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

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.

“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.

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.“

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. 

According to the Virginia Public Access Project, McDonnell brought in $1.01 million during that time in contributions of $5,000 or more, which must be reported within 24 hours of receiving them. Deeds reported $423,987 in the same time frame.

Both candidates reported at least one additional donation today to the State Board of Elections. Deeds received $85,000 from the Democratic Party of Virginia while McDonnell took in $60,000 from four Virginia Beach-based real estate development firms and $10,000 from a former ambassador to Austria.

The contribution, reported today to the State Board of Election, is the latest in a string of high-dollar donations in the race (see the post below).

McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said today that McDonnell and Trump have spoken and that the real estate mogul “likes Bob’s commitment to job-creation and economic development.“

Trump does have some interest in the state—he owns Lowes Island Golf Club in Northern Virginia.

The developer previously gave $25,000 to Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who lost in a three-way contest for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination to R. Creigh Deeds. Deeds today also picked up $22,011 from NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC, according to the State Board of Elections.

In this case, $20,000 that landed early this week in Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob McDonnell’s campaign coffers.

According to the State Board of Elections, the donation came from Dr. Miriam Adelson, an internist married to billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Sheldon, who ranked as the country’s 26th richest man in America by Forbes this year, is the chairman of the board and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation.

The company owns the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, the Sands Expo and Convention Center and the Palazzo Resort-Hotel-Casino as well as resorts in Macao.
The 76-year-old, who has been a significant donor to the Republican Party, saw his fortune drop $19 billion in 2 years to $9 billion, Forbes reports. 

That was just one of the large donations McDonnell took in on Tuesday—all reported as of Wednesday to the State Board of Elections—from the Republican Party of Virginia (more than $250,000 in-kind), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. ($20,000) and InTrust Wealth Management in Wichita KS ($50,000).

McDonnell’s Democratic opponent R. Creigh Deeds also brought in some big donations on the same day, including $10,000 from the American Federation of Government Employees and $50,000 from International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

But Bolling’s camp shot back saying he doesn’t work with health insurance — he sells property and casualty insurance as an executive for an independent insurance agency—and it called the 6 percent claim “an outright lie.“

Bolling has attended nearly 80 percent of the meetings for boards he sits on, the campaign says, but that includes presiding over State Senate sessions, which is his primary duty.

His campaign also released a TV ad yesterday, a positive commercial touting his support for expanding a children’s health insurance program and his opposition to higher taxes, among other things.

A quartet of Richmond’s African-American state lawmakers will canvass River City’s barbershops and beauty salons on Saturday, as part of the ramped-up effort to drive urban support for the democratic state senator from rural Bath County.

Election experts believe Deeds needs to tap into the 2008 “obama Surge” of new registered voters—many of them black and young—to have a chance of overtaking Republican Bob Mcdonnell on election day. McDonnell, the former attorney general, has a 7 to 9 point lead in the most recent statewide polls and is considered to be running ahead of Deeds in Central Virginia.

State Senator Henry Marsh (D-Richmond), state Senator Don McEachin (D-Richmond), Delegate Jennifer McClellan (D-Richmond), and Delegate Delores McQuinn (D-Richmond) are expected to attend.

This schedule comes from the Deeds press release, which bills the effort as a “business walk” through downtown:
Saturday, October 17
10:30 am       Deeds Supporters Visit Harvey’s Barbershop
                22 E Broad Street
                Richmond, VA 23223

11:00 am       Deeds Supporters Visit Eugene’s Barbershop
                404 W Broad Street
                Richmond, VA 23220

11:30 am       Deeds Supporters Visit Jahmal’s Hair Salon
                315 N 1st Street
                Richmond, VA 23219

12:00 pm       Supreme’s Hairstyling Lounge
                400 N 1st Street
                Richmond, VA 23219

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