One way to think of the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia is as Son of Santorum.
Ken Cuccinelli, the Commonwealth’s attorney general and presumptive Republican gubernatorial nominee, holds views on social issues and the malign effect of federal programs like Medicare that echo those of Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who was the last conservative standing in the way of Mitt Romney’s Republican presidential nomination last year.
In a forthcoming book, Mr. Cuccinelli portrays popular programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid as reducing people to government dependents, a ploy that politicians use to amass power. He refers to citizens who receive benefits as “the ones getting the goodies,’’ an echo of Mr. Romney’s notorious “47 percent†comment.
But another way to view Mr. Cuccinelli, who is in a dead heat in polls with his Democratic rival nine months before the election, is as an insurgent challenger to the leaders of the Republican Prty.
Many party leaders have disavowed Mr. Romney’s secretly recorded remark - about Americans so dependent on government they would not vote for him - as divisive and a factor in his defeat by President Obama. At recent party conclaves and in Congress, many Republicans have expressed an inclination to compromise on immigration and tax increases and to seek an inclusive tone on issues of concern to women and gay Americans, in hopes of minimizing future electoral losses.
Mr. Cuccinelli’s old-time religion is either a reminder of last year’s road to ruin or a call to return to grass-roots basics.
He has never hidden his brand of conservatism. He brought an early state lawsuit against Mr. Obama’s health care law, supported a Constitutional amendment to rescind the citizenship of children born to illegal immigrants and told Virginia’s public universities they could not ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The appeal of such view! s in a post-Romney world will be tested in a battleground state this year that twice elected Mr. Obama - although turnout in an off-year likely will be much different.
Mr. Cuccinelli’s views are laid out in a new book he co-wrote, “The Last Line of Defense: The New Fight for American Liberty,’’ to be published on Feb. 12. Excerpts appeared on Thursday in news accounts, including Mr. Cuccinelli accusing George W. Bush of using taxpayer dollars “to buy seniors’ votes†in his 2004 re-election by expanding Medicare benefits.
“Sometimes bad politicians set out to grow government in order to increase their own power and influence,’’ Mr. Cuccinelli writes, according to an excerpt quoted by The Washington Post. “This phenomenon doesn’t just happen in Washington; it happens at all levels of government. Th amazing this is that they often grow government without protest from citizens, and sometimes they even get buy-in from citizens â€" at least from the ones getting the goodies.’’
In a Quinnipiac University poll in mid-January, Mr. Cucinelli was supported by 39 percent of registered Virginia voters, compared with 40 percent for his expected Democratic rival, Terry McAuliffe, a longtime fund-raiser and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton. The poll found that neither candidate is well known to voters yet.
Follow Trip Gabriel on Twitter at @tripgabriel.
