Who is Ted Weschler?

Amidst the back-and-forth over which candidate for Attorney General raised more money, the Brownlee folks made a large stink about Ken Cuccinelli’s decision to shift his State Senate fund balance to his AG candidacy.  They tut-tutted about how they had raised more funds than Ken had (via RRZ).  As it turns out, though, Brownlee’s biggest donor raises serious questions about the kind of Republican he’d be.

As Jason Kenney notes, Brownlee’s biggest donor (so far) is R. Ted Weschler, a Charlottesville stockbroker with an interesting donor history:

I don’t know Mr. Weschler’s roots, but I can see how he’s contributed in the past and that has me a little concerned for the Brownlee campaign:

$20,000 to Mark Warner’s One Virginia PAC

$20,000 to Tim Kaine’s Moving Virginia Forward PAC

$20,000 to Tim Kaine for Governor

$500 to Warner for Governor

And perhaps quite notable to Conservatives:

$12,500 to Virginian’s For Responsible Government

Virginians for Responsible Government was set up in 2002 by a group of business leaders to defend the Senate “Gang of Five” Republicans — Chichester, Norment, Stolle, Stosch and Wampler — from intraparty challenge from conservatives.

Brownlee has shown his concern for questions of his conservative credentials (see BD: Brownlee takes exception to Kenney comments). Given his lack of a legislative record, there are going to be many more questions and people are going to look at things like donors for answers.

This is not a very good answer to Conservatives.

Actually, it’s worse than even Jason and JR (Bearing Drift) realize.  One of Weschler’s “Republican” recipients (to the tune of $19,500) was James C. Wheat, a 2007 candidate for Delegate in Henrico County who endorsed Kaine (Elephant Ears) and has since endorsed Mark Warner (Lynchubrg News and Advance).  So Weschler’s $60K to Democrats looks a lot more like $80K.

Now, if John Brownlee had a record of defending limited government in Virginia politics, none of this would be at issue.  However, all he has is a record that never touched upon state issues, the backing of a large chunk of the GOP establishment that gave us so much trouble in the first place, and Ted Weschler’s money.  That’s not the best combination.