Virginia 2009 Megathread

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http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/0809/Deeds_and_Obama.html


this just opens the "what is Deeds afraid of?" line of attack, which is effective against both Obama voters who think Deeds shouldn't be hiding from the president and McCain voters who don't like the secret connection.

expect it to appear in an ad.

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I love Deed's new radio ad:


MALE VO: That’s why I’m voting for Creigh Deeds.

FEMALE VO: That underdog guy?

MALE VO: Mmm-hmm … the state senator who partnered with Mark Warner to reform our budget and protect our schools.

FEMALE VO: Yeah I saw on his website he wants tax cuts for any business that creates just one new job. And I love his idea for auditing ALL government spending.

MALE VO: Common sense leader... Pro-business...

FEMALE VO: Creigh Deeds: a little more Mark Warner and a LOT less George Bush.

MALE VO: Sounds like a Governor on OUR side.

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Some ridiculous news out of Virginia Beach...

First, Del. Bobby Mathieson (D-21) has accused one of his aides of embezzling campaign money.

Second, Mark Hardman, the challenger for Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney is homeless and unemployed:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

NOT FAR FROM THE TRUTH:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=101533.0

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How do we know it wasn't intentional to make him seem less fundie?

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Douglas Wilder is an attention whoring idiot.

But if he endorsed Deeds he would have been brilliant I bet.

all he says is he disagrees with Deeds' willingness to raise taxes for transportation improvements, and guns, and it's not like Wilder is some super leftist.

there's no need for a has-been governor to try and make the news over his non-endorsement of anyone unless he's attention whoring (I doubt he's an idiot).

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Oh my gosh, it looks like Bloomberg is gonna become a wedge issue meme in the South now.

http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room/other-news/62229-goper-bloomberg-and-anti-gun-cronies-should-stay-the-heck-out-of-tn

It's a disgusting symbiotic relationship where both McDonnell and Bloomberg gain national attention by developing faux-battles against one another, pitting region against region.

Trust me, Bloomberg isn't a fan of Deeds.

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yeah everyone says that, hell, I think Obama has a good money quote about how he couldn't feasibly even run for president since it would require him to basically begin campaigning in 2004 moments after he arrived in the Senate

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Bob McDonnell says he'll serve his entire term if elected, discouraging breathless "McDonnell in 2012" commentators:

http://nbc12.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/mcdonnell-pledges-to-serve-entire-term/

Of course he'd say that -he isn't even governor yet.  He understands as well as anyone that there is no point in encouraging rumors that he plans on using his office (should he win it, which seems pretty much a fait accompli at this point) as a springboard for his ambitions.  Too premature and it would raise questions about his commitment level. 

However, I do fully expect him to run against Senator Jim Webb in 2012, barring a disastrous term.  And I imagine he fully intends to.       

Another benefit: It lets you claim some big event Obama did "changed your mind" which makes a nice media narrative.  Like Pearce did when he decided to run against Teague for his old seat back.

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If I was a polling outfit, I'd be tempted to poll this race just to test my ability to handle low-turnout elections, but the high amount of variability involved in an off-year blowout election would make it tempting to not release the results beforehand

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I mean, Obama has allowed his name to be part of a number of pushes by the Deeds campaign, as a tribute to Obama's friendship with Tim Kaine, nothing more, nothing less


Wouldn't surprise me the least to see a lot of variation in polling from high single digits to medium double digits coming into election day, I wouldn't over-interpret anything though

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Eh, I don't really consider losing by 8.5% anything but a blowout victory by McD, but maybe I should have assigned the range from low double digits to medium-high double digits.

18%  seems too high, but 15% seems not unreasonable, 9% seems within reason as well, y'know?  

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Oh and one last thing Sam: don't even think about responding to me or asking me to respond further to your childishness.  Be assured that every subsequent comment including your original retort will be forwarded to my attorney.  

You just stepped in it big time.

will you marry me?

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I'm pretty sure scientists have established that correlation for centuries, Sam

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who told you about my small dick?  was it April?

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Ben, how are things holding up in your neck of the woods? You aren't going to engage in anything that could be harmful tonight after McDonnell wins, are you?

He's already predicting a McDonnell victory, time to lighten up.  All of us democrats have come to terms with this race and moved on. 

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I still think Deeds is going to pull this one out.

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DEEDS WON IN BATH COUNTY

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Mapity-map

Absolutely pathetic.  He lost Fairfax, and only managed 38% in Loudon.  Really, really pathetic.

Bad candidate perhaps?

Uh, no shit Sherlock.

bad campaign more than bad candidate IMO.  Deeds of course deserves a large slice of the shame as he totally ceded way too much of his campaign to credentialed yet stupid strategists.

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it's the wrong lesson to interpret the election as "never nominate a blue dog again" -- that's just stupid....there were so many factors going into Deeds loss, mostly a horrible campaign.  Deeds decision to try and keep himself at arms length from Obama was part of his attempt to keep the race local as swing voters in VA showed up in his polling as opposing major Democratic initiatives in D.C.....but Deeds problem was that he didn't realize that he was going to own Obama no matter what.

Remember that this was an election where the Democrats controlled all levels of D.C. government and had controlled the VA governorship for the last eight years, and it was a special election, pretty unique circumstances and the right move would have been to attach himself to Obama at the hip, ignore hard-to-please independents and just turn out as many Obama surge voters as humanly possible.  He still would have loss, but it's really simplistic to say Deeds opposing cap-n-trade or whatever had anything to do with his loss and on down the list....McDonnell simply was a quintessential suburban candidate that ran as if Fairfax was his hometown

one of the biggest flaws of the Deeds campaign, as I've said, was that they tried to run as Mark Warner part II...I mean, promising to do the same thing and be the same person as the people before you isn't going to inspire a lot of people

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Bashing Cap'N Trade was somewhat understandable as Virginia is a coal producing state.
What really pissed off liberals was his statement that he would opt out of the public option.

He said he would consider it.  Which was stupid.  All he had to say was "If the final bill lowers health care prices for Virginians, I'll whole-heartedly support it, if it does not, I won't, I haven't seen the final bill, no one has" if he wanted to bluedog himself out there...very confusing answer overall.  It was weird too because no Democratic governor in even the most Republican of states would opt-out, so it was like a totally insincere way to piss of the base

Also, what % of voters last Tuesday even knew what cap-n-trade was?  10%?   Deeds did a great blogosphere outreach during the primary, but after that a surge of strategists rushed down from D.C., he really let his campaign be run by strategists trying to turn him into a cookie-cutter candidate, which Deeds was just awful at.

His campaign was very self-conscious of a rebellion of Independents against national Democratic policies...it's good to be self-aware, but he obviously was cautious to an extreme fault.

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The lesson is not "don't nominate a blue dog" so much as it is "don't nominate someone who will drive his campaign in the ground". Unfortunately, the latter is a lot harder to predict than the former.

Deeds campaign got SERIOUSLY spooked during the summer lull in Obama's approval too, from what I've heard...we're going to be getting more and more leaks about how awful some of his advisers *cough cough Monica Dixon cough cough* were in the coming days I suspect.

Really, my advice to all campaigns is to avoid being skittish, find a working role that your candidate feels comfortable in and stick to it while changing the emphasis based upon the needs of the day.