01/03/2008

By BOB LEWIS  / Associated Press

Brian J. Moran, a senior House Democrat, will establish a committee Friday from which he will launch a 2009 race for governor, advisers to Moran said Thursday.

Moran will file papers with the State Board of Elections to create a political action committee, Virginians for Brian Moran, said Mame Reiley, who will direct the PAC.

Moran, 48, of Alexandria, becomes the second Democrat to publicly state his intent to run for governor. State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds announced his candidacy with a video on his new campaign Web site last month.

Together, it marks the earliest official start of a race for governor in Virginia. The election is still 22 months away. No Republican has publicly announced plans yet.

Moran will do nothing more Friday than file the paperwork that allows him to begin raising money and supporting other candidates, said Reiley, a veteran adviser to former Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner. After the 2008 General Session, Moran will establish a campaign committee and formally declare his candidacy.

Moran hired Steve Jarding to advise his PAC. Jarding was the chief strategist for Warner's campaign for governor in 2001 and Jim Webb's surprise victory over Republican Sen. George Allen in 2006.

Jarding, who is advising Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson's re-election campaign in South Dakota this year, said Moran has some of the same political assets as Warner and Webb: a base in their northern Virginia home region, the state's most populous, and viability downstate.

"This is somebody who can sell and do well statewide," said Jarding, whose specialty is making Democrats competitive in rural areas where Republicans often prevail.

Friday's filing will mark Moran's first step toward a run outside the immediate Washington, D.C., suburbs, where he worked as a prosecutor in Arlington County from 1989 to 1995 before winning his Alexandria House seat in 1996.

Moran considered a 2005 race for attorney general, but never ran. At the time, both of his children had not reached school age. Deeds became the Democratic nominee for attorney general and lost, after a recount, to Republican Bob McDonnell in the closest election in modern Virginia history — just 323 votes out of more than 1.9 million cast.

Moran, the younger brother of U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., is chairman of the minority Democratic Party caucus in the House of Delegates.

Led by Moran and House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong, the caucus this year raised and spent $2.9 million in aggressive Democratic campaigns against targeted Republican seats and picked up four seats, the largest Democratic gain in the House since 1975. When the House convenes next week, Democrats will hold 44 of its 100 seats.