Click here to listen to "wit and wisdom" (loosely speaking) from Bob McDonnell regarding the Democratic gubernatorial primary this past spring, as well as other topics.On Senator Deeds' come-from-behind victory in the primary, I would say it's a combination of probably two factors. One, either because he purposely kept his head low and purposedly saved whatever money he had, he was never really in the bullseye for McAuliffe or Moran. For all the star quality and money of Terry McAuliffe, he never connected with the voters. His negatives were always higher than his positives. I almost started rooting for him in the last month, because anybody who's got negatives as high as he did, I thought would probably be a pretty good target. So he had that challenge.Actually, I don't really have any major disagreements with McDonnell's analysis of the Democratic primary. Maybe McDonnell should become a full-time political analyst or a blogger and forget about being governor? :) Anyway...
Brian moved so far left during the course of the primary, to try to attract the base voters in the Democratic party, that I think even the more activist Democrats thought there's no way this guy could win. No governor has ever been elected running on a platform of opposing coal, for instance, in Virginia, and saying he's going to repeal the marriage amendment and any number of things where Brian took a leftwards swing.
So, I think at the end, during that last month and a half when people started focusing on the election, they had one guy they really couldn't bond with who they thought was probably over the top and a little bit of a carpetbagger and another guy that was just very far left and was just so negative at the end toward McAuliffe. Here's Deeds, sort of a nice guy, we sort of all know him, he's been around for 18 years, kinda like him.
The second thing, of course, I think, was the Washington Post endorsement, although that wouldn't explain why he did equally well around the state. I think that would certainly explain maybe how he beat two northern Virginians...as soon as he got it, of course, he put it on the signs, and he had a flurry of signs over the last two and a half weeks, three weeks, up here in northern Virginia, and I think the Post endorsement certainly more meaningful during a Democratic primary than perhaps a general election...
McDonnell then proceeds to slam the Deeds campaign.
All I can say is that I believe that Senator Deeds is running one of the most backwards-looking campaigns in Virginia history. His whole campaign over the last month has been based on former presidents, former governors, and a 20-year-old thesis. That's his platform. He's been down in the polls, he has no transportation plan, he has no energy plan, he has a very unenthusiastic base. He was down 8-15 points in most of the public opinion polls. He pledged three weeks ago in the debate that he'd never been a guy to talk about social issues. And now, over the last three weeks, that's all he wants to talk about.Unlike McDonnell's analysis of the Democratic primary last spring, which I think is basically sounds, I think his analysis of the current race is pretty much all wrong. The fundamental issue of this campaign is simple: who can Virginians trust to lead the Commonwealth forward in the manner that Mark Warner established during his governorship? Is it Bob McDonnell, the extremist Pat Robertson Republican, with his obsessive focus on divisive social issues and his faith in Bush economics? Or is it Creigh Deeds, perhaps not the most scintillating personality or progressive but a solid, likeable guy who would aim to govern very similarly to the way that Mark Warner did, the way that saved Virginia's AAA bond rating from the last disastrous Republican governor, Jim Gilmore. Something tells me that, when it comes down to it on November 3, Virginia voters will pick Mark Warner-style responsible government over Jim Gilmore-style rigid ideology. But we'll see, maybe there are 51% of Virginia voters who've decided they want to head back towards that ditch again? If so, then I guess Bob McDonnell will be our next governor. But let's hope, for all our sakes, that's not the case.
So, I think...that he's made a decision that now, trying to create an impression that I am so focused on social issues to the exclusion of other issues, therefore can't be elected governor, that's gonna be the central theme of his campaign. And if that's what he wants to do, I think that's a winning formula for me, because I know that what people are concerned about are their taxes, their government spending...jobs and the economy and real education reform...get the budget problems fixed in Virginia.
I'm going to continue to stand up for the traditional values I believe are important to our Commonwealth. Some of his views are so far out of the mainstream that if he continues to spend the election looking backwards and talking about, essentially, cultural issues, and I'm focused on the quality-of-life issues that most Virginians have front and center, that they're concerned about right now, I think we win.
Now, what the Washington Post does -- today I think we had three articles and yesterday it was two. I'm thinking maybe we're going to get one more every day until people stop buying the paper. They were at least nice enough to run one story today that actually had someone that was supporting me, instead of the usual five against me and then me with my own quotes...a little bit more fair and balanced today...they interviewed Sheila Johnson...that was all about business, she interviewed all four of us...she's concerned about jobs and the economy...thought that I was far and away the best guy...
