McAuliffe's Campaign Junk-et

There is really no cleaning up the fact that Terry McAuliffe practices trash politics.

Campaign with him for a few hours and you feel as if you need to take a shower. In fact, the dirty little secret can now be told: McAuliffe, venture capitalist and Clinton moneyman, is the junkyard dog of the Virginia gubernatorial race.

"I love trash," he said yesterday. "I love chicken litter, cow manure, garbage. . . . This is the kind of thing that gets me excited."

And if his opponents were to accuse him of dirty tricks?

"They would probably be right," he admitted with a grin.

McAuliffe said these words -- shouted them, actually -- while standing on a steel grate overlooking a huge trash pit yesterday in Lorton. Claws dangling from cranes grabbed mounds of refuse. Dust flew everywhere. The pit was dark. The smell was bad.

Read the whole Sketch