Decision Virginia

Dorothy McAuliffe fires back at attacks against her husband

It has been a slow drip of attacks for the last several weeks, fueled by stories Terry McAuliffe wrote about his life in politics in is book "What A Party."

Sites like BuzzFeed have posted several of the anecdotes like the one where McAuliffe talks about leaving his wife in the delivery room after the birth of one of their children and other stories that show the former DNC Chair's drive to raise money for his team at all costs.

BuzzFeed even went as far as to take excerpts of his audio book and turn them into short clips for people to listen to McAuliffe himself telling the story.

Republicans have had a field day with the material, sending it around to anyone who might be interested.

For the most part the McAuliffe campaign has remained quiet in the face of the onslaught, but tonight McAuliffe's wife Dorothy, who is at the center of much of the controversy, released a statement that was a powerful defense of her husband.

Mrs. McAuliffe said that she helped her husband write the book and that the stories show his sense of humor.

She also compares his record to the GOP nominee Ken Cuccinelli when it comes to women and claims that Cuccinelli is the candidate women should fear.

Here is her full statement:

"I am surprised that Ken Cuccinelli and his spokespeople have latched on to a few anecdotes from Terry's book in response to the incredible support Terry is getting from women across party lines in his campaign for governor. Terry and I had a lot of fun writing the book; it was a great opportunity to relive some of the experiences we’ve had in our over 25 years together.  While politics has become a negative and cynical business for some, Terry has used his humor, good cheer and innate optimism over many years to find ways to work with others to get things done. 

"The truth about Terry is that he is a wonderful husband and a great father -- he is supportive, devoted, and caring. I have always stood beside him, and he has always stood beside me. 

"Anyone who knows Terry knows he is someone who respects women and the role we play in today's world -- and nobody knows that better than me. My husband's opponent is underestimating the women of Virginia if he thinks he can distract us from the real issues that affect our lives and the lives of our daughters.  While Terry has always been there for me, I can stand on my own two feet and say that Mr. Cuccinelli should know that he will have me to answer to if he wants to intrude on our family life for political attacks." - Dorothy McAuliffe wife of Terry McAuliffe

The statement from Mrs. McAuliffe comes on the heels of a big roll out by the Democratic campaign zeroing in on McAuliffe's support by women. A rescent poll has McAuliffe in the lead with women, but several others have shown the women vote up for grab. McAuliffe and his team are continuing to push Cuccinelli's position on abortion in the hopes it will fire the female vote up come November.

Cuccinelli senior advisor Chris LaCivita responded to Mrs. McAuliffe's statement. "With all due respect, those aren't our words," he said.  "Those are Terry's words in his own voice."

McAuliffe puts Cuccinelli on the transportation spot

It will be a key rallying cry for the McAuliffe gubernatorial campaign for the next several months. It will be a cry aimed directly at Ken Cuccinelli.

I supported Bob McDonnell's transportation plan and you fought against it.

In his Richmond campaign launch Monday morning where he was introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D), Terry McAuliffe drove that point home and hinted that a Governor Cuccinelli could potentially undo the progress.

(McAuliffe was joined in Richmond by Kaine (left) and Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones)

He also took a bit of credit for the transportation bill's success himself.

"I was proud to make calls and do meetings to help push it over the finish line," he said "And I was frankly amazed that my opponent tried to block this important progress at each and every step."

Running on the McDonnell transportation record has plenty of benefits for McAuliffe. It is clear Virginians are happy with the concept, and continue to give McDonnell high marks for his stewardship of the state despite the difficulties he has had with Star-Scientific saga.

It also plays into important constituents McAuliffe will need to draw in order to win in November. Both Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads deal the most with Virginia's transportation difficulites and they are both regions where a McAuliffe victory will need to come from.

Cuccinelli remains vague about his plans for transportation but has consistently been critical of tax increases, a key component of McDonnell's road fix. The Republican is planning a major tax policy roll out tomorrow, which could include a fix or change to the McDonnell transportation plan.

Regardless, while McAuliffe continues to remind voters that he was for the transportation plan and Cuccinelli wasn't, Cuccinelli will take a page out of the traditional GOP playbook and accuse McAuliffe of just wanting to raise taxes.

"McAuliffe has a long record of supporting tax increases on voters in the Commonwealth, including the estate tax that even Tim Kaine opposed," said Anna Nix, a Cuccinelli Spokeswoman.

An extended clip of McAuliffe's remarks regarding transportation can be found below:

 

McAuliffe is on the air

The Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe is on the air. He released his first television ad this morning. It begins airing statewide in Virginia on Thursday.

The ad features McAuliffe himself and touts his business career, the centerpiece of his campaign.

Here is a look at the ad:

 

Here is the transcript:

Terry McAuliffe voiceover: I’m the youngest of four boys and when I was fourteen I saw a chance to literally pave the way to my future and I started a business paving driveways.

That helped me pay for college.

My wife Dorothy and I have lived in Virginia for over twenty years and here we’ve raised five children of our own.

I know nothing is more important to Virginians than creating good jobs that can support a family. That will be my focus every day. I’m Terry McAuliffe and that’s why I’m running for Governor.

McAuliffe, who was on the air very early in 2009 because he was running in a Democratic primary, is the second candidate for Governor on the air this time around. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the presumptive Republican nominee launched his first ad last week.

McAuliffe defends Greentech venture

NBC12 Story: (mobile link)  

FRANKLIN, VA (WWBT) - Terry McAuliffe's green car company, a company he promised would bring thousands of jobs to the United States has fallen short of his initial goals. But in a one on one interview, McAuliffe defended the company’s performance and said he not given up Greentech yet.

(We spoke to McAuliffe one on one after his tour of Paul D. Camp CC in Franklin, VA)

McAuliffe admits the company has not quite delivered on the promises he initially made and it could take a decade or more for it to live up to its potential.

The Greentech venture started with great fanfare, an opportunity for the candidate for Governor to tout his record as an entrepreneur. But it is quickly becoming a tool for his opponents to use to attack. The candidate believes voters will view the effort differently.

"This is not a negative for anybody,” he said. “This is a hopefully a great American success story of an entrepreneurial venture"

A success story, McAuliffe argues, because he took a risk not many others would be willing to do.

"There have not been many people who have started a car company, who have started a car company in a recession, who have started an electric car company," he said. 

Republicans argue that the results are more important than McAuliffe's intent and that regardless of what he hopes Greentech will become, right now it has not produced much. That is despite the candidate’s lofty promises.

"It has been hard,” McAuliffe said.  “Nissan leaf as I will remind you Ryan has taken 18 years. We have been at this three."

It was McAuliffe who promised full factory operation and 900 jobs by the end of 2012. To date no factory has been built and only about 100 people work for Greentech.

McAuliffe blames falling short of those goals on the people who work for him.

"We can only say what the engineers tell us to say, but sometimes they don't get it right that's ok," he said.

McAuliffe hopes voters will appreciate the effort and that they view him as a person willing to go beyond the ordinary for the people of Virginia.

"What Virginians want is someone who has tried things like I've tried."

Our full interview with McAuliffe can be found below:

  

Other highlights from the interview:

*On his decision to put the company factories in Mississippi instead of Virginia:

"It is what it is, it didn't work out here. Businesses have to make decisions based on their own business plan. Every business is unique. We tried, we looked at it but businesses have to make decisions based on their own interests."

*On why the company has fallen short of its initial goals:

"I relied on, my folks relied on engineers who thought these lithium batteries.. They are very complicated as I say only a handful people in the country have tried what we are trying to do."  

"Maybe our engineers thought they could get the Lithium battery done faster, we could only convey what our engineers say."

*On why he stepped down from the company without announcing his plans publicly:

"I am all in run from Governor. I go from early morning until late at night 7 days a week. I had to step away from those businesses that I was active in, including Greentech, as well as other businesses and you had asked me if anyone had asked me, I would've said, I've stepped away from those businesses."

*On his current role with the company:

"I am a shareholder, I am a founder."

"I'm proud of what we've done. I'm no longer involved in the management of the company and they are running it, I'm running for governor around the clock."

*On the Watchdog.org report that his partner company is incorporated overseas.

"I know my investment is here, I can't speak to anything.. My investment is here."

 

McAuliffe's Greentech promise doesn't match early results

NBC12 Report Part 1: (Click here for mobile)

 

NBC12 Report Part 2: (Click here for mobile)

 

TUNICA, MS (WWBT)-  In the race for governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe is back. The man who spent millions of dollars only to fall short in the 2009 Democratic primary this time has the nomination already secured.

McAuliffe is selling himself to the people of Virginia as a businessman and job creator. He has spent the last four years investing and promoting a green car company that he promised would revolutionize the car industry and bring thousands of manufacturing jobs to America.

But McAuliffe’s dream, and what was once considered to be a strong asset in his campaign, has become a liability. It is a liability on two fronts: one, because he chose to build his manufacturing plant in Mississippi instead of Virginia, the state where he hopes to be governor, and two, because his grand plans in economically depressed Northern Mississippi have yet to materialize.

In fact, for most people in the sleepy town of Tunica, life before Greentech’s much celebrated July 2012 roll out is not much different than it is today.

"Everyone is friendly, everyone is nice,” said Patricia Savley who lives in Tunica. “Everybody knows each other. It is small town."

Tunica is a small town with a big unemployment rate of 20.9%. It is the highest in Mississippi and one of the highest in America.

"We need more jobs and we just don't have them," said Sherry Carodine, who works as an aide in a local nursing home.

Tunica has long been in search of hope. They thought they found it in McAuliffe.

"Now we start at full factory production,” McAuliffe said at the launch of the Greentech’s first manufacturing facility, an elevator factory the company bought in nearby Horn Lake, MS. 

“At full capacity,” he promised, “we can make a car an hour."

The July 2012 roll out was impressive. It featured former President Bill Clinton and Mississippi's then-Governor Haley Barbour, a Republican.  The plan was to start full production in Horn Lake and immediately begin construction of a massive, permanent plant in Tunica.

That was nine months ago. Today the site in Tunica is an empty field with a Greentech sign out front. The only sign of construction is a makeshift gravel driveway. It is, for the most part, a large, empty space filled with overgrown grass. 

Barbara Tuchel worries that is all it will ever be.

"I'd like to know where his plant is,” she said while surveying the empty lot. “Where the thousand jobs are."

Tuchel is part of an independent group demanding transparency in Tunica's government. She believes her county's board was swayed by McAuliffe and his Chinese partners to invest state money in a project that had no hope of succeeding.

Greentech and Tunica County received a combined $5 million in loans to develop the Tunica site. In order to make good on those loans they must invest $60 million in the manufacturing plant and employ 350 people by December 31, 2014.

The Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) considers Greentech in good standing when it comes to the loan. Sally Williams, a spokesperson for the agency, said they are focused on the 2014 deadline.

"Greentech has done everything it has told us it would," she said in an emailed statement.

But with the clock ticking on 2014, Tuchel has become less and less convinced their plan will work.

"It didn't seem feasible,” she said.  “We do not have a skilled employment base here."

Tuchel’s group has convinced a newly elected board of supervisors to commission an independent audit of the Greentech project. She is convinced that the Greentech deal, which forced the County to take out loans to cover the purchase of the property, helped lead to a significant tax hike during their last budget negotiations.

Brooks Taylor, publisher of the local weekly paper the Tunica Times, is as skeptical as Tuchel. She has covered a number of promised economic development projects that turn out to be nothing. She compares the Greentech venture to serious conversations local leaders had to bring a NASCAR track to the county. It never happened.

"We are just a small community and this is a big company,” Taylor said. “It seemed a little pie in the sky."

There is a pretty significant difference between what McAuliffe and Greentech promised publically and what they agreed to with state leaders to bring the project to Mississippi.

Mississippi’s Development Authority is only expecting 350 jobs by the end of 2014. McAuliffe pledged much more and much sooner.

Here are just some of his publically-stated goals:

*Greentech will create 5 thousand American jobs, 900 by the end of 2012.

*Greentech will start full production in the fall of 2012. At full production they will produce a car an hour.

*Greentech will eventually produce 100 thousand “green energy” cars.

*Greentech will build a 300 to 400 thousand square foot manufacturing plant in Tunica.

 At this point there is no evidence any of this has occurred.

The promise of jobs has been his most frequent claim. In a January of 2011 interview on NBC12 First at 4, his hopes were very high.

"Ryan,” he said to me. “We'll create jobs thousands of jobs."

It is difficult to pin down exactly how many of those jobs have actually been created. Company officials refuse to give an exact number, but various reports peg the Greentech workforce at 50 to 75 employees in Mississippi and 10 to 15 at the corporate headquarters in Virginia. McAuliffe himself puts the number at 100 in Horn Lake.

As for the number of cars being produced, that also appears to be far less than the “car an hour” projection McAuliffe gave last summer.

Company spokesperson Marianne McInerney can't say exactly how many cars have been produced, but she told the Mississippi Business Journal that it is in the "hundreds."

During our visit to Mississippi we went in search of evidence of some sort of production. The company did not let us inside their storefront office in Tunica, or the plant in Horn Lake. We have a standing request to tour both facilities and at this point company officials have not responded to that inquiry.

While the company continues to keep the specifics of their operation behind closed doors, government leaders who helped negotiate the deal did not offer much insight either. Several town and county officials responded to our request for interviews by sending us to Lyn Arnold, the President of the Tunica Chamber of Commerce. 

Arnold negotiated the company's memorandum of understanding and has traveled to China with the Greentech leaders. She has not responded to our repeated requests for an interview.

One of Arnold’s key allies in attracting Greentech to Northern Mississippi was Mayor Nat Baker of Horn Lake.  Baker also traveled to China with McAuliffe and Greentech leaders and has met with them during lobbying trips to Washington, D.C.

Baker granted us a lengthy on camera interview, but couldn’t tell us much about what is happening at the Greentech plant in his city.

"I know that they have been testing some cars over there because I see them riding around out there,” he said.  “Other than that I do not know."

Those cars Baker talked about appeared after our cameras showed up outside the Horn Lake plant. It was the only physical evidence we saw of an electric car production.

Mayor Baker has not been inside the plant since the press event with Clinton and Barbour back in July. Part of the plant is still home to an elevator testing facility run by the company Thyssen Krupp. According to DeSoto County officials, Krupp still receives tax bills on factory capital. Krupp is not the only company working out of the Horn Lake site. Baker said a local auto dealership that auctions cars will often store large groups of vehicles in the parking lot prior to their auctions.

Baker knows several people who work for Greentech and said they have never missed a paycheck and enjoy working for the company.  He said from what he is told, not many cars are being produced but there is a lot of “sweeping of the floor.”

Overall, Baker feels that the company has positively contributed to his community.

"They have created a job market and right now everything seems to be running fine over there."

Greentech maintains that they are moving forward and have plans for full production in Northern Mississippi. Their goals however have changed quite a bit since that initial launch. In mid-April they announced a partnership with the Chinese car maker JAC to assemble an all-electric five passenger sedan that will travel 100 miles on a single charge.

The pilot order is for two-thousand cars to be built at the Horn Lake plant and sold in North America. This latest production target is set to begin in the fall of 2013.

At Greentech’s roll out in July of 2012, the plan was to build two seat MyCars that would travel at a max speed of 35 miles an hour.

Greentech also plans to expand the operation at “another facility,” presumably the still-not-built Tunica plant, and hire 200 additional workers. According to the parameters of the Greentech-MDA agreement, 350 workers must be gainfully employed by the end of 2014.  

MDA officials said the company has complied with the agreement to this point, but could not say the last time they toured either Greentech facility.

“The company has until December 31, 2014, to meet the investment and job commitments outlined in the MOU, and the MOU does not outline benchmarks prior to that deadline,” said Williams. “The deadline is the benchmark.”

Whatever Greentech eventually becomes, their future will be without the man who spearheaded their move to the United States. Terry McAuliffe quietly stepped down as company chairman in December, his campaign says, to focus full time on running for governor.

We sat down for a lengthy interview with McAuliffe to get his perspective on Greentech. His interview will air Tuesday on NBC12 News at 6.

McAuliffe won't call for Cuccinelli to resign as Attorney General

This morning we sat down for a lengthy interview with Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia.  The purpose of the interview was for McAuliffe to respond to our report on his Greentech car company.

McAuliffe answered many questions on Greentech, that up until this point had gone unanswered. We will share that interview tomorrow on NBC12 and Decision Virginia following our special report on Greentech which airs tonight at 5 & 6.

(We talked one on one with McAuliffe during his visit to Paul D. Camp Community College in Franklin, VA)

The bulk of the interview dealt with Greentech and the company's future, but we did get a chance to quickly ask him about the news of the day that his Democratic allies are pushing.  Several Democratic leaders are calling for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to resign from his post.

Here is a portion of Bob Lewis' report from the Associated Press:

Virginia Democrats are renewing their demands that Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli resign after Cuccinelli belatedly disclosed about $13,000 worth of gifts he claims he forgot to note in four years' worth of economic disclosure reports.

State Sen. Don McEachin and Del. David Toscano were reacting to Cuccinelli's revelation to a handful of reporters with no broadcast press allowed late Friday afternoon that he failed to report five gifts.

Three of them were from Jonnie Williams, the CEO of the nutritional supplement maker Star Scientific. They included a $3,000 vacation stay and $1,500 Thanksgiving retreat and dinner at Williams' Smith Mountain Lake vacation home.

But McEachin and Toscano declined to urge Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe to disclose his full income tax returns as Cuccinelli did two weeks ago.

read the full story here.

But while McEachin, Toscano and others are saying that it is time for Cuccinelli's time as Attorney General to come to an end, the party's standard bearer is not ready to go quite that far.

"He's got to speak for himself," said McAuliffe. "I can tell you that running for Governor is a round the clock almost 24 hours a day seven days a week, if you do it the way I am doing it... it is hard to do anything else."

In the past McAuliffe has said that Cuccinelli should follow Virginia tradition and step down from AG while running for Governor, but today he resisted calls to call for his resignation because of new events.

I pressed him on the specifics of Star- Scientific and if that issue, as his Democratic allies contend today, was enough to call for a resignation aside from the time commitment connected to running for Governor. 

"Obviously there are a lot of questions there, but I will leave that up to the press," McAuliffe said.

The Cuccinelli campaign has consistently turned back any calls for the Attorney General to resign his post. 

"In this race for Governor, it is clear Ken Cuccinelli is the only candidate placing an emphasis on transparency," said Cuccinelli spokesperson Anna Nix. "It is time Terry McAuliffe looks in the mirror and answers questions as opposed to desperately attempting to distract voters by pointing his finger.”

An extended clip from this morning's interview can be found below:

 

NBC12 Special Report: McAuliffe and Greentech

It could be one of the biggest issues of the Virginia gubernatorial campaign. Greentech, the car company Terry McAuliffe bought with the goal of bringing to the United States and creating thousands of jobs.

This week the New York Times reported that the Greentech venture could backfire on McAuliffe's bid for governor.

We went to Mississippi, where McAuliffe chose to build his car company to see exactly what is being accomplished.

Here is a preview of what we discovered:

 

Our special report airs at 5 & 6 Monday on NBC12.

We are also scheduled to talk one on one with McAuliffe this week to get his take on Greentech and how it will impact his campaign.

We will also post a comprehensive report on our findings here on Decision Virginia.

McAuliffe pushes Cuccinelli on Star-Scientific: calls for gift ban

The Virginia governor's race continues to be pushing ahead a full speed. We are still a full six months ahead of the actual vote and both campaigns are sending hay makers at the other side hoping to bloody and bruise the candidates long before most voters are even paying attention.

Today's blast was delivered by the Terry McAuliffe (D) campaign. The Democratic nominee promised today that if elected he will push to end the ability for Virginia lawmakers to accept gifts from supporters as long as they disclose those gifts.

McAuliffe said that even if the General Assembly doesn't want to go along with the ban, (they have repeatedly turned away proposals to do so) he will impose the standard on himself.

“Virginia taxpayers deserve to know that their elected officials are representing the Commonwealth first,” McAuliffe said. “I’m committed to enacting these common-sense rules via executive order when I am elected and working with the General Assembly to make them permanent and cover members of the legislature.” 

McAuliffe is once again working to shine a light on the ongoing Star- Scientific saga plaguing Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's campaign. Cuccinelli accepted a number of gifts from company CEO Jonnie R. Williams but did not recuse himself from a lawsuit filed by Williams against the state, until the connection was brought to light. 

McAuliffe is not the first to suggest that a gift ban would go a long way to protecting elected officials from finding themselves in a questionable situations.  Governor Bob McDonnell proposed a similar ban, but the General Assembly did not go along with the idea. Ironically, McDonnell too is now embroiled in the Star-Scientific controversy.

It is important to point out that this ban would be for sitting elected officials, not for candidates. McAuliffe does not plan to impose the ban on himself until he is sworn into office.

Cuccinelli has consistently said that despite the benefits he received from Williams, the connection did not in any way influence the Star- Scientific lawsuit. The case remains pending and there is no evidence that the Attorney General's office offered the company special treatment.

After repeated calls to separate himself from the situation, Cuccinelli appointed outside counsel to defend the state in the case.

The Cuccinelli campaign said this afternoon that they too are in the process of drafting a proposal to reign in gifts to lawmakers and said that McAuliffe's proposal was hypocritical given his role as a prominent Democratic fundraiser.

During the 2009 Virginia gubernatorial primary, former rival Brian Moran called McAuliffe the "booking agent for the Lincoln Bedroom".

"Terry McAuliffe’s repackaged policy proposals will not convince anyone familiar with his history as a political dealmaker that he has any credibility on issues related to good government," said spokesperson Anna Nix. " If McAuliffe wants to demonstrate any level of seriousness concerning transparency, he will immediately make available copies of his tax returns and answer questions about his secretive business dealings starting with GreenTech.”"

You can read McAuliffe's entire gift ban proposal after the jump.

McAuliffe releases tax summaries after Cuccinelli challenge

If you are wondering if you are experiencing the 2012 campaign all over again, you aren't alone.

For the last six days the campaign of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) has relentlessly pushed the Democratic nominee for Governor Terry McAuliffe to release his tax returns. Cuccinelli started the push after making eight years of his returns available to reporters.

McAuliffe a successful businessman and millionaire has already complied with the necessary financial disclosure statements necessary to run for office in Virginia. The Cuccinelli campaign however took a page out of the Obama playbook and suggested that McAuliffe reveal more about his financial health and release his full tax returns over a number of years. They have spent the last week giving examples of prominent Democrats, including McAuliffe himself, accusing the GOP nominee for President Mitt Romney of hiding something because of his refusal to release several years of tax returns.

Late this afternoon the McAuliffe campaign responded to the Cuccinelli challenge by releasing the front page summaries of the candidate's tax returns from 2009-2011.  The documents, which NBC12 has obtained a copy of but has agreed not to publish to protect McAuliffe's privacy, show that he paid  close to $4 million in taxes during that time period.  His income was $6.6 million in 2009, $1.9 million in 2010 and $8.3 million in 2011.

But those summaries, which broadly outline his income and deductions don't offer much specificity as to how McAuliffe made his money during that time period. It is also, not surprisingly, not nearly enough for Republicans who seem ready to make this an issue that dogs the Democratic campaign for as long as possible. 

"Ken Cuccinelli set a very high standard for transparency last week," said Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Pat Mullins. "He made eight years of actual returns available. Not summaries, actual returns - there's a big difference."

Democrats believe that the Cuccinelli campaign is going to great lengths to change the conversation from the major issue hurting their efforts. The Attorney General's connection to the company Star- Scientific and his unwillingness to appoint an independent investigator to determine if there was a conflict of interest in his office.

Star-Scientific has sued the Commonwealth of Virginia over a tax issue and Cuccinelli did not immediately reassign the case despite the fact that he had received sizable gifts from the company CEO and once held stock in the company.  The case has since been handed off to outside counsel.

Cuccinelli also had to fix his statement of financial disclosure after he failed to report the gifts from Jonnie R Williams, Sr. the Star- Scientific CEO, because he was unaware of the value of his stock in the company.

"Terry has completed his Statement of Economic Interests and is releasing several years of tax return summaries, going above and beyond the disclosure requirements. In contrast, Ken Cuccinelli believes Virginia’s disclosure rules don’t apply to him. After repeatedly failing to accurately disclose his relationship with Star Scientific, Cuccinelli is now using a loophole to avoid an investigation," said Josh Schwerin a spokesman for McAuliffe. "Cuccinelli should appoint an outside investigator to review the inaccuracies on his state disclosure form."

Now we wait to see how the public reacts. Will Virginia editorial boards, many of which scolded Mitt Romney for not releasing more extensive returns, jump on the bandwagon and call for McAuliffe to be more forthcoming? And how will rank and file Republicans embrace this line of attack? Especially those that have spent the last year defending their presidential nominee from the same type of onslaught.

The outcome could be interesting.

Top McAuliffe donor lists Virginia address despite limited Virginia connection

As expected, Terry McAulliffe is off to a fast start raising money in his bid to become Virginia's next Governor. The former Democratic National Committee Chairman is a prodigious fundraiser and finances were never expected to be an issue for him.

Friday his campaign announced that McAuliffe will report a haul of $5.1 million for the first quarter of 2013. The big number will quadruple the amount in his war chest from his last 2012 report which had his campaign raising just over $1 million.

Among the more notable donors, is McAuliffe's best friend President Bill Clinton who provided $100,000 in support for his former finance chair's campaign. Clinton has also headlined a number of high dollar fund raiser across the country for the McAuliffe campaign.

In 2009, McAuliffe took considerable heat because much of his funding came from his vast connections outside of Virginia. In 2013, his campaign is working to change that perception. Despite several of those out of town high dollar fundraisers, McAuliffe claims that 3,600 of his donors are from Virginia, making up 72% of the contributors to his campaign.

But one donor from his last 2012 report is registered as a Virginian, but it is unclear just how deep much business they are actually doing in Virginia. It is important to point out that the McAuliffe campaign did not make the same claims about it's Virginia based contributions in the 2012 report as they did in the 2013 report.

McAuliffe's 4th quarter report in 2012 lists a $100,000 donation from "Sungate Real Estate". Sungate's address is listed as  805 Country Club Lane in Manakin Sabot, VA 23103.

You can see it in the screen grab below:

Sungate Real Estate doesn't appear to have a very significant prescence in Manikan Sabot or anywhere in Virginia for that matter.  805 Country Club Lane is a property adjecent to Richmond Country Club near the intersection of Rt. 288 and Patterson Road.  It is actually not a property at all and the McAuliffe campaign confirmed to NBC12 that it was a typo inserted into the report incorrectly.

The property is actually 850 Country Club Lane. According to the Goochland County Assessor's office, 850 Country Club Lane is owned by a company listed as "Dr. Haddock LLC."  It is a 13.8 Acre property with a single family home that was built in the early 80's.  At one point it was owned by Edward and Constance Haddock. They transfered the property to Dr. Haddock LLC for $0.

McAuliffe's campaign says that Edward Haddock indeed runs the company that provided the campaign with the $100,000 donation. Haddock is a man with deep connections to Virginia and the Richmond area in particular.

Haddock's father, Dr. Edward E. Haddock, was once the Mayor of Richmond. In 1986 the long time general practitioner was tragically killed when a man broke into his office and shot him. 

His son has spent a great deal of time in the Richmond area as well. He maintains a home here as well. The younger Haddock, who goes by Ed,  is perhaps best known as the man who started the for-profit Full Sail University located in Winter Park, Florida.  In fact the address listed in the donor's report connected to Sungate Realty is headquarted at the same adress as Full Sail University.

Haddock also has donated to Mitt Romney's campaign and is reportedly connected to President Barack Obama as well.

However, despite his personal ties to Virginia, Sungate Real Estate, the company that actually made the donation doesn't appear to do much business in the commonwealth.

The only item that pops up in a Google search of "SunGate Real Estate Manakin Sabot" is the listing for the company's donation on the Virginia Public Access Project's financial listings.

In addition to the lack of a real business presence, Sungate is also not listed as an active corporation in Virginia.

But despite not officially doing any business in here in the Commonwealth they clearly own holdings in Virginia and according to State Finance law are legally allowed to present that as their address on a financial disclosure report because it is indeed their property.

Sungate officials through the McAuliffe campaign tell NBC12 tonight that they do indeed do business in Virginia and because this is a Virginia race they wanted the report to reflect their interest in the commonwealth.

"Sungate, a US-based entity, and its affiliates own property at the 850 Country Club Lane address," said Stephanie Murphy, a company spokesperson in a statement  "We chose to list the contribution to the McAuliffe campaign from a geographically relevant Virginia entity."

The donor is the one solely responsible for providing their information to the campaign to file on the official report. It is illegal for the campaign to change the information without the express permission of the donor. In this case, the Manikan Sabot address was the address Sungate Realty asked to be used on the report.