"If endorsements mean anything, then Del. Robert F. McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach, is off and running for attorney general with the wind at his back.

McDonnell showed up in Charlottesville Nov. 18 with 42 supporters in attendance and a sixth congressional endorser - 5th District Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount--there in spirit, if not in person, and listing himself as a backer.

Former Del. Paul C. Harris, who was elected to two terms in the House of Delegates from Albemarle County, “is the co-chairman of my campaign,” said McDonnell, chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee on which Harris once served.

McDonnell, a Virginia Beach conservative, faces Richmond lawyer Steve Baril, son-in-law of the late former Gov. John N. Dalton, in a June 14 Republican Party primary. The Republican who emerges will face the winner of a June 14 Democratic Party primary that features state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, and Sen. John S. Edwards, D-Roanoke.

The boyish-looking McDonnell, 50, has collected quite a list of endorsements from fellow Republicans in the General Assembly, in Congress and among commonwealth’s attorneys and local party chairmen. Already, 17 GOP state senators - all but seven in that chamber - and 53 House Republicans, another solid majority north of 80 percent, count themselves as McDonnell supporters.

Getting the support of 80 percent of GOP legislators is an accomplishment, because 80 percent of the Republicans in the legislature rarely agree on anything, said Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle and an early McDonnell backer.

Yet, quite often, endorsements do not mean much in terms of votes.

Deeds said he sees McDonnell as the favorite to win the GOP primary over Baril but believes endorsements may have little to do with it.

“Bob McDonnell appears to have a substantial number of endorsements, but I don’t know whether those endorsements carry votes with them or not,” Deeds said.

“In 1989, all but one Democrat in the General Assembly endorsed Dick Saslaw for lieutenant governor, if I remember correctly, and yet Don Beyer won,” he said.

“I don’t know that there’s a critical mass” as far as overwhelming numbers of endorsements translating into party voter support for a nomination, Deeds said.

Bell said McDonnell’s record in the General Assembly, where the Virginia Beach Republican has served since 1992, recommends him to voters.

“He was one of the co-authors of the abolition of [mandatory] parole, the single most important criminal justice reform” of the past decade, Bell said.

“Bob has the biography of the person we want to lead our state as Virginia’s top cop,” Bell told the McDonnell supporters at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel.

Of course, the state’s attorney general is really the state’s top lawyer - not the top cop - but it doesn’t seem to hurt the many people who run for the job by painting it as a top cop position and frame their campaigns in law enforcement terms.

They are all likely to be running for governor in a few more years, and painting oneself as tough on crime works there for Democrats and Republicans.

Bell noted that McDonnell also was chief sponsor of Virginia’s welfare reform legislation under former Gov. George Allen.

At McDonnell’s campaign kickoff, Bell read a letter of support from Goode, who this month won a landslide re-election victory for a fifth term in Congress over Nelson County Democrat Al Weed.

Goode called McDonnell a “committed pro-family leader who helped make parental notification the law in Virginia, steered the partial-birth abortion ban through the legislature and helped pass the General Assembly’s resolution stating that marriage is between one man and one woman.”

Bell also noted that McDonnell was a key leader of the effort to stiffen penalties this year for those who drive drunk in Virginia.

McDonnell’s social conservative record in the General Assembly is as strong as anyone’s.

McDonnell said in Charlottesville that his faith in God is a central foundation of his life.

He quoted George Washington “as my political hero, who said ‘the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.’ ”

Baril, who has yet to formally announce his candidacy but is almost matching McDonnell in the weight of heavy campaign contributions, last week launched a call for “a Marshall Plan for transportation.”

Baril said the new state funding would have to come from bonds, tolls and general fund revenue.

Perhaps Baril has an advantage in running as a non-legislator with no responsibility for failing to fix Virginia’s widespread and ongoing transportation problems.

But when it comes to endorsements, Baril is unlikely to catch McDonnell before the only endorsement that really counts - that of the majority of voters in the party’s June 14, 2005, primary." (Bob Gibson, Daily Progress, November 21, 2004)

Contact Daily Progress political writer Bob Gibson at (434) 978-7243 or bgibson@dailyprogress.com.