Collegiate Times

mcDonnellCenter04012009

Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Bob McDonnell is opening his campaign this weekend with a six day, 25-stop tour of Virginia. Before appearing at the new Blacksburg Republican Headquarters Tuesday night, he talked with the Collegiate Times about how he plans to appeal to voters over the next seven months.

Collegiate Times: How does it feel to be out in front of the field in terms of getting headquarters set up in Blacksburg and getting started on the campaign?

Bob McDonnell: Well, we've been laying the foundation for about a year for the race and then decided we would officially kick it off starting Saturday with about a six-day, 25-stop tour around Virginia. It is very important to me to be able to get on college campuses and talk to young people. I just left James Madison, and we were at UVa earlier, and we will be at some other colleges tomorrow. I'm looking forward to talking at Tech, it's a great university and we're going to eventually have field staff and offices located around the Blacksburg-Christiansburg area. But tonight, I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of the students.

CT: As you mentioned, you've been to three college towns already. What role do you see young voters playing in the gubernatorial election, and how do you plan to appeal to them?

BM: I think you saw the surge in voters last election were primarily young voters, and I thought that was a good thing. Unfortunately, the 18-24 voting block is usually the one with the lowest voter turnout, but the last election brought people into it. So, I think it is vitally important to me to be able to reach as many young people and explain to them why my ideas on jobs and the economy and education and economic development are better than my opponents. I think most young people want to have a great opportunity to graduate and have a good job when they get out. I've spent a lot of time talking with young folks talking about the need to keep a good tax and regulatory environment, the need to be able to promote small business and tourism and expand the ability to recruit new businesses to come to Virginia, and to promote energy drives in Virginia. I think all these will help young people get better opportunities when they graduate. So, I think it's also very important to tell them we're going to run a very technologically advanced campaign. I've got a text messaging operation up and running. I've got more friends on Facebook, by far, than any of my opponents. So, we're going to run a campaign that addresses the issues people care about and also uses the mediums, like Facebook and text messaging, that young people use.

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