Jody Wagner announces bid for lieutenant governor in 2009

RICHMOND

Former state Finance Secretary Jody M. Wagner, a longtime South Hampton Roads resident, Friday announced her candidacy for lieutenant governor in 2009.

Wagner’s declaration has been expected and was evidenced further when she resigned from Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s administration in recent weeks.

She enters a field with two other candidates: incumbent Republican Bill Bolling and fellow Democrat Jon Bowerbank, a Russell County supervisor.

A lawyer by profession, Wagner was state treasurer under former Gov. Mark Warner before becoming a cabinet secretary under Kaine.

This is Wagner’s second attempt at elective office; she lost a congressional bid in 2000.

Wagner announed her bid for lieutenant governor in video to supporters posted on her campaign web site, www.JodyforVA.com.

In a written statement, Wagner cast herself as leader capable of keeping “Virginia’s fiscal house in order” and a small business and education advocate. In contrast, she characterized Bolling as an out-of-touch official who wants to “turn back the clock to a time when politics and ideology stood in the way of progress.”

Rejecting that assessment, Bolling’s spokesman Randy Marcus said the current lieutenant governor has a 17-year record of “providing common sense solutions for Virginia” in a bi-partisan manner.

Wagner, an Ohio native and mother of four, has called both Norfolk and Virginia Beach home.

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com