Going on to study mechanical engi-
neering at U-Va., Cuccinelli was a bit of an E-school grind, but he found time to memorize the lyrics to “Rapper’s De- light,” Sugarhill Gang’s 1979 hip-hop masterpiece, which he and buddies would perform at the slightest excuse. He was elected to the student Judicia- ry Committee, the prestigious arbiter in campus disciplinary matters, which helped him set his sights on law school (George Mason University). His work on Judiciary and as a residential adviser deepened his attention to the problem of sexual assault. During his final year at U-Va., he
landed an internship in the office of Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the last Demo- crat he would ever vote for — because he liked Wilder’s fiscal toughness — and he also got engaged to Alice Monteiro “Teiro” Davis, then a senior at James Madison University. They had met as teenagers when the attractive stranger moved a few doors down from the Cuc- cinellis. She attended Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington. He took her to the Gonzaga prom. They broke up during the first few years of college, until Cuccinelli sought her out again. When he proposed marriage, he was
so oblique, she didn’t understand. He had to ask twice. “I didn’t have that speech written
out,” he deadpans. “I’ve made the whole rest of my life more blunt. That will never happen again.”
Teiro Cuccinelli stands at the counter in her sun-splashed kitchen, chopping tomatoes, peppers and cilantro for homemade salsa. She will make two kinds: Spicy for her, bland for him. Six of their seven children, ages 1 to
14, are scattered about the downstairs, reading paperbacks, playing ball, playing peek-a-boo. The family just moved from Centreville into the sprawling pale-yellow home on 10 acres in rural Prince William County. The family’s green 15-seat van is in the driveway. The new house reduces Cuccinelli’s commute to Richmond by 25 minutes, but it raised eyebrows in Rich- mond when the Cuccinellis chose not to relocate to the capital. Ken and Teiro did not wish to move too far from the Catho-
The attorney general wears his “Don’t Tread on Me” cap to a staff baseball game. he keeps a banner with the same motto in his office.
lic school where their oldest child, Alie, is doing well. The couple home-schools their children through the sixth grade. “I know there’s got to be this per-
ception of people that I’m like this simplistic, stay-at-home mommy, so I try very hard to be up on what’s going on,” says Teiro (pronounced TEE-row), who is witty and down-to-earth but rarely grants interviews and doesn’t campaign much with her husband. Ken arrives home with a box from
the office, having picked up Alie from her last day of eighth grade. He imme- diately goes on dad duty. He sweeps up balls of shaved cheese that have been squeezed by little fists and dropped be- neath a high chair. He sniffs the baby’s diaper. Nope. He sniffs the toddler’s di- aper — “Oh, it’s you!” — and he’s off to change it. Then, it’s nap time. After the younger ones have been fed
and/or put down for naps, the adults and Alie sit down on the porch for que- sadillas, salsa, fruit and sweet tea. A paradox of being what conservative
groups call a leading “family-friendly” crusader is that Cuccinelli inevitably has less time for his own family. “I think there have been challenging
times with Ken’s absence, but over the years I think he has learned to be here
18 The WashingTon PosT Magazine | august 1, 2010
when he’s here, fully here,” Teiro says. She catches him sneaking a peek at
his BlackBerry. “Right now, he’s looking at his phone, so you can’t tell!” “We have a stampede to the door
when Dad walks in,” Alie says. “And there’s a fight over who gets to open the door first.” “We all sort of feel it’s how we con-
tribute to the work he’s doing,” Teiro continues. “We do miss him. It makes homecomings very sweet.” She knows politics have irrevocably
shaped her husband’s public identity, yet she realizes that, in a strange sense, his fans and his foes have equally one-di- mensional understandings of him, based on his die-hard attachment to a handful of positions that they love or hate. “His priorities are God, me, the chil-
dren and everything else,” she says. “What makes him more than what people perceive is his very deep-rooted emotion. On the surface, publicly, he has a very serious persona. But he has a great sense of humor and he’s very sen- sitive, and that doesn’t come out.” Early in their marriage, she almost
kept him out of politics. Ken was a Young Republican volunteer, discover- ing within himself a small-government, anti-tax, constitutionalist conserva-
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