Increasingly, I'm starting to think that the Deeds campaign messaging right now is like that old game of telephone -- the message isn't coming through clearly from the Deeds campaign's mouth(s) to people's ears. A few recent items to consider.1. The Augusta Free Press has an article entitled "Deeds camp stakes campaign on reproductive-freedom issue." Argh, no, that is NOT what the the messaging and/or framing the Deeds campaign wants at all. Instead, the framing the Deeds campaign wants is simply this: Bob McDonnell is NOT a "moderate," he's NOT who he says he is, he can NOT be trusted, and the abortion issue is just an example of this. In other words, what the Deeds campaign is trying to say is not about abortion per se, but about McDonnell being a phony, just as the Webb campaign said about George Allen in 2006. What the Webb campaign did in 2006 was put out press releases, day after day and week after week, pushing the theme that George Allen is NOT who you think he is. Then we gave examples, over and over again. Then, George Allen fell right into the trap, proving that he wasn't who he claimed to be. That's how this is supposed to work, but doesn't seem to be working this year.
2. In that Augusta Free Press article there's a quote by Christopher Newport University political-science professor Quentin Kidd that is totally the opposite of what the Deeds campaign is trying to do here.
Basically what the Deeds campaign is saying is, Both candidates can govern effectively on the economy and jobs, so the real question is, Do you want a governor who takes the social-conservative position on abortion as your next governor?Again, noooooooooo!!!! That is NOT what the Deeds campaign is saying (or trying to say) at all! To the contrary, they are trying to say that Creigh Deeds is the only one who can "govern effectively on the economy and jobs," that Bob McDonnell is just another typical Bush economics Republican with no clue on how to create jobs or grow our economy. And NO, the framing shouldn't be, "Do you want a governor who takes the social-conservative position on abortion as your next governor?", the framing should be, "Do you want a governor who will get things done, who is who he says he is, and is not constantly reinventing himself like Bob McDonnell?" But that's not getting across for whatever reason. Very frustrating.
3. This one's particularly bad. The story about the Confederate flag that ran on NLS (and also here at Blue Virginia) should have stayed on the blogs. In other words, the Deeds campaign shouldn't have touched it with a 10-foot pole. Instead, we get this:
Joe Abbey, Deeds campaign manager, sent out a tweet this afternoon: "BREAKING NEWS: MCDONNELL HAS CONFEDERATE FLAG POSTED IN HIS BOOTH AT GUN SHOW IN RICHMOND" linking to the blog story.Oh, wonderful. First of all, the Deeds campaign touches the Confederate flag story, a mistake on so many levels it's hard to even know where to begin (distracts from the campaign's real messaging, is a controversial subject that is much better off being handled by "surrogates," etc). Then, in the Washington Post no less, we've got the campaign's senior communications guy clarifying and contradicting the campaign manager. Not good at all.
"It was Joe's personal retweet, not the campaign's,'' said Mo Elleithee, Deeds spokesman. "Today we're focused on drawing a contrast between Creigh's vision of moving Virginia forward and Bob McDonnell's record of hurting southside Virginia and his support of the Bush economic agenda. If the Mcdonnell campaign would like to answer for that, we're all ears."
4. Not surprisingly, the McDonnell campaign is seizing on this message disarray, putting out a video that asks, "what has Creigh Deeds made the central issue in his campaign?" They then pound home the idea that Deeds is trying to make this campaign about abortion, while McDonnell is all about the economy and jobs.
Argh, ok, I'm now so frustrated that my blood pressure's probably jumped 20 points so I think I'll go have a beer or something. Everyone else, please carry on! :)
