Which of these men will emerge as the Dems’ candidate for governor?

Virginia has barely gotten over last fall’s hotly contested election, but we will take center stage again as one of only two states with a statewide election this November.

Things will heat up long before then. In 103 days, Virginians will choose from among three Democratic challengers in a June primary for the party nomination for governor. Republicans will run former Attorney General Bob McDonnell.

So the main interest now surrounds the three Democratic Party candidates — former Democratic National Party fundraiser Terry McAuliffe, former Del. Brain Moran and Sen. Creigh Deeds. 

This will be an open primary. Will Republicans vote for the perceived weaker Democratic candidate? That’s not likely to change the outcome.

The media buzz has centered on former DNC fundraiser Terry McAuliffe from McLean, who was born and raised in New York. McAuliffe is witty, a great speaker and is apparently quite convincing, given his ability to get people to give him lots of money.

Brian Moran, from Alexandria, was a delegate from 1996 until he resigned recently to run for governor. In 2001, he was elected chair of the House Democratic Caucus, requiring him to travel around the state working with delegates in their home districts.

Creigh Deeds, from Bath County, has been a member of the General Assembly as a delegate or senator since 1991.

There is not a great deal of difference, policywise, between the three candidates. Deeds is generally considered more conservative than the Northern Virginia candidates. Intangible differences will likely be the deciding factor.

The so-called conventional wisdom would seem to indicate that McAuliffe’s money, contacts, notoriety and speaking ability would make him unbeatable. But he has some big problems, and I don’t mean the Clintons.

This is a bad time to have a reputation for making lots of money, primarily due to your personal connections. Ten years ago, McAuliffe turned a $100K stock buy into $18M thanks to his relationship with the CEO of Internet firm Global Crossing. Shortly thereafter the company went bankrupt, the stock price collapsed and 10,000 employees lost their jobs.

This was not the only questionable deal he was associated with. But it was part of a pattern in his business life of using insider connections that made him very wealthy.

Incidentally, in 2005 then DNC-chair McAuliffe gave $5M in DNC money to gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine. Now Kaine is DNC chair and McAuliffe is running. Would look icky to see Kaine return the favor.

I had the chance to hear Brian Moran when he passed through Orange recently. He is a polished speaker and says all the things that Democratic voters like to hear. I read in his bio that he was raised near Boston. So I wore my Red Sox shirt to see if he noticed. He did, and we talked briefly about them, but he couldn’t bring himself to bring up his Northern heritage.

Now, having been raised north of the Mason-Dixon line should not preclude someone from being elected governor, but it’s the kind of thing that some voters will focus on rather than small policy differences.

Creigh Deeds may seem to be the underdog, as he hails from rural Bath County rather than the populous, wealthy D,C, suburbs. But the scenario I see is McAuliffe and Moran splitting the Northern Virginia vote. McAuliffe will be hurt in the rest of the state by his cozy dealmaker reputation.

Both the Northern Virginia candidates will suffer from the Beltway insider image, especially compared to Deeds’ Virginia ancestry dating to 1740.

It’s also fair to suggest that Deeds is the strongest candidate to face McDonnell, who he missed beating for attorney general by 360 votes back in 2005, when Democrats were not nearly as strong in Virginia as they are today. He only lost because of a last-minute barrage of negative McDonnell ads and he didn’t have enough money to fight back. That won’t happen this time.

Legge’s column runs every other Thursday on the editorial page.