Creigh Deeds, Democrat gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, is running the most pathetic campaign for anything since Alan Keyes challenged Barack Obama for the Illinois Senate. My city council campaign was run better and more successful that his gubernatorial campaign is going.

The other day, the Deeds campaign decided to stop talking about the economic downturn affecting Virginia, taxes, education, and other issues a majority of voters pay attention to in order to fixate on baby killing. That’s right. Deeds decided his winning issue in Virginia would be that if Bob McDonnell were Governor of Virginia less babies would be aborted than if Creigh Deeds were Governor.

It didn’t work.

So the campaign rapidly moved from abortion to the Confederacy.

According to Creigh Deeds’ campaign and the Democrats, Bob McDonnell flew the Confederate flag at the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show.

The Democrats — more likely than not the Deeds campaign — sent a picture of the McDonnell booth to left-wing Virginia blogger Ben Tribbett, who blogs as “Not Larry Sabato”. Tribbett tried his best to blow up the story as something worth noting.

Joe Abbey, Deeds campaign manager, sent out a tweet this afternoon: “BREAKING NEWS: MCDONNELL HAS CONFEDERATE FLAG POSTED IN HIS BOOTH AT GUN SHOW IN RICHMOND” linking to the blog story.

The Deeds campaign rushed out to say Abbey was twittering away during working hours at the office for himself and was not operating for the campaign. We all know that’s crap, but in the lameness that is the Deeds campaign, that has to pass as their most plausible excuse.

Why?

Because the story blew up in their faces.Turns out the confederate flag in question was at the adjacent booth, “which was selling confederate flags and other paraphernalia, though the angle of the photo makes it appears as if the flag was McDonnell’s.”

Ben Tribbett, speaking for the Democrats pretending to speak only for his blog, responded to that saying, “If a confederate flag was placed at the exact median point between the McDonnell booth and a confederate booth and the McDonnell campaign was not smart enough to demand that it be taken down or that their booth be moved, that’s almost as bad as if the flag were at their booth.”

The problem, though, is that Hugh Crittenden, the guy who started and runs the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show, said there was no other available booth. Oh, and the confederate memorabilia sellers with the flag were not going to move their stuff just to accommodate the last minute arrival of a gubernatorial candidate — why should they?

The real story here and the one the Washington Post did not report is that Bob McDonnell showed up at the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show and Creigh Deeds did not. Bob McDonnell actually cares about their issues and Creigh Deeds just sends out press releases on their issues.

But kudos for the Washington Post reminding the same voters Creigh Deeds wants thinking McDonnell is an unrepentant racist that

According to a 1999 Roanoke Times article, Deeds told legislators during that debate that: “I grew up in a house with a portrait of the Confederate flag on the wall. I grew up in a house with a portrait of Robert E. Lee on the wall over my bed.”