"Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling said Monday that he wants to stay in his job four years longer and is giving up stated plans to run for governor in 2009.

Bolling’s decision gives Attorney General Bob McDonnell a seemingly clear shot at the GOP nomination next year while Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, and Del. Brian J. Moran, D-Alexandria, vie for the Democratic Party’s nod.

Bolling said “a lot of personal and professional commitments” weighed into his decision to seek another four years in the part-time position of lieutenant governor.

“It wasn’t feasible to spend the next 18 months running full-time for governor,” he said. “I’m not an independently wealthy guy. I’ve got to work for a living and we’ve got a mortgage and college tuition to pay.”

Bolling said he met Wednesday to inform McDonnell of his decision and “I think he was surprised.”

Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, called Bolling’s choice “great news for the Republicans.”

“It clears up a potentially great problem for them,” Sabato said. “It makes Bob McDonnell for all practical purposes the nominee for governor and means he doesn’t have to spend a lot of money” wrapping up the nomination.

“It’s terrific news for Bob McDonnell and it’s pretty good news for Bill Bolling” because he becomes a likely front-runner for the GOP nod for governor in 2013, or perhaps for U.S. Sen. Jim Webb’s seat in 2012, Sabato said. “He’s next in line for whatever.”

Bolling said his decision to run again for his current job “enables us to unite” as a party.

He also said that Del. Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, and state Sens. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax County, and Mark D. Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, “are the three that you hear” most often as potential running mates if they decide to run as Republicans for attorney general next year.

Bell called Bolling’s announcement “a big surprise. It sounds like the top of our ticket is set for 2009 except for attorney general.”

He is undecided about his own plans about a possible bid for the office next year.

“We are obviously going to have to figure out what we are going to do for the attorney general’s race,” Bell said of himself and his wife, Jessica.

Political figures said Bolling might have been trailing McDonnell somewhat in their unannounced bids for governor when Bolling made his decision to step back and defer.

Deeds said Bolling’s decision was a surprise and changes nothing in his quest of the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor.

A GOP ticket of McDonnell and Bolling and Bell or Cuccinelli or Obenshain “will be very much a right-of-center ticket,” Deeds said.

Jesse Ferguson, communications director for Moran, said the nomination contest with Deeds appears likely to be settled in a statewide party primary in June of next year. “Virginians for Brian Moran has 10 full-time staff,” he said.

As for the GOP settling its top two ticket spots more than a year early, “I don’t know that you can tell” this early whether that is a big advantage.

Deeds said Democrats had a big nomination fight in 1985 and then swept all three spots on the ticket that fall with Gerald Baliles, L. Douglas Wilder and Mary Sue Terry." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, March 25, 2008)