Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, coming off the biggest speech of his political career, will be increasingly forced to straddle the line between being a national Republican figure and crisis-mode governor.
State lawmakers are awaiting — with increasing anxiety — McDonnell’s guidance on how to close an outsized budget shortfall through mid-2012. And while the newly minted governor’s selection to deliver the GOP rebuttal to President Obama elevated his stature as a Republican leader, the $4.2 billion state fiscal gap — if mishandled — has the potential to dull McDonnell’s inaugural sheen.
Legislators are looking to the governor to spell out about $2 billion in cuts, enough to backfill former Gov. Tim Kaine’s scuttled tax increase proposals. The reductions, which must be approved by the General Assembly, no doubt will slash deeply at core state services and force new rounds of layoffs.
“I think anytime you can have the governor of Virginia being on national, international television, it’s not a bad thing for Virginia,” said Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania. “I’m more worried about the governor revealing his $2 billion cuts. That what I think we need to hear about, and he needs to do that forthwith.”
Republicans delighted in blasting Kaine, who moonlighted as Democratic National Committee chairman in the last year of his term, for being distracted from his duties as governor.
McDonnell finds himself approaching the same territory, and this week made statements suggesting he is acutely aware his dual roles make him vulnerable to Democratic criticisms. At a Tuesday press conference, he told reporters he had “mixed emotions” about taking on the State of the Union rebuttal because he’s “so focused on what I need to do here in Virginia, I was a little concerned about weighing in to national issues.”
