Thanks to James Martin - aka, "Creigh Deeds #1 fan in the netroots!" (ha) - for the following analysis. While I don't agree AT ALL with James that Creigh was a good, or even half decent, candidate (except for working hard, which he did), I think the rest of this analysis is largely on target and worth a read.Looking at the election results yesterday, I am shocked by two things. The first is how this loss mirrors the Republican takeover of Virginia in 1993. The second is that many were quick to call Deeds a poor candidate and blame the loss on him personally. Let's be clear: Creigh Deeds did not lose because he was a poor candidate (I strongly believe he's not), he did not lose because people hate President Obama (they don't), and he didn't lose because Virginia likes to punish the incumbents (Kaine was/is popular). I believe that Creigh Deeds was actually an excellent candidate, having a voting record squarely in Warner/Kaine tradition and combining it with a likable personally. Sure he could be a more polished speaker, but what else is new...
The reason Deeds lost is because his campaign made some very early and unbelievably stupid strategic errors that were taken right out of the Mary Sue Terry playbook. In that sense, the fault does lie with Creigh because he hired these folks and kept them on when it became clear they were ineffective and in the case of communication and a coordinated campaign message, downright incompetent. Creigh was very loyal to his staff, especially those who brought him through the primary (for good reason), but in a sense he was loyal to a fault. Creigh would have had a fighting chance with a semi-competent campaign, but he didn't have one. Here are a few key factors to consider in Creigh's loss yesterday:
1) Apathy. Turnout between 2001/ 2005 and 2009 dropped by 5-6 percentage points (46%/45% to 39.8%) which suggests a huge portion of voters just didn't bother to vote on Tuesday. It was a gorgeous day, Creigh's GOTV efforts were first class (along with the Finance and Political team, these parts of the campaign were run well), yet by my reckoning roughly 200,000 Democrats just didn't vote. All the exit polls shows the same thing in both New Jersey and Virginia: key Democratic constituencies like African Americans and Young people just stayed home. Creigh is a moderate conservative Democrat, yet perceived by Republicans as too liberal, and by Democrats as way too conservative. The campaign's message couldn't have been more garbled if it was shredded and then randomly taped back together. Creigh personally was usually on message, but few voters get to see candidates in person, so they rely on media such as television commercials. But those commercials were poorly produced and tested and did nothing to encourage people to vote or support Creigh, thus exacerbating the voter apathy on the left that resulted from the Obama victory in 08.
2) Lack of Campaign Focus Generally and Specifically on Urban Centers. Bob McDonnell had a roughly 3-1 spending advantage over Deeds (including outside groups) and used it to portray himself as a problem solver in Virginia Beach and Northern Virginia and Creigh as a cap and trading liberal in Southwest Virginia. Instead of focusing on one area, the Deeds campaign fought in all three important areas of the state with untargeted media buys about the thesis and the "Deeds Country" tour when they should have instead simply focused on winning Northern Virginia. If I was the average moderate voter in Northern Virginia, I would have both assumes that Bob McDonnell had spent his entire life in Fairfax and that he had honest plans to fix transportation (both very false impressions). Creigh in his stump speeches did a good job of addressing this; however, NONE of the advertisements from the Deeds folks focused on transportation. They should have put Creigh behind the wheel of a car and taped an ad talking about his plan to fix transportation and sent a mailer to every NoVA home with a picture of "Virginia Beach's Own" Bob McDonnell signs and pointing out McDonnell's duplicity.
The other problem was the lack of a simple and clear message -- "Bob 4 Jobs" (McDonnell), "No New Taxes" (Warner), "No Car Tax" (Gilmore- love him of hate him, he got elected), etc. -- and instead had wonky and hard to explain answers to everything. If you'd asked me, "What will Creigh Deeds do as Governor?", I could answer in a heartbeat, but I can't imagine more than 10% of voters yesterday would have known where to start. The result was a failure to focus, especially on Northern Virginia and the issues that matter to those voters in particular like Transportation and Education resulted in...
LOSING FAIRFAX COUNTY. Yes, you heard me. Bob McDonnell won Fairfax County. No, thats not a joke. McDonnell also won Loudoun by more than 20 points and Prince William by 17. If the Deeds campaign had solely focused on Northern Virginia like Kaine, he likely would have netted 60,000 additional votes in Fairfax, 19,000 in Loudoun, and 14,000 in Prince William. While not, in and of itself, enough to win, it would have changed the 18 point loss into a 7 point deficit.
3) Abandoning Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach city swinged 31 points to McDonnell from Kaine. While Virginia Beach is McDonnell's home territory, it's worth noting that turnout fell from '05 to '09, meaning that McDonnell turned out plenty of Republicans and new voters, but that 16,000 Democratic voters from '05 disappeared into thin air and didn't vote.
4) Deeds Country. Instead of focusing on NoVA and Hampton Roads, the Deeds campaign spent a significant amount of time on a "Deeds Country" tour. While an excellent idea if Creigh had the resources, he simply didn't and Bob McDonnell actually managed to turn the 9th district (home of Jerry Kilgore) from an 8,000-vote net Democratic base in 2001 to a 50,000 net Republican winner in 2009. Deeds also lost Albemarle County, which is certainly in "Deeds Country." Simple lesson: the campaign should have seen that this tactic wasn't working and abandoned it, not expanded it. Bath County and the surrounding areas are Deeds Country, but Southside and Southwest? No so much.
5) Lack of Party Unity and Momentum. When Deeds started slipping in the polls, there was instant criticism from fellow Democrats about his chances of victory (I'd like to point out that Terry McAulliffe couldn't have done a better job for Creigh, so this is no criticism of him). When Democrats criticize other Democrats' chances early in the race (especially at the top of the ticket), the media starts to run stories like "Can Deeds Win?" and such that create the perception that even his own people think he'll lose. As a result, Democrats become less enthusiastic and then are less likely to vote. Pollsters pick up this enthusiasm gap, which is then printed by the media, and further inflames the turnout problem. The cycle can go both ways, but in this election it won Creigh the primary and lost him the general. On that same note, the 1,850 newspaper articles this week all but saying McDonnell was a shoo-in, caused thousands to skip election day and resulted in the loss of many downballot Democrats (Caputo and Margi in particular).
6) JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, and JOBS. Creigh got the memo about talking about creating jobs, hope, and opportunity in Virginia...and he stumped on it nonstop. The problem is that his media folks must have missed the memo and forgot to put up a single ad pointing out that Creigh actually codified the Governor's opportunity fund and that McDonnell was against taking expanded federal unemployment benefits. In fact, the only time Creigh was ahead in the polls was after the primary when the DGA was pounding McDonnell non-stop on economic issues. The consultants tried to polarize the electorate on social issues, but when you don't have a job and can barely feed your kids and pay your mortgage, who gives a damn about a 20-year-old graduate school thesis (however controversial)? The best evidence of how poorly they did their job compared to the McDonnell folks is that Creigh, a very likable personality, was viewed as a negative and almost hateful person by the majority of Virginians.
In my opinion, Creigh Deeds didn't lose this election, his campaign did (the same way Brian and Terry were destroyed by their campaigns in the primaries). If Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell switched campaign staffs (especially horrendous were the media advisers and consultants*), Creigh Deeds at least would have had a fighting chance to be the next Governor of Virginia right now. I'm as certain of that as I am of the fact that these next four years are going to be a long nightmare.
*Both campaigns Finance and Political teams were superb and I am not criticizing the Deeds campaign on those two fronts. The fact that Creigh raised as much money as he did is a pretty incredible feat considering his loss became inevitable in September.
