Biden to campaign for Deeds; McCain for McDonnell

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain are coming to Virginia to help their parties’ candidates for governor.

The Democratic vice president will help R. Creigh Deeds at a private fundraiser in Alexandria tomorrow.

McCain, a Republican U.S. senator from Arizona, will help rally veterans to support Bob McDonnell at an Oct. 17 rally in Hampton Roads, which has a large population of veterans.

Former Notre Dame football coach and ESPN broadcaster Lou Holtz will be the guest of honor at a McDonnell event Oct. 26 at the Willow Oaks Country Club in Richmond. McDonnell is an alumnus of Notre Dame.

In yesterday’s campaigning, Democrats hammered McDonnell for what they said was a transportation plan that would take money away from education.

“His plan is a disaster,“ said state Sen. Linda T. Puller, D-Fairfax. She was particularly critical of a McDonnell proposal to privatize the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control stores, which McDonnell said could raise $500 million.

“It’s a nonstarter,“ Puller said, noting that a privatization bill introduced in the Senate this year was killed 13-2 on a bipartisan vote in the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services Committee, which she leads.

McDonnell, a former state attorney general, has said he will not raise taxes to pay for transportation and will take transportation funding out of the general fund, which goes to education, public safety and social services. Deeds, a state senator from Bath County, says the McDonnell plan would drain $540 million from education over 10 years.

But McDonnell says his transportation plan would use only new general fund money from revenue growth and not existing money that currently is going to education.

Deeds has not ruled out raising taxes to pay for transportation improvements.

Meanwhile, Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling released a television advertisement attacking Democratic opponent Jody Wagner as a tax-and-spend Democrat.

As state treasurer under then-Gov. Mark R. Warner and former secretary of finance under Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, Wagner has supported tax cuts. She also supported tax increases.

Democratic attorney general candidate Stephen C. Shannon, a state delegate from Fairfax County, called for tougher penalties for drug dealers, new measures to curb the production of methamphetamine and increasing drug addicts’ access to the state’s drug courts.

He said he would seek increased federal funding to hire more prosecutors dedicated to drug enforcement.

He is running against Republican Ken Cuccinelli, a state senator from Fairfax County.

Tyler Whitley is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.