whether people voted for me or not, I’m their Attorney General. We come into office with that attitude and every person we hired for each position has that attitude.”
Gastanaga responded to the Attorney General-Elect by noting that she found it interesting that Cuccinelli would respond to a “substantive” criticism by “disparg(ing) me personally” and observing that seventeen years ago, Mary Sue Terry managed to find highly qualified women for 50% of the deputy AG posts.
The bottom line.
Don’t look for Cuccinelli to back away from a fight when his principles are questioned.
Expect that the internal operation of the AG’s office will be the most heavily scrutinized one in the history of Virginia.
And if yesterday’s start is an indication-
A brilliant gift of $100,000 to the Daily Planet and a bare-knuckles brawl-
This is going to be one of the most fascinating Attorney Generalships we’ve ever seen.
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