Four Years Ago: Dems Rev Up to Run for Governor. Today: Crickets.

Four years ago almost to the day, Virginia Democrats like Creigh Deeds were busy - not to mention eagerly - revving up to run for governor in 2009. For instance, check out the announcement above, by Creigh Deeds, from December 13, 2007 (at the same time, national Democrats were salivating at the prospects of taking back the White House, as Bush's approval ratings were in the toilet bowl and the economy was sinking into recession). In response, another Virginia Democrat running for governor, Brian Moran, responded by (strongly) hinting that he'd be announcing  for governor as well, but not until after the early 2008 General Assembly session. In reality, of course, Brian and Creigh were both running hard at this point in the cycle 4 years ago. And soon to follow were numerous Democratic candidates for LG (Jon Bowerbank, Jody Wagner, Mike Signer, etc.) and one strong one for AG (Steve Shannon).This time around? Basically, we've got the sound of crickets chirping on the Democratic side, even as Republicans galore - Bill Bolling, Ken Cuccinelli, Keith Fimian, Corey Stewart, Pete Snyder, Dick Black, Jeff McWaters, Bob Marshall, Rob Bell, Mark Obenshain, Jill Holtzman-Vogel, and who knows who else in coming months - come out of the woodwork to eagerly throw their hats in the ring, or hint at doing so, for 2013. In comparison, who's on the roster for Democrats? Well, we've got Terry McAuliffe probably possibly running for governor. We've got Chap Petersen and Ward Armstrong mentioned as possible 2013 candidates. In the former case, however, there are no signs of any moves to gear up for such a campaign. In the latter case...after getting his butt kicked (and spending a ton of $$$ doing so) this past cycle, plus pissing off a lot of Democrats with his conservadem distancing from/dissing of President Obama, c'mon Ward, you MUST be kidding! Another possibility for 2013 had been (at least theoretically) Tom Perriello, but he de facto took his name out of contention last week, as he accepted a  great job heading up the Center for American Progress Action Fund(congratulations Tom -- smart move!).