A ticket of plain, honest candidates will enjoy success today

Gouverneur Morris, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, commented on it, stating, “some have boasted it as a work from Heaven, others have given it a less righteous origin. I have many reasons to believe that it is the work of plain, honest men.”

The secret to the landslide success of the three statewide candidates on the 2009 Virginia Republican ticket may also be that they are simply plain, honest men.

Bill Bolling, seeking re-election as lieutenant governor, was born and raised in the coalfields. The first college graduate in his family, Bill also met and married Jean Ann at college. They moved to Mechanicsville in 1981 where they raised their two sons, Matthew and Kevin.

In 1991, Bill won election to the Hanover County Board of Supervisors and served until 1995 when he was elected to the Senate of Virginia. In 2005, Bill was elected as Virginia’s 40th lieutenant governor.

The lieutenant governor only gets paid a part-time salary, and Bill earns his living as a vice president of an independent insurance agency. Bill teaches an adult Sunday School class at Shady Grove United Methodist Church.

The attorney general candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, has had, by Northern Virginia standards, a very normal, middle-class life. Ken and his wife, Teiro, grew up on the same Fairfax County street. They married in 1991 after Ken graduated with an engineering degree from the University of Virginia.

In 1995, Ken got his law degree, and in 2000 a master’s degree in international commerce, both from George Mason University. After 17 years of marriage, Ken and Teiro have five daughters and two sons. Ken and Teiro are active members of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church. For 14 seasons, Ken has served either as a coach or referee in his daughters’ basketball leagues.

A member of the Virginia Senate since 2002, Ken is also a partner in the Fairfax law firm of Cuccinelli & Day, PLLC. 

The candidate for governnor, Bob McDonnell, is the son of an Air Force lieutenant colonel. Bob grew up in the Mount Vernon area, where he attended a mix of public and parochial schools. Bob graduated from the University of Notre Dame on a full Army ROTC scholarship.

After graduation, Bob married Maureen, then was stationed in Germany, where he ran the post’s medical clinic. He also earned an MSBA by taking extension classes from Boston University. Bob next served in Newport News as the medical supply officer at McDonald Army Hospital.

After active duty, Bob used his GI benefits at Regent University and simultaneously completed law school and a master’s degree in public policy, raised his young family, worked as a sales manager for The Virginian-Pilot newspaper, and served in the active reserves of the Army with the 18th Field Hospital.

After passing the bar in 1989, Bob worked as a prosecutor in the Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. Bob was elected to House of Delegates in 1991 after defeating a 20-year incumbent in Virginia Beach.

In 2005, Bob was elected the attorney general of Virginia.

For 32 years he and Maureen have been married. They now have five children, ages 17 to 27. Their oldest daughter, Jeanine, served as a U.S. Army officer in Baghdad.

These plain, honest men are unashamed of their middle-class background and strong, conservative experience, and fortunately, that is what the electorate is saying they want and deserve.

Sharman’s column appears each Tuesday.