Country Lawyer Trumps Democrat Star
in Virginia Democratic Gubernatorial Primary
By BOB LEWIS
www.townhall.com
For four years, Democratic State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds has coped with
losing the closest statewide race in modern Virginia history to Republican
Bob McDonnell.
Now that the rumpled, rough-around-the-edges country lawyer whipped
former legislator Brian J. Moran and master Clinton fundraiser
Terry R. McAuliffe in Tuesday's Democratic gubernatorial primary, Deeds
has the chance to avenge his 2005 loss in the attorney general election -
a margin of 323 votes out of 2 million cast.
Deeds started far behind and was so underfunded this year he sometimes
drove his own car to campaign events and had to furlough campaign
workers so he could afford TV ads. He emerged in the closing weeks as
bad blood between McAuliffe and Moran - along with a Washington Post
endorsement sent undecided primary voters in large numbers toward
Deeds, who stayed clear of his foes' crossfire, strategists for the
campaigns said.
However, the line between him and the committed social conservative
McDonnell is clearly drawn. And the stakes for both parties are enormous.
"The contrast could not be more stark, and Bob will attempt to portray
himself as a moderate," Deeds said in an interview Wednesday with The
Associated Press. "Bob is tied to the economic and social policies that did
so well for (former President) George W. Bush."
Deeds says he doesn't obsess about the hair-breadth 2005 loss that
lingered until a statewide recount resolved it one week before Christmas.
In that race, as in Tuesday's improbable primary victory, he surged in the
final days of the campaign in which McDonnell spent nearly twice the
money Deeds did.
Since March, the centrist Deeds battled back from last place against the
former Democratic National Committee chairman and Clinton White
House insider McAuliffe and former Democratic legislator Moran.
McAuliffe raised nearly twice the money Deeds did, made three campaign
swings with former President Bill Clinton and toured with rapper will.i.am.
Yet on Tuesday, McAuliffe got about half as many votes as Deeds.
Now, money won't be lacking. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine chairs the
Democratic National Committee and has millions of DNC dollars to help
Deeds keep the office in Democratic hands for a third term in a row. And
the Democratic Governors Association has endowed a state political
action committee with $3 million since March, with one mission: attack
McDonnell.
For the first time in decades, a Democratic nominee will have the aid of
not only a president of his own party but both U.S. Senators and six of
the state's 11 U.S. House members. But the once-dominant GOP is
determined to end an eight-year losing streak, with the Republican
Governors Association giving McDonnell $3 million and the promise of
more.
November's Gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey are the
first voter referendums on President Barack Obama and the Democratic
Congress. Any doubts about Obama's personal interest in the race were
erased by a Wednesday morning phone call from the president that
forced him to truncate a news conference.
Deeds has a few things in common with McDonnell. He has usually
backed
Virginia's strongly pro-gun laws. He never wavered on his support for the
2006 constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. But he's
intent on portraying McDonnell as a right-winger beholden to Christian
broadcaster Pat Robertson.
"Bob McDonnell has a social and economic agenda that will take us back
whether it comes to rejecting stem cell research for solving the diseases
of the future or standing against a woman's right to choose, even in the
event of rape or incest," Deeds said.
That, McDonnell said, is a stale attack in an election about improving the
state's business climate in a poor economy with rising unemployment.
"It's unfortunate that Creigh would choose this line of attack right out of
the blocks," McDonnell said.
Republicans, though, are already portraying Deeds as a puppet of labor
unions and other major Democratic donors and the liberal, big-
government orthodoxy that comes with their money.
"Any nominee that would emerge from that three-person primary would
be two things: one, a skillful candidate, but two, someone who will
accede to and adopt a lot of positions outside the mainstream," said Ed
Gillespie, a former Virginia and national Republican Party chairman and
special counsel to President George W. Bush.