There were so many funny, ridiculous, or downright dumbest comments made by Virginia statewide candidates, campaign managers, etc. in 2009, it's hard to know where to start. Here are just a few; please feel free to add your own favorites in the comments section. Enjoy!Terry McAuliffe
Of course, who could forget his enthusiastic, over-the-top "I loooooooooove chicken waste!" That was good, but Terry actually topped it with "I love trash. I love chicken litter, cow manure, garbage...This is the kind of thing that gets me excited." Hey, whatever turns you on, Terry! LOL
At a landfill in Lorton, McAuliffe bragged, "I've been an African American barber!" Well, alrighty then. :)
Then there was Terry's joke at the Virginia Correspondents Dinner about Creigh Deeds having a donkey named Harry S. Truman and Brian Moran having "an ass named Trippi?" I hear Joe Trippi didn't particularly appreciate that one.
From the same correspondents dinner, Terry joked about the "first draft of my announcement speech...Thank you, it's great to be with you all tonight here in Tallahassee. C'mon folks, you know I'm kidding, I love running for governor of New York." Great line.
(by the way, Terry, you "literally" don't have to use the word "literally" literally every other word) :)
Brian Moran
Probably the single most ridiculous comment of the entire 2009 campaign came from Brian Moran: "We need a fighter, not a fundraiser." This, from the person who had spent the previous year sending out email after email emphasizing his fundraising prowess, and how that made him the best candidate (between Creigh Deeds and him; at the time, Terry McAuliffe wasn't even in the picture) to take on Bob McDonnell. Also, this "fighter not a fundraiser" idiocy came from a guy whose job for years, as Democratic House caucus chair, was in large part to raise money for House Democratic candidates. Obviously, we need candidates who are both "fighters" and "fundraisers." You know, the kind of candidates who Brian Moran used to recruit when he was caucus chair (not to mention candidates like Mark Warner, Tim Kaine and Jim Webb).
UPDATE: One more that somebody reminded me of is when Brian Moran gave out his cell phone number on TV to people across Virginia. That was hilarious!
Creigh Deeds
On March 14, at a bloggers dinner with the candidate, I asked Creigh Deeds about mountaintop removal coal mining. Creigh's flippant, ignorant, politically tone deaf response? "You call it 'mountaintop removal,' I guess the coal mining industry calls it surface mining, it's all the same...whatever euphemism you're gonna use..." Uh, no. Mountaintop removal and surface mining are not the same thing, and they're not "euphemisms" either. Wow. Just wow.
On August 29, 2009, trailing badly in the polls, Creigh tweeted (quoting from a Robert Earl Keen song), "The road goes on foever and the party never ends." Aside from spelling "forever" wrong, Creigh really thought this election was all a big party? Hmmmmmm.
Monday, September 7, was a day I said to myself definitively, "that's it, Creigh's gonna lose." Why? Because, when asked by a reporter why he keeps coming back over and over again to small towns with just a few thousand people that already know him very well, Deeds responded, "Because these are my home people." While a perfectly lovely sentiment, right then I was sure Creigh was going to lose for one main reason: he was staying way too much in his comfort zone and not understanding that, just like Alexandria resident/city boy Mark Warner had to "go rural," country boy Creigh Deeds had to go to the "urban crescent." But he never really got that, and he ended up losing Fairfax County, Prince William County, Loudoun County, etc. We'll call it the "Deeds Country Disaster," brought to you by Creigh Deeds and his crack campaign team. Nice job, guys!
At a debate on September 17, Creigh Deeds was asked if he was an "Obama Democrat." Deeds responded with the immortal line, "I'm a Creigh Deeds Democrat." So much for that election.
In a post-debate "scrum" with reporters on September 17, Deeds had perhaps the iconic moment of the campaign, struggling with (extremely skeptical) reporters for several minutes on how he'd raise money for transportation. Classic comments: "I think I made myself clear, young lady;" "I have no plan to raise taxes...everything's on the table;" "that meant in the general sense of the term, I'm not gonna raise general fund taxes;" "Virginians will not see a tax increase that goes to the general fund." And on and on it went, painfully, horribly...what a nightmare.
In another infamous debate moment, Deeds was asked about the "public option" and whether he'd "opt out" if elected governor. Deeds responded, that the "Public option isn't required in my view" and also that he "would certainly consider opting out if that were available to Virginia." Great way to rev up "the base!"
One of the most ridiculous comments of the entire election cycle came from Creigh Deeds, just a couple days before he got wiped out by Bob McDonnell in a landslide of historic proportions. Quoting Chesty Puller, Deeds proclaimed, "[W]e got 'em just where we want them. We're going to win this thing!" Uh, right Creigh. (Also, add "The only poll that matters has yet to be taken." - Deeds tweet with 7 days to go)
Throughout the campaign, there were lots of dumb cliches, but this is probably the stupidest one: variants on "everything's on the table," "don't take anything off the table," "we've got to leave all options on the table," "bring as many people to the table," etc., etc. It was so bad, the Republican Party of Virginia even made a video mocking Creigh for this. And it was VERY funny.
Finally, one of my favorite, ridiculous Creigh Deeds quotes was "Boys, you plan your work and you work your plan." And "boy" did Deeds do that in the general election. Except it was David Petts' plan, and it was utterly moronic.
Jody Wagner
Definitely gets some kind of award for overuse of the exclamation points and the word "great!" in her tweets. Typical: "On my way to the Norfolk St./Virginia St. football game!" and "Great crowd in Falls Church!" Yay!!!
Joe Abbey
A day before the election wipeout of his boss, Deeds for Governor campaign manager Joe Abbey said, "we can yet do a Dewey beats Truman in this race." Not.
Ken Cuccinelli
So many crazy comments, so little time to review them all. Here are just a few examples.
On homosexuality: "Homosexual acts are wrong...They’re intrinsically wrong...And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. ... They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.”
On environmentalists: They're "watermelons" ("green" on the outside, commie "red" on the inside)
On the law: "There is no guarantee, right off the bat, that I will defend every single law in Virginia."
On...who knows what: "Bull Honky!"
Then there was Cooch denying global warming, bizarrely trying to tie Steve Shannon to ACORN, talking about suing the federal government and asserting state "sovereignty." Yeah, he's nuts. Yeah, he's a fanatic. And yeah, he's also our next Attorney General. God help us all.
Bob McDonnell
He ran a disciplined, nearly error-free campaign, except when he made the mistake of mentioning his Regent University thesis to Washington Post reporter Amy Gardner. From that, we get classic quotes like feminism is among the "real enemies of the traditional family" and that the "dynamic new trend of working women and feminists...is ultimately detrimental to the family." In the end, though, the thesis didn't really hurt McDonnell, and may have actually helped him in that the Deeds campaign focused far too much attention on it for far too long, at a time when people overwhelmingly want to hear about candidates' plans for jobs and the economy. In hindsight, I can't decide if this entire incident was funny, stupid, ridiculous, or all of the above.
