Virginia Tomorrow

The Enthusiasm Gap has become the hot term to explain what is taking place in the statewide contests this year.

The pollsters can’t seem to agree on how large McDonnell’s lead is right now. Some have it as close as 7 points. Others have it as large as 19. But all the polls agree on one point.

Republicans are far more enthusiastic about McDonnell than Democrats are about Deeds.

The Virginia blogosphere provides a vivid example that reinforces the pollsters’ findings.

Lowell Feld at Blue Virginia has played an extremely significant role in Democratic campaigns fot rhe last six years, ever since he started Raising Kaine. He is supporting Deeds, but his posts also regularly point to opportunities missed and tactical blunders.

After last night’s debate, Feld focused on Deed’s rejection of the public option in the health care debate as one more example of Deeds’ inability to exploit pivot points against McDonnell that could excite Democrats. As Feld put it, Deeds continues to seek the votes of people who have no intention of supporting him anyway.

But Feld’s criticisms have been mild compared to those regularly issued at Ben Tribbett’s Not Larry Sabato.

Tribbett’s blog has an extremely large readership, in part because of his close analysis of electoral trends (see his GA previews as an example) and, in part, because his aggressively opinionated, thoroughly self-confident, highly personal style reflects (in an outsized way)  a made-for-the-internet approach that embodies an attitude that often characterizes modern political campaigns.

His criticisms of the Deeds campaign have been unrelenting and culminated last night in Tribbett tossing an F-Bomb Deeds’ way for his stance on the public option.

Let me be clear.

Neither Feld nor Tribbett supported Deeds in the primary and both believed that the Democrats should nominate a candidate who was more ideologically progressive. Moreover, Tribbett has been aggressively negative of late about other Democrats, including Governor Tim Kaine and Congressman Gerry Connolly.

Yet both Feld and Tribbett have been very important to winning Democratic statewide campaigns as evidenced by their insistent support of Jim Webb and constant attacks on George Allen in 2006.

Their lack of enthusiam for Deeds is symptomatic of the broader problems facing the campaign.

By contrast, the GOP blogosphere is relatively united and very enthusiastic.

Take a look, for example, at either Bearing Drift or Virginia Virtucon. Both have been extremely supportive of the GOP cause this year.

Bearing Drift has become an indispensable source in the campaign, providing not only pointed conservative-oriented analysis but extended podcast interviews analyzing the directions in which the campaigns are headed. It is a prime example of how the Republicans can counter the wide advantage Democrats have had in the new media.

Norm Leahy at Tertium Quids hasn’t completely joined the celebration, nicking McDonnell now and then for his trimming on conservative causes and his unwillingness to run on “big ideas” such as reforming the state tax system.

But there can be doubt that the GOP blogosphere is far more enthusiastic about McDonnell than the Democratic one is about Deeds.

In fact, it is one of the more telling indications of how the Enthusiasm Gap has reversed in 2009.