Ken Cuccinelli: Deeds Lost By Running as Centrist

Wow, I actually agree with Ken Cuccinelli on something? Check this out.

Democratic candidate for Governor R. Creigh Deeds lost last month’s gubernatorial election by NOT running to the Left according to Attorney-general elect Sen. Ken Cuccinelli.

Deeds “ran the wrong race,” Cuccinelli told a packed room this weekend at the Republican Party of Virginia’s annual Advance held in Williamsburg.

He said that if former DNC chairman and Clinton confidante Terry McAuliffe had been chosen in the Democratic primary that’s exactly how he would have run the race by appealing to the Democratic base.

[...]

Ken Cuccinelli said the result for Deeds and his Democratic ticket was a ‘shellacking’ and a ‘slaughter.’ This was mainly due to the fact that the Republican Party stayed true to their conservative principles combined with the GOP faithful being fired up by the losses last year and a massive energized grassroots movement.

[...]

He went on to say there is no need to run to the center in politics as there are only “two things in the middle of the road; yellow lines and road kill.”

As I said, no disagreement here. What I find interesting about Ken Cuccinnelli saying this is that he ran as an unabashed right wingnut and it didn't hurt him at all. In the end, Cooch won by 15 percentage points, while Bill Bolling won by 13 percentage points and Bob McDonnell won by 17 percentage points. In other words, Cooch did about as well as the other two guys on the statewide ticket. Meanwhile, all three Democratic statewide candidates, to varying degrees, ran away from being "liberals" or "progressives." Heck, they even ran away from being "Democrats," at least ones hailing from the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." So, how'd that all work out? Uhhhhh..

P.S. As Jim Webb says, "the fish rots from the head down," but still I'd have to place a great deal of blame as well on the people advising these candidates to run bland, boring, "yellow lines and road kill" campaigns. I have no idea why these people keep getting hired, but I hope they never do again. And while we're at it, how about a total shakeup at the Democratic Party of Virginia? From what I'm hearing, there are plenty of DPVA members - not to mention grassroots activists - who would like very much to see that.