Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli announced his transition team leaders this morning in a conference call with reporters.

He has tapped former Attorneys General Andrew Miller, a Democrat, and Republican Richard Cullen, as well as former state GOP chairman Pat McSweeney, to help with the effort.
Miller, an unsuccessful candidate for governor and U.S. Senate in the 1970s, practices law in Washington. He’s from a storied Democratic family; his father ran for governor in the 1950s, opposing the conservative machine of the late Harry Byrd Sr.
Cullen completed the term of Jim Gilmore, when Gilmore quit in 1997 to run for governor. Cullen now heads a large Richmond law firm that is closely aligned with Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell.
McSweeney is a Richmond lawyer who was on the staff of the commission that rewrote the Virginia Constitution in the early 1970s.
More recently, he was the lead lawyer in the case in which the Virginia Supreme Court overturned as taxation without representation a transportation-financing plan defended by McDonnell when he was attorney general.
Rounding out the Cuccinelli transition team: Republican Bernie McNamee, a a Cullen law partner and lobbyist who served in the AG’s office under Jerry Kilgore and was an aide to Gov. George Allen. McNamee unsuccessfully sought an appointment to the agency that polices Virginia business, the State Corporation Commission.

After naming his team, Cuccinelli said he’s focused on planning the transition, making hiring decisions and creating his legislative agenda for the upcoming General Assembly session. He plans to announce additional decisions next week, including any structural changes to the office and new hires.

Cuccinelli was asked whether he felt excluded from the rest of the Republican ticket of McDonnell and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, particularly after the two men appeared together yesterday for McDonnell’s transition team announcement. 

“No, I don’t,“ Cuccinelli said. “Bob and I talked yesterday about Bill’s role in his transition. Bill Bolling, let’s face it, is a sitting lieutenant governor, he really doesn’t have anything to transition.“

“I fully expect to be working closely with my ticket mates in pursuing each of our agendas, many which were rolled out together,“ he said. “I really don’t anticipate much in the way of challenges within our own team—by which I mean Bill, Bob and I, I expect that to be a good partnership and I have every reason to expect that.“

—Jeff E. Schapiro and Olympia Meola

Bob McDonnell held his first news conference as governor-elect this afternoon and announced a few members of his transition committee, including Tom Farrell, CEO of Dominion Resources.

Also on the team are Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling; Attorney General Bill Mims; Bobbie Kilberg, president of the Northern Virginia Technology Council; and Kay Coles James, a Cabinet official under Gov. George Allen who later was director for the Office of Personnel Management under President George W. Bush.

McDonnell named two staff members to the transition effort: Phil Cox, campaign manager; and Tucker Martin, his campaign spokesman. The camp will soon launch a Web site with updates on the transition.

Meanwhile, McDonnell plans to take off for a few days, starting Friday when he heads to Notre Dame, his undergraduate alma mater, with his wife, Maureen, and several of their children.

Maureen McDonnell received a call today from Virginia first lady Anne Holton, and the two arranged to tour the Executive Mansion this afternoon.

President Barack Obama called Gov-elect Bob McDonnell late this morning—reportedly a pleasant, 10 minute conversation.

“It was a nice,“ said McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin. “The president told him, ‘The first thing you do, make sure you thank your wife’.“ 

They also discussed some areas of agreement, including support for educational initiatives like charter schools, something McDonnell frequently mentioned on the campaign trail.

While McDonnell spent the morning with his family at the Marriott after last night’s Election Party there, his transition staff has begun moving into their new space in a 9th Street office building.

Martin, whose BlackBerry was fried after the volume of e-mails he received last night, said about 10 people have set up camp so far in the new quarters. McDonnell has a post-election news conference scheduled for 2 p.m., when we could find out more about his transition team.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made a long-awaited entry into the Virginia governor’s race via an automated call to as many as 350,000 state residents urging them to vote.

The calls are among roughly 600,000 coordinated through The Virginia Faith and Freedom Coalition, an affiliate of Ralph Reed’s national group, according to Sen. Stephen H. Martin, R-Chesterfield, chairman of the Virginia coalition. Reed is the former executive director of the Christian Coalition.

Martin said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also taped an automated call for the group, and that the coalition does not endorse candidates or parties. He said Palin talks about “shared principles” in her call. 

A spokesman for Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob McDonnell said today, “it’s not our call.“

As poll margins widen, so do last-minute cash contributions to the campaigns for governor.
Republican Bob McDonnell brought in about $190,000 since Friday, while Democrat R. Creigh Deeds received $40,000.
The latest contributions only widen the gap in large donations—those of $5,000 or more—given to the campaigns since Oct. 21.

Between Oct. 21 and Sunday, McDonnell had reported $1.36 million and Deeds took in $548,987, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of money in Virginia politics.