The campaign for Governor that is.
McDonnell dominated June and July as the Deeds campaign was staffing up and raising money after its upset victory in the primary.
For the past few weeks, the contest has focused on whether McDonnell is the pragmatic conservative he claims to be or a reactionary ideologue poised to move Virginia as far to the right as the political environment will permit.
In an odd way, McDonnell is still dominating the campaign.
All those argments about The Thesis.
The dynamic hasn’t changed.
In each case, the race essentially a referendum on McDonnell.
If it comes down to this in November,
McDonnell will win.
Why?
Up to now, McDonnell has done a better job capturing the sentiments that are driving politics in 2009.
People are skeptical of what’s going on in Washington. McDonnell’s talking every day about keeping taxes down. And he has the advantage of being from the party that’s not controlling things.
He’ll have plenty of money to counter the accusations that are being made about him.
Perhaps most importantly, does anyone really think that in a series of one-on-one debates with Deeds that McDonnell will be perceived by the public an incendiary right-winger who can’t be trusted with the reins of government?
It didn’t happen in 2005.
It’s not the initial response that the public has to the job he’s done as Attorney General.
And it hasn’t been the media response to a single joint appearance that they have had since January.
I don’t believe that Deeds can depend on this changing all that much in the next seven weeks.
Recently, we’ve begun to see indications of a broader starategy that Deeds is likely to pursue.
He’s trying to draw a distinction with McDonnell on support for K-12 education.
And he’s tailoring messages to regional audiences.
He has a web-based advertising campaign in The Washington Post reminding NOVA voters of The Thesis.
But in Southwest Virginia, Deeds isn’t talking academics, but focusing on electricity rate increases and claiming that McDonnell didn’t do enough as AG to protect consumers.
We’re now entering the part of the season where one-on-one debates and joint appearances become more important.
A lot of observers and pundits have spoken about the need for Deeds to “reset” the campaign.
I think that his challenge may not be easy,
But it’s pretty simple.
Explain to voters why they should vote for Creigh
Not just against Bob.
That’s a tough task. How do you change the argument about transportation to be whether people want to sell off our transportation assets and toll the roads in order to fix our transportation problem? How do you educate the populace that Bob McDonnell’s push for offshore drilling won’t generate revenues until optimistically 2012. Yet the man is including those royalty revenues in funding all of his initiatives.
How do you take the facts and roll those into a sound bite?
McDonnell didn’t do enough to keep down residential electricity rates?
Here’s a map of the US indicating residential electricity rates for each state and DC:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/fig7p5.html
If you look at the linked spreadsheet you’ll see that VA is #18. 17 staes are cheaper, 32 states and DC are more expensive.
Deeds is a clown.
In 1999 (10 years ago) Robert C. Deeds ran an interesting campaign ad. Here it is:
http://gwatson0008.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/creigh-deeds-doesnt-believe-in-extra-rights-for-homosexuals/
Here’s the key quote, “I have never voted to allow gay partners to receive medical insurance — or any other benefit — from the state.”.
Hmmm…. No benefits for those stinkin’ gays. Was that Robert McDonnell or Robert Deeds? It was Deeds?!? OK, Creigh-fish, tell me one more time about that thesis.
Barnie Day quotes McDonnell’s thesis in Wednesday Ten. Here’s the quote, “Man’s basic nature is inclined towards evil, and when the exercise of liberty takes the shape of pornography, drug abuse, or homosexuality, the government must restrain, punish, and deter.” . Deeds and McDonnell obviously agree on detering homosexuality. So, what is it that bothers Barnie and Creigh? One can only assume it’s pornography and drug abuse since Deeds agrees with McDonnell on homosexuality. So, Deeds favors pornography and drug abuse?
Deeds is a clown.
Can someone please tell Creigh Deeds that it’s 2009 not 1909. Those of us in Northern Virginia can see the ads Deeds is running in Southern Virginia because the ads are posted on the internet (pretty much daily by the Washington Post and about 1,000 bloggers). I assume that the good people of Southern Virginia can see the ads he’s running in Northern Virginia via the same mechanism.
He’s not fooling anybody.
Deeds is a clown.