McDonnell set to kickoff campaign

He has already been running for Governor for close to a year, but on Saturday former Attorney General Bob McDonnell will officially kick off his campaign for the commonwealth’s top office.  McDonnell will make a swing around the state at a series of rallies including one here in Richmond.

Aside from a nasty intra-party squabble involving the RPV chairman Jeff Frederick, McDonnell’s campaign has gone off as well as one could hope. He has raised a pretty significant amount of cash, unified the party’s base and successfully convinced national Republicans that this race could be an important step in the party’s turnaround.

A few early polls have shown the former AG to be running a strong campaign against whichever Democrat emerges, but election day is still very far away.  Democrats are already throwing a few early shots his way and things will only get more tough once the primary is out of the way and the national party led by a popular Barack Obama and his DNC chair, (who happens to know a thing or two about Virginia gubernatorial campaigns) get involved.

It is early, but you can bet Team McDonnell wants tomorrow to go off without a hitch.

The details for tomorrow’s event in Richmond and the Democratic rebuttal are after the jump..