Terry McAuliffe throws hat in ring

RICHMOND - Terry McAuliffe doesn’t need the money, but he wants the job.

The boisterous multimillionaire national political operative yesterday formally entered the Democratic contest for governor, concluding a five-month campaign strip tease.

McAuliffe promised to donate the governor’s $175,000-a-year salary to charity should he be elected.

Unlike the two veterans of Virginia politics he faces in the June 9 Democratic primary, McAuliffe is an outsider. During a Richmond stop he cast that as a positive, saying if he takes over state government, he will “shake it up.”

McAuliffe is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee — a post to be filled this month by the man he hopes to succeed: Timothy M. Kaine. McAuliffe, 51, of McLean, also is a confidante of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Emphasizing his credentials as an investor and manager, McAuliffe said Virginia needs a “business plan” to jump-start job-creation and lure big corporations that are locating elsewhere.

Expanded employment would be a priority from the moment “I get out of bed every day,” McAuliffe told about 70 people during a town hall-type meeting at the Science Museum of Virginia.

McAuliffe’s candidacy heightens interest in the Virginia election, adding celebrity to a contest that along with the only other gubernatorial race this year, in New Jersey, might be viewed as an early referendum on the Obama presidency.

Earlier yesterday McAuliffe opened a weeklong, 16-stop swing in Norfolk. In Richmond he urged mandatory requirements for power companies to use renewable energy.

McAuliffe also vowed improvements that have partially or fully eluded Kaine and former Gov. Mark R. Warner, now a U.S. senator: expanded pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds and pushing teacher salaries to the national average.

That McAuliffe is new to Virginia politics and the demands of a candidacy seemed evident.

In his remarks, McAuliffe referred to himself as the “next governor of Richmond.” And during a question-and-answer session with his audience, McAuliffe was gently chided by one man as a “come-here” — Virginia short hand for a non-native.

“I doubt that anyone who has lived in the state 20 years doesn’t understand the issues here in Virginia,” replied McAuliffe.

McAuliffe said he will not criticize his primary opponents, former Del. Brian J. Moran of Alexandria and state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds of Bath. McAuliffe said both are “good, honorable men.”

McAuliffe blasted the all-but-certain Republican nominee, Attorney General Bob McDonnell, as a conservative ideologue who had thwarted Kaine on new funding for roads and rails, and Warner on additional dollars for schools, police and human services.

Both relied on new taxes opposed by McDonnell, who was endorsed yesterday by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Kaine failed three times to raise taxes, but Warner won a $1.4 billion increase in 2004.

McAuliffe would not rule out higher taxes, but said they are indefensible during a recession.

McAuliffe, accompanied by his wife, Dorothy, and their five private school-educated children, picked up what may be his first legislative endorsement: Del. Franklin P. Hall, D-Richmond.

Hall, toppled as House minority leader in a 2006 coup led, in part, by Moran, said he is backing McAuliffe because, “It’s hard to say no to the man who gave your son his first job out of college.”