WASHINGTON – Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling Thursday described the race for governor in Virginia as “disgusting.”
With less than three months before the Virginia gubernatorial election, the campaign between Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe has become a nasty affair leaving voters in the commonwealth frustrated, Bolling said.
“It’s pretty much just millions of dollars being spent on name calling and mudslinging that’s really not what the people of Virginia want or deserve,” he said to WTOP.
Bolling, a two-term Republican who had considered running for his party’s gubernatorial nomination, said he hopes the candidates turn their acts around for the benefit of Virginia.
“Unfortunately, right now, one of these two guys is going to be the next governor of Virginia and my hope is that some point in the next two-and-a-half months, that one of them simply steps above the fray and tries to elevate the discussion,” he said.
Bolling said he considered running for governor as an independent candidate, but at this point it’s too late for him to enter the race. The deadline to register as an independent candidate was in June.
“I will tell you, if I had known then what I know now, I may have given that some additional consideration because I think the way the campaigning is going, there are going to be a lot of unhappy voters who are either not going to vote, which is unfortunate, or they are going to be looking for somebody else to vote for,” he said.
Still, Bolling said he doesn’t want to dwell on the past.
“There’s a lot that I regret about what’s happened over the course of the past 18 months in the Republican Party in Virginia, but I try not to engage in hindsight,” he said.
“What I do regret most though is that I do think I could have brought something to the race,” he later added. “I think that I could have elevated the public discourse, maybe given people a choice.”
The gubernatorial election will take place Nov. 5.
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