At age 22, McAuliffe, joined his first national political campaign raising money for Jimmy Carter's 1980 re-election bid. McAuliffe had just enrolled at Georgetown Law School after graduating from Catholic University, but decided to take a leave from school to work for Carter. Though the election didn't end victoriously, McAuliffee experienced great personal success, rising to the role of Carter's finance director.

DCCC

McAuliffe returned to Georgetown and received his J.D. in 1984. The following year he was tapped by California Congressman Tony Coelho (D) to serve as finance director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the House Democrats Campaign arm. In that role, McAuliffe traveled the country building a network of party donors and began to earn his stripes as the Democrat's best fund-raiser. The famously energetic McAuliffe thrived in his new role, virtually living on the road, organizing countless events and even wrestling an alligator for a $15,000 check from Florida's Seminole tribe. Thanks to his relentless work ethic, Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) hired McAuliffe as finance chair for his 1988 presidential campaign.

As the number of McAuliffe's political contacts grew, so too did his business rolodex. ''I've met all of my business contacts through politics. It's all interrelated,'' he has said.

In 1987 McAuliffe landed his first major job in the business world when he became chair of the Federal City National Bank in Washington, D.C. In 1991 he went though his "greatest business experience" when the bank was on the verge of liquidation. He "rallied the board members" and merged the bank with another headed by Ronald Reagan's former national security adviser, Richard Allen.

Clinton Connection

In 1994, McAuliffe made his most fortuitous political connection when he met President Bill Clinton. The two would grow to be close friends as McAuliffe chaired the Clinton-Gore re-election campaigned in 1996, the 53rd Presidential Inaugural Committee in 1997 and the White House Millennium Celebration in 1999. All told, McAuliffe would raise more than $300 million for Clinton's re-election, inauguration, presidential library, legal defense fund and wife/senatorial candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Democratic National Committee

In February of 2001, McAuliffe assumed his highest profile job yet aschairman of the Democratic National Committee. Upon his election, McAuliffe said he planned not only to raise money butto "raise issues, questions, expectations." "We are unified, energized, ready to go put the Democratic agenda out there," he said.

McAuliffe presided over the DNC for four years while George W. Bush reigned in the White House and the GOP controlled Congress. Despite the disastrous election results for Democrats from 2001 to 2005, McAuliffe's tenure atop the party is generally seen as a success. When he started the job, the DNC trailed the RNC financially and lagged behind the Republicans in adopting technology at the party level. But when McAuliffe's term ended the party had a vast war chest of $70 million, revamped mailing listsand a new headquarters.

Not long after stepping down from the DNC, McAuliffe signed up with old friend Hillary Rodham Clinton as the chair of her 2008 presidential campaign. "She has the name recognition, the money, the glitz, she's got it all," McAuliffe enthused upon Clinton's entrance into the race.

During the 2008 campaign, McAuliffe was a near ubiquitous presence on television, maintaining his trademark upbeat optimism until the bitter end. As Clinton's campaign wound down he served not only as its chair but as its morale officer, regularly working to pump up dejected staffers. In June 2008 Clinton dropped out of race, throwing her support behind Barack Obama.

Her announcement prompted McAuliffe to say, "For the sake of women, they're never going to ask can a woman be president of the United States again, can a woman be commander in chief, is a woman tough [enough] to deal with all the defense issues Hillary has put all those issues aside, so a lot was accomplished in this campaign."

After campaigning for Obama for a few months, McAuliffe took his own steps toward elected office, filing paperwork to launch his candidacy for Virginia governor, which ended on June 9, 2009, when he lost the Democratic primary to deeds.

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