A cascade of embarrassing disclosures have buffeted McDonnell and his wife. | REUTERS McDonnell's stunning fall from grace

In 2010, the political world pegged Bob McDonnell as a president in the making. Last year, they put him on every VP list. As recently as May, they called the popular Virginia governor a political model for his would-be successors in Richmond, Democrat and Republican alike.

And now – well, now nobody’s sure what to call Bob McDonnell.


Suddenly under legal and political siege, McDonnell is the subject of one of the swiftest downfalls in recent memory: once known as a spotlessly clean, law-and-order politician, the governor stands accused of questionable financial dealings that range from the tacky to the jaw-dropping.

( PHOTOS: Scandal pols: Where are they now?)

The McDonnell saga has gripped Richmond – and increasingly Washington – as a cascade of embarrassing disclosures have buffeted the governor and his wife, Maureen. A series of Washington Post stories have documented their cozy relationship with a donor, Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams, who gave financial gifts to the McDonnell family including a cumulative $120,000 in the form of a check to Maureen McDonnell and a cash infusion to a family company.

With a federal investigation well underway, downcast McDonnell allies say they see little hope that the governor’s reputation will recover, and some privately express doubt that he’ll be able to serve out his term. They describe a pervasive mood of shock and gloom throughout the governor’s extended political family.

McDonnell himself is said to be frustrated and distraught, in a state of disbelief but not denial about the gravity of his predicament. His friends say that McDonnell firmly believes that he has done nothing illegal, and he told the Richmond station WTVR that in his 37 years of adult life, “No one’s raised questions about my integrity or my character.”

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The question everyone’s raising now is: How on earth did McDonnell let this happen? How did a famously disciplined politician set himself up for this operatic dive from the peak of American political life?

The most popular theory at the moment is that the governor, having overextended himself in the housing market prior to the 2008 crash, averted his gaze when Williams started propping up his family. McDonnell wouldn’t be the first politician to try and sustain a lifestyle beyond his means, and then sink into deeper trouble by getting bailed out.

In that view, the Virginia tale is a case study in the personal disorientation that stems from ascending to great political heights – the inevitable blurring of lines between one’s donors and friends, and the loss of perspective that comes with winning an office of immense power and limited financial reward.

But the truth is that nobody outside McDonnell’s family, and perhaps no one aside from the governor himself, knows precisely what blind spot or lapse in judgment set him on the path to self-immolation.

( WATCH: Virginia Gov. McDonnell refutes scandal allegations)

“This is not the Bob I know,” said former Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, who called the whole grim story wildly at odds with the larger arc of McDonnell’s career. “He is one of the most ethical guys I’ve ever worked with.”

Said Davis: “I’ve seen Bob in situations where a lot of other politicians would cross lines, and Bob has never gotten close to them. If what is reported is accurate, it is not in keeping with what I’ve seen in 20 years of knowing him.”

Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds, who ran unsuccessfully against McDonnell in statewide elections for both governor and attorney general, was just as incredulous.

“I’ve run two campaigns against the guy [and] I can tell you, I’m totally surprised. I’m just shocked,” Deeds said. “He had the world in his hands. He had everything in the palm of his hands and a very bright future. And now – now I don’t know.”

( Also on POLITICO: Glenn Thrush's politics week in review)

McDonnell allies continue to emphasize that much of what’s been reported may not run afoul of Virginia’s laws governing political gift-giving. There’s still no public evidence that Williams, for all his largesse, received anything from the government in return that would represent quid pro quo.

Indeed, until this week, McDonnell’s top political supporters hoped that the whole affair might blow over: It doesn’t look good for the governor to be letting a donor pick up the catering for his daughter’s wedding, but it doesn’t appear to be a crime. It looked terrible for McDonnell to own a Rolex paid for by that same donor, but perhaps he didn’t know Williams paid for it – perhaps McDonnell truly believed, as he once told a reporter, that the watch was a gift from his wife alone.

Even before the latest Williams disclosure, McDonnell supporters were dismayed: At an annual retreat for the governor’s political operation at Virginia’s Homestead resort last month, attendees said a relatively thin crowd turned up for a muted weekend of activities.

Still, while a range of smaller-scale infractions were embarrassing – allegedly taking food from the governor’s mansion without reimbursing the expense, for instance, a charge that emerged from a parallel legal case involving the indicted former executive mansion chef – that’s the kind of thing the public tends to forgive.

This week, the Post’s report on the $120,000 in cash transactions changed all that. Even if it was legal for McDonnell to take the money from Williams and call it a loan, that development convinced Republicans that McDonnell must have known about his family’s transactional relationship with the Star Scientific executive all along.

“It’s a colossal fall from grace,” said one senior Virginia Republican. “A lot of this could have been prevented if one would exert a little more control over the people close to you and how they represent you … Bob McDonnell’s biggest sin in all this has been turning a blind eye.”

Another top state Republican said that thanks to lax Virginia ethics laws, there have been “pieces of this that have applied to other governors,” adding: “I can’t recall any time in Virginia where someone has gotten hurt on lack of disclosure on filing.”

“But anytime the FBI comes looking at you, they lift up the hood and you don’t know what you’re going to find,” the same Republican said.

If the legal consequences are a question mark for McDonnell, the political consequences are not. In a February interview with POLITICO – immediately after passing landmark legislation to fix Virginia’s transportation woes – McDonnell wouldn’t rule out a campaign for president down the line. That possibility is now all but extinguished.

And in the 2013 governor’s race, both parties’ nominees have begun edging away from McDonnell and positioning themselves for a general election debate over ethics. Republican Ken Cuccinelli has his own ties to Star Scientific, and has disclosed several thousand dollars in gifts from Williams. Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, meanwhile, has a lengthy business and fundraising record that Republicans intend to target.

This week, both men delivered rhetorical elbows to the governor. Cuccinelli released a sharp statement Wednesday calling McDonnell’s behavior “completely inconsistent with Virginia’s very reserved traditions.”

McAuliffe, who was running ads as recently as May touting his support for McDonnell’s transportation agenda, is now pushing a proposal to ban politicians from receiving gifts over $100. In a Thursday statement, the Democrat said the state’s “current standard of self-enforced transparency has clearly failed.”

Even McDonnell’s sometime antagonists say they are stunned at the speed with which he’s been transformed from a golden boy into Radioactive Man.

Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist, who trashed McDonnell earlier this year for raising taxes in his transportation plan, expressed deep surprise at the reversal of fortune.

“It is surprising. If you were planning on being a city councilor for the rest of your life, you might take the odd questionable gift,” Norquist said. “If in the back of your mind, you think one of your options is to run for president, you know everything you do is going to be looked at.”

Elizabeth Titus contributed to this report.

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