Steve, I Respectfully Disagree

I've worked with Steve Jarding on the Webb campaign and also in the South Dakota Senate race last year. I like and respect Steve, but I've got to disagree with him on a number of things he says in this video.

1. "[Brian has been] fighting for environmental policy that makes sense...Brian has that message."
We've been through this a gazillion times; in his time as a legislator, before he suddenly quit last December, Brian Moran voted for (among other things): clean coal (not even defined as including carbon capture and storage), more oil refineries in Virginia, offshore natural gas exploration, and Dominion's Wise County coal-fired power plant. Brian did NOT co-sponsor Chap Petersen's visionary "Clean Energy Future Act", despite the efforts of environmentalists to persuade him to do so. Even during this campaign, Brian has talked about Virginia as the "Saudi Arabia of coal" and how "We can't turn our backs on that." Yeah, really sounds like an environmentalist to me. Perhaps that's why the League of Conservation Voters endorsed Terry, not Brian? Hmmmm.

2. "Brian has an unprecedented number of endorsements."
Unprecedented? Uh, don't think so. Actually, Brian has most of the endorsements you'd expect him to get, and not many others. In fact, he's lost some big ones - LCV, Richmond Crusade for Voters, organized labor - that you might have thought he would have gotten. And remember, most of Brian's endorsements came prior to Terry McAuliffe's entry into the race.

3. "There are some polls out there that show that Brian has moved ahead, surged ahead."
Oh really? Actually, according to Pollster.com, the last time Brian Moran led a poll was on April 6. Since then, Terry McAuliffe and also Creigh Deeds have pulled ahead of him. Also, Brian's support has only increased by 4 points since late January, while Terry's has gone up 19 percentage points and Creigh's up 15 percentage points. Somehow I'm not seeing any "surge" for Brian there. [UPDATE: the new DKos/R2K poll numbers give Terry a 14-point lead over Brian and a 23-point lead over Creigh]

4. "I can tell you from Jim Webb's campaign, we were outspent in the primary dramatically, it was something like 7, 8, 9, 10 to 1...that didn't bother us as much because we knew we had enough to turn our vote in to win."
First of all, I checked with former Webb campaign manager Jessica VandenBerg, and she said Webb was outpsent by Miller 3:1. Not 7:1, 8:1, 9:1, or 10:1. Second, I was there, and it very much DID bother the Webb campaign. In fact, Jim Webb even had to loan himself a significant amount of money to get through the primary, and it was a real struggle. One of the main reasons I quit my job with the federal government in March 2006 was that Steve Jarding asked me to help raise money online, and I obviously couldn't do that under the Hatch Act. So, yes, the lack of money in the Webb primary campaign was a major problem.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the reason we had "enough to turn our vote in to win" is that we had about 1,000 superb grassroots activists by June 2006, people Webb called his "ragtag army," and without whom there's no way Webb would have won. Webb also had overwhelming support on the progressive blogs. In contrast, Harris Miller had almost no volunteers or progressive blog support. This time around, it's completely different, as both Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe each have significant grassroots and netroots support, while Creigh Deeds also has a good deal of each. Actually, the McAuliffe has thousands of volunteers, probably surpasses anything that’s ever been built in a Virginia statewide primary. In short, this primary is completely different in that respect to Webb-Miller 2006.

5. "We believe then [with Jim Webb] as I believe now with Brian Moran that we had the right messenger and the right message."
With all due respect, I know both Jim Webb and Brian Moran very well, and Brian Moran is no Jim Webb in terms of either message or messenger. Also, what is Brian Moran's message again? This campaign started with him emphasizing his fundraising prowess, then shifted dramatically after Terry got in the race to a liberal/populist/"grassroots" emphasis. In contrast to Jim Webb, who had three basic themes and stuck with them from February 2006 to November 2006, Brian Moran has been pretty much all over the place in terms of message. No comparison once again.

6. "You have to have someone who Virginians know; we take great pride in Virginia that our candidates are people that spent time, that paid the dues, that moved around the state."
It's funny to hear this coming from the same person who, in 2006, argued against the guy (Harris Miller) who "spent time...paid the dues" and for the guy (Jim Webb) who Virginians did NOT know and who had NOT spent the time or paid the dues. So confusing.

In sum, I like and respect Steve Jarding a great deal, but I simply do not agree with his analysis of the governor's race as articulated in this video. I've explained my reasoning above. Now's your turn, what do you think?