Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell has formed a group called Virginians for McDonnell to entice Democrats and independents to support him.
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In an e-mail yesterday, President Barack Obama also made a pitch for bipartisan support, for Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds.
The McDonnell group is led by Judy Peachee Ford Wason, a former Republican political operative who led a similar group that brought bipartisan support to Democrat Mark R. Warner in 2001, and by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Wyatt Durrette, who supported Democrat Timothy M. Kaine in 2005.
McDonnell said during a news conference that forming the group is recognition that Republicans have not done enough to reach out to the middle in the recent past.
"To me, it is a recognition that we need to rebuild the Reagan coalition," he said. "Ronald Reagan was able to get social and economic conservatives to support him, and he was able to reach out to so-called 'Reagan Democrats' and bring them on board around a good, solid fiscal conservative message."
The Obama e-mail in favor of Deeds went to hundreds of thousands of Virginians who supported Obama last year.
"Creigh has an ability to bring people together, build consensus and deliver results," Obama said. "He will bring the same bipartisan, pragmatic approach to politics that former Governor and now Senator Mark Warner and my friend Governor Tim Kaine used to help Virginia move forward over the past eight years," he wrote.
Though Obama's e-mail said nothing about McDonnell, and McDonnell declined to attack Deeds — that will come later, he said — other Democrats went on the offensive against the GOP candidate.
Jared Leopold, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Virginia, said McDonnell is trying to "perform a political makeover from his record of extreme positions."
The Virginians for McDonnell group consists mostly of Republicans who supported Democrats in recent elections. McDonnell said more names would be added later.
In addition to Wason and Durrette, the organization includes two Cabinet secretaries in the administration of Warner, who was governor from 2002 to 2006. They are Jane Woods, a former Republican state senator who served Warner as secretary of health and human resources, and George Newstrom, who was secretary of technology.
Woods said her support of McDonnell shows no dissatisfaction with Warner. "He's not running," she said.
Other members include former Democratic Del. Alex McMurtrie of Chesterfield County; Will Payne of Virginia Beach, director of Virginians for Warner in 2008; and Steve Rosenthal, who succeeded Democratic Attorney General Mary Sue Terry in 1993.
"As attorney general, [McDonnell] has established his ability to work across partisan lines to solve problems," said Durrette, who ran for governor in 1985.
Tyler Whitley is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
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