Photos by Stephen M. Katz | The Virginian-Pilot

While stumping at the Kiwanis Harbor Party in Norfolk earlier this month, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell takes some time to chat with author and radio personality J.P. Godsey.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, followed by a group of young campaign volunteers, drops by the Kiwanis Harbor Party in Norfolk earlier this month..

Between campaign stops, Bob McDonnell steals a moment to work on his computer in the back of the recreational vehicle the campaign rented to transport him and his staff from event to event.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell hugs his daughter Jeanine McDonnell as he leaves a women's luncheon in Virginia Beach last month.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell meets and greets attendees of a candidates forum before the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Association at Harbor Park's Hits at the Park restaurant in September.

A campaign volunteer directs Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell as he arrives at a candidates forum in Virginia Beach in September. In the background is the recreational vehicle he uses to travel to campaign events.

Related

• Political and campaign coverage, including multimedia, resources, endorsements, maps and more

roanoke.com/politics

• Gubernatorial race coverage and state, local and national political stories

Editor's note: A profile of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds was published Sunday, Oct. 11.

VIRGINIA BEACH -- Between campaign stops on a humid August day, Bob McDonnell's caravan detoured onto Petunia Crescent in the Green Run neighborhood.

McDonnell stepped out and, embracing his wife, Maureen, quietly stared at a modest brick home. They had bought it in 1985, when he returned to Hampton Roads to settle, raise a family and continue his education.

Behind them in the street was a reminder of how far they've come -- a rented recreational vehicle covered with images of the McDonnell clan. It's taking him and some of his family around the state as he vies to become Virginia's next governor.

The silence was broken by the roar of a fighter jet knifing through the sky above.

His race is drawing nationwide attention from Republicans hungry for a win, and a victory could put McDonnell on the short list of vice presidential candidates in 2012.

The candidate doesn't want to talk about future political ambitions, saying he will serve his full four-year term running through 2013 if elected. He prefers to keep the conversation on 2009, a campaign in which he's positioned himself as a moderate reformer who can work with Democrats to get things done.

He certainly looks and sounds the part.

McDonnell, 55, speaks in self-assured tones on the stump, rarely wavering or straying off message. In speeches, he often mentions his agreement with President Obama on charter schools and his collaboration with Gov. Tim Kaine to signal his ability to work across the aisle.

Where he has run into problems, though, is squaring his current image with a record and past writings that, his critics say, show a more far-right approach to governing.

Perhaps nothing has gotten more attention than McDonnell's 1989 graduate thesis, which came to light in August. He wrote it while pursuing dual degrees at what is now Regent University.

The paper was submitted while McDonnell lived at the Petunia Crescent house, and Democrats have seized on it to cast the Republican as out of the social mainstream.

Found among its 93 pages are passages about the harmful societal effects of working women and a belief that government policies should favor traditional families over gays and other unmarried couples.

On the topic of federal spending for child care programs, McDonnell wrote "further expenditures would be used to subsidize a dynamic trend of working women and feminists that is ultimately detrimental to the family by entrenching a status-quo of non-parental primary nurture of children."

In a later passage, McDonnell wrote that policy to do away with tax credits "for upper-middle income families, and targeting funds directly to low-income families, seems to perpetuate the income redistribution philosophy of the Great Society which has already produced its harvest of dependency, anomie and irresponsibility."

McDonnell has said the paper was done in an academic setting and isn't fully representative of his current views.

"I never really criticized working women. ... I was simply looking at the impact in the change in government policy and in the family structure on what happened with children when two parents were working," McDonnell said during a recent television interview.

"My own personal life clearly reflects through raising five children that I strongly encourage my daughters to be strong and independent and professional women," he said, accusing Democrat opponent Creigh Deeds of misrepresenting his views.

While McDonnell and Deeds are very familiar with each other, they won't be mistaken for friends, especially after this bitter campaign.

Both entered the General Assembly in 1992 as freshmen in the House of Delegates. Years later, McDonnell defeated Deeds by fewer than 400 votes in the 2005 attorney general election.

Now, the two are engaged in a rematch of that contest with the governor's mansion at stake.

Democrats weren't aware of the thesis four years ago, but they've recently hounded McDonnell on it.

Deeds, a state senator from rural Bath County, has pressed the issue in numerous campaign ads. Initially, those attacks seemed to improve his standing in polls.

Surveys showed Deeds closing double-digit deficits as he and his surrogates hammered McDonnell on the thesis. But the Republican's numbers have since rebounded.

A career in public life spanning 18 years assured McDonnell he would endure harsh criticism during this campaign. He warned his family last year about "the level of scrutiny, the level of intensity" he would face atop the ticket.

But even that reminder didn't fully prepare them for the thesis blow-back.

"I have been very frustrated, and it's insulting to hear people try to categorize him as not being for working women," observed Jeanine McDonnell, 28, the candidate's oldest daughter, who followed his footsteps to Notre Dame University and the Army.

"He has been behind me 100 percent of the time," she added. "I wish these people would drop it already. It's been going on long enough and it's not an accurate depiction of him."

-- -- -- -- --

Ask Robert Francis McDonnell directly and he'll tell you there's no ambiguity about his views.

"I'm a conservative. I've never pretended to be anything else," he said. "I believe in limited government and keeping taxes and regulation and litigation low. I believe the traditional values that have been broadly embraced by our society are good."

Some supporters add the word "compassionate," pointing to vacations spent volunteering, as he and his family did last summer, rebuilding homes ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Starched and steady, the trimly built McDonnell isn't physically imposing -- he stands about 5-foot-10 in loafers -- but has a stately bearing with his angular jaw and steely blue eyes.

His economic philosophy is rooted in a free-enterprise system with less regulation and lower taxes.

He's praised the second President Bush's fiscal stewardship and said tax cuts enacted on his watch led to an "economic revival." Democrats contend that tax breaks helped push the country into recession.

"We are not going to improve the lives of people in Virginia just by raising taxes, which is my opponent's main economic platform," McDonnell said. "We're not going to do it by supporting big government solutions from Washington."

That outlook has gained McDonnell support from a host of business groups and may explain why corporate interests have given more to him than to Deeds.

The oldest of five children in an Irish-Catholic family, McDonnell said his conservative views were informed by church teachings and parental lessons.

While he obeyed those instructions, he apparently didn't absorb the political leanings of his post-New Deal Democrat parents.

"I don't know when Bob actually became a Republican. I don't know if he ever wasn't one," said younger sister Eileen Reinaman, who remembers her brother as a curious child who excelled in athletics and academics.

An Army scholarship covered McDonnell's college tuition, and years later, GI Bill benefits subsidized his graduate and law studies at Regent.

McDonnell served in the Army overseas and stateside, spending 21 years on active and reserve duty before retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1997. He was stationed at Fort Eustis, Va., for a time in the early 1980s.

He returned to the area after a career with a medical supply company.

As years passed, McDonnell juggled graduate studies, a Capitol Hill internship, the demands of a growing family, and at one point, a job in sales for The Virginian-Pilot.

His political career began to blossom when he took a job out of law school with the Virginia Beach commonwealth's attorney office in 1989, and two years later won his first campaign for the House of Delegates.

McDonnell made his early bones in the legislature as a champion of law-and-order proposals.

He pushed for tougher penalties for sex crimes, drunken driving and people with repeat gun arrests, and to beef up the death penalty law.

Later, he introduced welfare reform legislation and successfully carried a bill to revamp the way judges seeking reappointment are evaluated in Virginia.

Even in the initial days, whether there was consensus or conflict, McDonnell remained poised, recalled Leo Wardrup, a fellow Republican delegate at the time.

"He will not belittle you. He will not talk down to you. He will treat you with grace and dignity, and I've seen that in acrimonious, toe-to-toe debates on the House floor," Wardrup said.

Fellow Notre Dame grad Gerry Scimeca, who ran McDonnell's first campaign, said McDonnell showed a preternatural grasp of policy and talent for politicking.

"You knew you were working for an exceptional candidate," he said. "There was something special about him."

Scimeca recalled a day handing out fliers at a high school football game when a tough-looking young man shouted McDonnell's name.

"Bob turns around and greets him like they were old friends, which was kind of surprising," Scimeca said. "So he chats him up, and afterwards I asked him, 'How do you know that guy?' Bob tells me he prosecuted him and the guy has turned his life around."

-- -- -- -- --

Not everyone was so charmed.

Attorney Glenn McClanan, the Democrat McDonnell unseated in the 1991 race, said McDonnell used bare-knuckle tactics to become Pat Robertson's first elected protege.

"He was a very ideologically driven person. He was really Pat Robertson's first candidate, the first one of the Regent University group to run for office," McClanan said. "I can't imagine him as the governor of Virginia. It's beyond my comprehension."

Don't tell that to the thousands of Republicans who roared approval as McDonnell accepted the party's gubernatorial nomination in late May.

He vowed to make kitchen table issues his priority, drawing applause as he called for thousands of new college degrees awarded, a greater focus on math, science and technology instruction, better roads and new sources of energy.

More applause followed when he reminded the crowd, "We fought to protect marriage, the right to life and the rights of parents."

His views on these issues haven't changed.

On others, though, they have.

His economic development platform calls for expanding the Governor's Opportunity Fund, which offers incentives to companies coming to Virginia. Deeds has noted that in the legislature, McDonnell voted to cut the fund.

Similarly, McDonnell opposed past efforts to change the rules for drawing legislative districts, but now says he will appoint a bipartisan commission to address the issue.

One of his signature accomplishments as attorney general was a push to stiffen penalties for sexually violent predators. A law change he championed instituted mandatory 25-year sentences for the worst offenders.

Midway through his tenure, McDonnell waded into a landmark gun rights case that had reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

He supported a brief filed with the court in support of overturning a Washington, D.C., ban on individuals owning handguns, which the high court ultimately did.

Although McDonnell is generally viewed as a solid supporter of Second Amendment rights, he doesn't hunt or own firearms.

Perhaps the lowest moment of his time as attorney general was the ultimate failure of the complex 2007 transportation funding plan he crafted with other Republicans and Democrats.

McDonnell's current plan to pay for road needs relies on a mixture of uncertain funding sources -- future offshore drilling royalties, tolls, future revenue dedication in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia, and the sale of state liquor stores.

He argues that his leadership will transcend partisan divisions that have stalled past attempts to improve Virginia's road network.

And his ties to the vote-rich regions of Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia and Richmond give him a personal stake in fixing their routine traffic, McDonnell said.

Democrats believe McDonnell will have to divert state spending from key priorities such as public schools to pay for his road plan.

Not true, McDonnell responds.

Reducing wasteful spending through government audits will free up money that can be spent on other needs, he said.

But like Deeds, he is asking voters to bet that he can accomplish things past governors have been unable to do.

"I believe that the experience I've had as an Army officer, a prosecutor, a legislator, a Fortune 500 company manager, attorney general have given me the leadership skills and the decisiveness to make the tough decisions the next governor's got to make," McDonnell said recently.

"It's about getting results and it's about finding ways to get every citizen involved in the body politic," he said. "Only 50 percent of the people bother to vote in our big elections in Virginia. I want everybody to take an interest in this government, to be part of a solution. We've got many challenges, from crime to jobs, to energy prices. I need everybody to care about our government, take an active role and be part of the solution."