Creigh Deeds needed to find a way to avoid more verbal fumbles. Saying something new revealed a serious weakness for Deeds: he really can’t discuss the substance of an issue without doing fatal damage to his tax-raising campaign. So what’s the solution? Instead of saying anything new, Creigh is just repeating himself:
In a gubernatorial debate that covered little new ground, Virginia Democrat R. Creigh Deeds went to an extreme.
Mr. Deeds, during the candidates’ fourth debate Tuesday night, repeated nearly verbatim the two-minute closing remarks he delivered during their third debate the previous week, even though polls show voters are not identifying with the message…
When the trailing candidate’s campaign starts talking about GOTV as the primary strategy for victory, it’s over.
…the question that remains unanswered is whether they can prevail in a campaign in which Virginia’s many independent voters have turned against the national Democratic brand and with a nominee who many in the party privately believe has run a mediocre race.
The answer will be revealed on Election Night when the returns come in from northern Virginia, and particularly Fairfax County, the commonwealth’s largest jurisdiction. The Deeds campaign believes it needs to carry the region with at least 55 percent to win the election and at least approach the 60 percent threshold that recent Democratic candidates have captured in populous Fairfax.
As for turnout, the hope is to push the percentage of northern Virginia’s vote from 33 percent of the statewide electorate to above 35 percent.
I am a little surprised that this post can be written now, though: I had it scheduled for some time around the 29th. Obviously, turnout is very important; but it’s usually not until about a week or so before the actual election that losing campaigns start using it as a tool to backstop eroding enthusiasm. Seeing this happen this early suggests that Virginia Democrats are worrying about the downticket races.
Moe Lane
PS: Bob McDonnell for Governor. Because it’s not over until it’s over.
PPS: The big question for Chris Christie in NJ isn’t turnout for him; it’s whether Daggett’s going to break double-digits on Election Day (at this moment, this question makes the difference between a 1-point win for Christie, and probably a 3-point one). Which I’ll believe when I see it.
Former Vice President Al Gore will be coming to Virginia on Friday to give a last-minute boost to the Democratic candidate for governor, Creigh Deeds, a party source said.
Gore will headline a private fundraiser in McLean at the home of longtime Democratic supporters Al and Claire Dwoskin.
Democratic candidates for Virginia’s House are subtly distancing themselves from Creigh Deeds’ struggling bid for governor as the top of their ticket faces mounting troubles.
While not denouncing Deeds or supporting his Republican opponent, Bob McDonnell, down-ballot Democrats are downplaying the importance of the marquee race’s outcome and emphasizing themselves as self-contained candidates.
All polls are showing Bob McDonnell ahead of Deeds and a sizable number are showing McDonnell outside the margin of error. Even more disastrous for the Virginia Democrats is that the polls are also showing the other statewide races to be in the Republicans’ favor — Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.
Not since Dathan campaigned against Moses in the the Ten Commandants has a campaign been so disastrously craptacular. Well, there is Kay Bailey Hutchison, but I’m talking the 2009 election cycle and before.
Fortunately for Deeds, McDonnell has no stone tablet to throw at him and the ground will most likely not open up and swallow him whole as it did Dathan.
Still, when the Democrats are asking “Creigh who” when people ask them about Deeds’ campaign, he can’t be happy.
“I hope to God you understand this race is winnable.”
Vice President Joe Biden at yesterday’s fundraiser for VA gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds.
Having flogged the nothingburger story of the 20-year-old master’s thesis of VA Attorney General Bob McDonnell to bloody rags, the Washington Post does and abrupt volte face today and blames the lackluster campaign of Democrat candidate Creigh Deeds on flogging Bob McDonnell’s 20-year-old master’s thesis to bloody rags.
Republican Robert F. McDonnell has taken a commanding lead over R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor of Virginia as momentum the Democrat had built with an attack on his opponent’s conservative social views has dissipated, according to a new Washington Post poll.
McDonnell leads 53 to 44 percent among likely voters, expanding on the four-point lead he held in mid-September. Deeds’s advantage with female voters has all but disappeared, and McDonnell has grown his already wide margin among independents. Deeds, a state senator from western Virginia, is widely seen by voters as running a negative campaign, a finding that might indicate that his aggressive efforts to exploit McDonnell’s 20-year-old graduate thesis are turning voters away.
Nowhere in the story does it mention that the thesis that is turning away voters in Virginia is the same thesis that generates 572 Google hits within the Washington Post and was regularly featured on the front page and editorial pages of that paper.
If the old saying “success has many fathers while failure is an orphan” is applied here, one could say that Creigh Deeds has just been stuck with paying child support for the Washington Post’s bastard.
I’m not celebrating a victory yet. Election day is still a ways off and as we’ve learned from past experience if anyone can turn a sure win into an abject defeat it is a Republican candidate. Hopefully, regardless of the outcome of this election, the takeaway is that if you use an incident manufactured by the editorial board of the Washington Post as the centerpiece of your campaign, you have no one but yourself to blame when you fail. And the Washington Post will have no but you to blame either.
(Via The Campaign Spot) Not that they would ever, ever come out and say so - but when the one truly hopeful poll that one’s had in months for a particular campaign reverses itself the next time it’s taken again, well. Let’s just say that a handy excuse would be… handy.
The bad poll news comes on the heels of a story circulating in Democratic circles today that the Democratic National Committee is reportedly holding on to its $5 million financial commitment to the Deeds campaign out of concern that the Deeds campaign has focused too much of its attention on the controversial Bob McDonnell 1989 grad-school thesis setting out a hardline social-conservative political agenda for his budding political career and not enough on putting down a framework for what a Deeds administration would do for Virginia.
That’s so clever it’s almost diabolical. Remember: Deeds is the guy that the national party had the least preexisting ties with, so there’s less people to offend here. And telling him to come up with a new campaign narrative may sound reasonable - until you remember that we’re down to one month before the election. Also, five million dollars is suddenly looking like a lot more money, in this era of anemic Democratic fundraising; obviously, spending it on an election is what it’s there for… but throwing it away on an election is usually not considered smart.
Again, there’s no possible way that the DNC will ever admit that they’re going to cut Deeds loose. They’ll in fact angrily deny it. But ask yourself: in their shoes, would you be throwing good money after Creigh?
Six weeks…that puts the due date right around the time of the election here in Virginia (and New Jersey). Naturally, this hastongueswagging that the success or failure of health care could depend upon the outcome of the gubernatorial contests here and in the Garden State.
The Journal’s Kimberley Strassel believes:
The Virginian’s problem is that [Creigh Deeds is] a little too important to party leaders. The Obama White House isn’t half as worried about what Virginia means for next year’s elections as it is what Virginia means for this year’s health fight. A wipeout in the Old Dominion could send Blue Dogs scampering for cover. If health care isn’t done by Nov. 3, it may not get done. Mr. Obama needs Mr. Deeds to win.
Bob McDonnell’s campaign received a call this morning from a woman who called herself “Jennifer” and claimed to be a freelance reporter from the Connection newspapers in Northern Virginia. She asked for information about McDonnell’s schedule.
The problem? She isn’t a reporter. She actually works for Creigh Deeds’s campaign.
McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin, who took her call, said the caller ID showed Deeds’s campaign headquarters phone number and the words “Deeds for Va.”
Jim Geraghty’s right: this isn’t the biggest thing in the world. In that, it’s a perfect match to Deed’s campaign. I particularly enjoyed the fumble-fingered way that they got tripped up; you know, I’m pretty sure that Moran would have been able to play this particular dirty trick properly…
With Creigh Deeds imploding, the media decided it had to do something to help the Democrat. So they are highlighting McDonnell’s twenty year old thesis. In it, they find a candidate who is, brace yourselves, conservative. He went, after all, to Regent University, and his thesis is publicly available.
In other words, they could have written about it when he was running for the Virginia House of Delegates or Virginia Attorney General, but they wanted to wait until now when the Democrat needs some help. And what do they find that the man believed twenty years ago?
I said the other day that, “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.”
I was wrong.
Creigh Deeds is running the worst campaign since that kid no one in history remembers tried to beat William Pitt the Younger for third grade class president back in the 1760’s.
This is pathetic.
If you will recall, Creigh Deeds started this week wanting people to know that if Bob McDonnell were Governor of Virginia, more kids would live than if Deeds were Governor.
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.”
Deeds tossed his campaign manager after that one.
But brace yourselves. Creigh Deeds has come up with a new and never before been tried before except by Walter Mondale in 1984 winning strategy.
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.
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.
[UPDATE] Gah! It’s like a glitch in my brain. McDonnell, McDonnell, McDonnell.
That was the response of one of my colleagues from the news that McDonnell has taken a commanding lead in the VA race (and the news that Christie continues to dominate Corzine); while there’s still three months to go before the election, and while Deeds did win the primary despite being the underdog, these numbers aren’t good for the Democrats They are also roughly similar to last weeks SurveyUSA poll, which PPP itself notes:
The problem is all in who’s motivated and planning to turn out- McCain supporters are at a considerably higher rate than Obama’s, and that means a healthy McDonnell lead.
Last week I was skeptical of SurveyUSA’s poll showing an electorate that voted for John McCain 52-43…but we actually found it at a 52-41 McCain advantage.
None of this should be surprising: it’s an off-election year, the President will not be on the ticket, the economy is widely and accurately considered to be awful, and the current ruling parties of both states are widely and accurately seen to be part of the problem. Deed’s specific problem is that he got the nomination by not being Moran or McAuliffe… which wouldn’t have been a problem at all if the VA GOP hadn’t decided to run somebody credible. But the VA GOP did, and now comes the unseemly scramble on the Democrats’ side to hold the governorship.
As a Virginian and a member of the Republican Governor’s Association, I’m glad that the Democratic primary is settled and now the campaign for Virginia governor can begin. State Senator Creigh Deeds won the primary last night, after trailing by double digits less than three weeks ago.
The stakes in this year’s Virginia gubernatorial race are the highest ever. Even more than New Jersey, the other major off-year contest, the gubernatorial elections in my backyard are predictive of trends that will play out further into the cycle. I know that many felt our best chance would be against Clinton’s money man, Terry McAuliffe, but this Virginia Republican is not concerned. This race is not going to be about who our opponent is. We will win because of what the Republican Party is, and who and what we represent.
I believe our nominee, Bob McDonnell, is a major rising star in this party, and this race will prove it. For one thing, Bob brings a number of qualities to the race that previous GOP candidates in Virginia did not have. Better still, he carries none of their flaws.
Yesterday, Virginia Democrats selected Creigh Deeds as their nominee for this year’s gubernatorial campaign. I congratulate Creigh on his victory. While I had held out hope for a contentious and drawn out recount it doesn’t look like that will happen! Now, the general election is underway. I’m looking forward to it. And, no matter what state you call home, I hope you are too.
We are running a positive, issues-driven campaign here in Virginia. We are the campaign of “Yes.” We are saying yes to new jobs, yes to offshore drilling, yes to a worker’s right to a secret ballot, yes to greater choice in our public schools, yes to spending restraint and yes to greater transparency in our state government. Voters are responding. We are met by great crowds at every campaign stop. This is a campaign with momentum. Now I’d like to ask for your help in keeping it going.
Please visit www.BobMcDonnell.com to learn more about our campaign. If you can, we’d be honored to receive a small donation. Sign up for our email list. Pass on information to your friends. Virginia, and America, faces tremendous challenges right now. Voters are looking for candidates with solutions. I’m running a campaign of solutions that are based in our shared conservative philosophy.
This election is about Virginia. But I know that they eyes of the nation are on us. I hope you’ll take a minute to check out our campaign, read up about our proposals, and get involved in our effort to implement common-sense conservative solutions that will create new jobs and more opportunities all across Virginia. Today my campaign launched an effort to raise 20k online , can you help us reach this goal?
(Via Jen Rubin) With two weeks left in the Virginia Democratic primary, the failed DNC chairman from New York is still ahead of both the corrupt brother of an anti-Semite and the guy who keeps hitting people with his car (thanks, Jim Geraghty), but the guy with the car is coming up fast:
Raleigh, N.C. – The only candidate who has moved forward in the last two and a half weeks in the Virginia Democratic contest for Governor is Creigh Deeds, but Terry McAuliffe continues to hold a solid overall lead.
McAuliffe is at 29%, followed by Brian Moran and Deeds tied at 20%. PPP’s most recent previous poll had McAuliffe at 30%, Moran at 20%, and Deeds with 14%.
Meanwhile, the brother to the anti-Semite and the guy with the car are both going after the failed DNC chair, presumably because they’re worried that Bob McDonnell may not have been keeping proper notes, or something.
