| Another reason Deeds is behind in the race now is because he has had no consistent message and no platform of specific proposals. He has left that field for McDonnell to plow while all of the Deeds positive ads seem stuck on the message, "I'm a country boy from Bath County who loves Virginia. I'll solve the state's problems after I'm elected"
Creigh, all of us love Virginia. Heck, I bet even Bob McDonnell loves Virginia.
Deeds did try to backtrack on his earlier comment about Washington being one of his biggest hurdles. He said he and President Obama agree on a majority of issues and that he expects the president to come into Virginia to campaign with him before next month's election.
I'll believe that when I see it. Those comments about "noise" coming out of Washington don't fit with President Obama accepting another invitation to campaign in the state. If you think that is a big problem for you, what sense is there in a presidential trip to stand by your side? Plus, from what I have read earlier, the White House appears to be backing off from the Deeds campaign because it perceives just how weak the campaign has been and refuses to get closely tied to it.
The Virginia Pilot story did go on to mention that it is the candidate's own deficiencies, some top Democrats believe (as I do), that have caused Deeds trouble.
Deeds said he was now "reframing" the race in an effort to shift the focus more toward state issues and away from a broader national debate that is perilous for a Democrat running in a slightly right-of-center state. Better late than never, I guess, although I cannot actually think of any national issue that Creigh Deeds has brought up. That's what the Republican have done.
Perhaps the time to attack GOP attempts to tie Deeds to national politics was early September. Then, he could have "reframed" the debate by ridiculing McDonnell's attempts to turn the election into a national referendum on the Obama administration when the state faces so many problems of its own. And, if Deeds had had a specific plan for dealing with some of them, he could have showcased them in that context.
In the interview Deeds also said, "I came out of the primary, and a lot of people didn't expect me to win. I had to spend a couple of months hunkering down, raising money. Bob could build up his fundraising advantage to run soft and fuzzy ads and build up a lead over me."
His actions and the actions of his top campaign aides have shown that they didn't expect him to win, either. After the win, I'm afraid that both Creigh Deeds and his staff read the wrong message from the outcome. Much of the vote he got was because Brian Moran destroyed his chances by being totally negative, and Terry McAuliffe was perceived to be too much of a Clintonite to win.
I won't blame Creigh Deeds totally for all the time that he had spend on fundraising last summer. After all, Dick Cranwell has a pretty full Roladex of big spenders, and the state party could have helped with that, but they obviously didn't.
The Democratic governors and the DNC have certainly done their part so no one can fault them.
I will also give Creigh Deeds credit for conceding a couple of things he screwed up. He is not a polished public speaker, plus, he messed up in a Q & A with reporters following the Fairfax debate with Bob McDonnell, giving the Republicans their best ad to date.
Asked about a statement he made earlier this year in an interview with WJLA and POLITICO, in which he said he would like to face his Republican rival in a debate, Deeds faulted his campaign. "I don't have anything to do with the schedule," he said. "I would have loved to have done a debate with this format."
When it was noted that it was his name on the ballot, Deeds said that his campaign had a multitude of requests and pointed out that he and McDonnell had done more forums this year than the two candidates in the 2005 gubernatorial race.
I have a message for the Deeds campaign, even though time is getting very late. Obviously, President Obama did not win Virginia because the state is now blue (progressive). He won because his campaign was flawless, he energized the minority vote, he had the money to spend, and he had a message and policy proposals that resonated with people. Can you emulate that, Creigh? That's a very tall order in a very short time. |
