Former DNC Chairman and Clinton fundraising titan Terry McAuliffe makes it official: he’s going to try to buy, er, win the Democratic nomination for Governor of Virginia. But the  AP sounds a warning:

McAuliffe also brings a political portfolio well to the left of Democrats Mark R. Warner and [Governor Tim] Kaine, who toiled in the state party for years before they were elected governor by pledging bipartisan cooperation and campaigning as moderates.

You have to feel a measure of sympathy for McAuliffe’s Democratic primary competitors (two journeymen Virginia legislators) who are reduced to asking the guy who raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the Clinton campaign to restrict himself to Virginia donors. Yeah, righhht.

As political events go, this race will be one of the more critical in 2009. Pundits can quibble about the fate of the GOP, RNC candidates can duke it out, and 2012 candidates can plot and scheme all they like, but nothing changes the political landscape (or doesn’t) like a high-profile race in a key swing state. And, yes, there is a certain irony in the course of the “Obama realignment” being determined by a Clinton crony.