Dave Mills: We’ve suspected for awhile that it wasn’t “Bob for Jobs” but it was “Bob for Bob”

(Bob McDonnell takes his Big Lie (that he created a “budget surplus” — NOT TRUE!) nationally. Yipee. – promoted by lowkell)

This is cross-posted on Left of the Hill

With Rick Perry launching his campaign for president, Bob McDonnell has now moved in to fill his position as Chair of the Republican Governors Association. The RGA chairmanship will give him opportunities to travel across the country and meet with a lot of big wigs in the GOP. It also means he can travel to some of the early primary states like New Hampshire. Despite promising Virginia voters during the 2009 campaign that he was “absolutely planning to serve four years,” it appears as though McDonnell is willing to use his new high profile position to help him gain the stature needed to abandon Virginians for a more powerful position — the VP slot on the Republican ticket.

After McDonnell quit his job as Attorney General in order to run for governor, Virginians should take notice when he’s now actively campaigning for the VP nomination. He’s already quit on Virginia once when he saw an opportunity to move up politically, so it wouldn’t be something new if he did it again. It appears as though he doesn’t even feel the need to hide the fact that he’s going back on campaign promises because he told Politico in an interview that’s received a lot of attention that he’s “very interested” in the VP slot.

more below “the fold”

With that being said, I just got off a conference call with David Mills — the executive director of the DPVA. He said that he’s “suspected for awhile that it wasn’t Bob for Jobs but it was Bob for Bob” and this latest development simply reinforces that concept. He continued by pointing out that we need a governor who will be focused in on the local economy during a time when Virginia is still recovering from the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. In the month of June alone, for instance, Virginia lost 14,000 jobs but McDonnell is more focused on GOP national politics then keeping his commitment to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

As can be expected, he was asked about how this compared to the speculation that Tim Kaine was on the short list of potential VP’s for Obama. David quickly pointed out that one of the major differences is that McDonnell is actively campaigning for the job despite specifically stating that he would serve out his entire term. Kaine didn’t do that and kept his commitment to Virginia. “I think it’s safe to say [Kaine] didn’t actively lobby for the spot,” Mills said on the call. “The bottom line is that he kept his commitment to Virginia families.”

So the question now becomes, will Bob McDonnell keep his promises and try to be “Bob for jobs,” or is he already fully committed to being “Bob for Bob?”