"I did vote for the transportation bill"
Follow me through the Cuccinelli contortions:
1) He starts with The Blame Game
* Blame the Governor- "The Governor has long supported raising money through these abuser fees."
* Blame the House of Delegates- "the House always wanted much higher fines/fees than the Senate"
2) He moves on to a little Misdirection
* He voted against some other version of the abuser fees (that was never enacted)- "I was one of 6 Senators that voted against the bill."
* And then rinse and repeat- "I do not support the abuser fee concept"
3) Then it's Desperate Excuses
* They made me do it- "I had to either vote the whole package up or down."
* And this classic statement "This calls to mind the notion that a compromise, by definition, includes things that I don't like." (Simply classic coming from a supposed principled anti-tax warrior.)
4) Finally, he owns up to his critical role in advancing the abuser fees legislation, probably hoping you've bored of his rambling defense, stopped reading, and won't even see it buried in the 15th paragraph:
"The abuser fees were one of those things that I didn't like, but I did vote for the transportation bill. In the Senate, that vote was 21-19, with every single Republican except Russ Potts and John Chichester voting for the bill, and no Democrats voting for it."
It's so sad to see a so-called principled leader come re-election time.
We can break it out as follows...
1. He admits ALL the Democrats knew better than ALL the Republicans (save two). Makes it easy for the voters to know which party to look to in November.
2. If Cuccinelli and just one other Republican had stood tall and voted against the bill, they could have stopped it. What a hero - he had a real shot at stopping it but didn't.
3. He can't act/think on his own: All my fellow Republicans were voting for it, I just couldn't vote any other way.