The former rivals who'll top the Virginia Republican ticket next year are again trying to pass for a team.

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is becoming a co-chair of Attorney General Bob McDonnell's 2-year-old red-tape-reduction panel. Bolling also will head for McDonnell a look-see at Virginia's transportation system.

Bolling recently announced that he'll seek re-election as lieutenant governor rather than oppose McDonnell for the gubernatorial nomination. That makes McDonnell the GOP's putative pick for governor in 2009.

When he become attorney general, McDonnell started what he calls a government and regulatory task force to recommend ways to reduce bureaucratic burdens for business and industry. It was widely viewed as a platform for McDonnell's gubernatorial ambitions.

The study has been run for McDonnell by a former legislator, Jack Rust of Fairfax. Rust will now share the chair with Bolling, himself an ex-state senator from Hanover.

Bolling's added duties on transportation may be perceived as a response by McDonnell to an appeal by some of his biggest check-writers in his Hampton Roads home base to get involved in fashioning a solution to the state's roadand rail-financing crisis.

-- Jeff E. Schapiro