DEEDS Set Virginia Dems Back 20 Years!
Suppurating Tool
I cannot recall a worse candidate for governor in my 32 years in the
state. Mortimer Snerd would have been a better choice!
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Rs53-MPsJaI/SK4qOPSLTgI/AAAAAAAAGqs/ee_zZovqgxY/s400/mortimer+snerd-1.jpg
----------
"Deed's problems began before race"
"Democrat failed to woo key voices, adapt and raise enough money"
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Shortly after his unexpected win in the June Democratic primary, R.
Creigh Deeds's seven top advisers mapped out what they thought was the
only path to victory in a governor's race they believed was stacked
against them.
He would win at least 56 percent of the vote in Northern Virginia,
like most Democrats, and pair that with a better-than-average
performance in the state's rural areas, where he made his home and his
advisers hoped he could outperform other Democrats by winning nearly
half the vote.
He would appeal to independents, but also the progressive voters who
supported President Obama last year, and he would do it using a
message they thought would unite the groups -- that Republican Robert
F. McDonnell was an extremist on social issues.
Why Deeds was unable to do any of those things is rooted in poor
groundwork laid over four years, a deeply flawed strategy over the
past four months that never fully adapted to the shift in the
political landscape since the 2008 presidential election and a
campaign that was dramatically outspent by its Republican opponent.
McDonnell spent years wooing Virginia's top opinion makers. He worked
carefully to persuade Democratic former governor L. Douglas Wilder to
stay out of the race and to lead businesswoman Sheila Johnson, a major
Democratic donor, to endorse him. Both defections were damaging to
Deeds, particularly among African Americans, who were also cool to
Deeds four years ago when he ran for attorney general.
Another leading voice Deeds failed to attract was Judy Ford Wason, a
Republican whose staunch support for U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D) had
helped raise the former governor's image as a bipartisan consensus
builder.
Wason was something of a natural for Deeds: In recent years she has
been particularly interested in the need for bipartisan redistricting
of the legislature, long one of Deeds's signature initiatives. But
Wason said Deeds never called to discuss the topic and never requested
a meeting. Instead, staff for McDonnell asked whether she would meet
and explain her position to the attorney general and some of his
supporters. Soon, they began discussing transportation, education and
other issues.
"In the discussion, he listened and gave thoughtful responses. I came
to respect him as an individual who was open," she said. "Having my
opinion asked, that was kind of nice."
In June, the Republican announced that Wason would head Virginians for
McDonnell, the same role she held in Warner's campaign eight years
ago.
The Deeds message was built around an expensive survey the campaign
conducted in July and August of 600 Virginians who had registered to
vote in 2008 and later backed Obama, helping to make him the first
Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state in more than 40
years.
The campaign's pollster, David Petts, said the survey indicated the
only thing that would inspire those voters to return to the polls was
social issues and, in particular, abortion. The research indicated the
message could appeal to independents, too.
In August, those issues became the centerpiece of the campaign's
advertising, an effort heightened at the end of the month when The
Washington Post published McDonnell's 1989 master's thesis, which
espoused a litany of conservative causes and views.
"And it worked," said campaign manager Joe Abbey. "The only time we
were on the move was when we talked about the thesis."
Polls that had showed Deeds trailing McDonnell badly since June began
to tighten. But there was deep unease from Democrats in Richmond and
Washington about the strategy, and soon buzz grew that the campaign
had become too negative.
Seeking a vision
In August, legislators gathered in Richmond for a one-day special
session. Abbey made the trip so he could meet behind closed doors in
succession with the Democratic caucuses in the House of Delegates and
Senate and explain the strategy. Some lawmakers came away concerned,
two said at the time. What about Deeds and his vision?
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who also serves as chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, and other party leaders expressed reservations as
well.
Even Deeds grew uncomfortable, said a Democratic strategist familiar
with the campaign.
Democratic strategists and Deeds advisers spoke on condition of
anonymity because they didn't want be seen as criticizing a losing
campaign.
"He kept hearing from people, in every corner of the state . . . that
he was running too negative a campaign," said the strategist. "His
advisers were convinced that running a negative campaign was the only
way to stay in the game. Despite his concern, he was never willing to
overrule them."
Top campaign aides insist that much of the public perception about
their message came from being vastly outspent by McDonnell and his
Republican allies. McDonnell could afford to run positive and negative
ads, but Deeds's advisers thought they could afford only to choose one
or the other. According to campaign figures, McDonnell and Republican
allies spent almost twice as much as Deeds on TV advertising.
Money became even more of a problem after Deeds muffed answers to
reporters' questions about whether he would raise taxes for
transportation in the moments after a debate in Fairfax County in
September. The videotaped encounter made Deeds look inarticulate,
indecisive and impatient. "We knew immediately it was a big problem,"
said one Deeds adviser. "It was a mistake at a staff level."
Deeds's bumbling answer also did little to inspire confidence among
suburbanites. His geographic strategy required him to do better than
other Democrats in rural areas, which were the most uneasy about Obama
and Democratic leadership in Washington, anxiety that was fed by a
multimillion dollar ad campaign downstate over the cap-and-trade
climate bill backed by Democrats in Congress.
Tour backfires
In August, his campaign launched a splashy tour of rural "Deeds
Country" and later rolled out ads extolling Deeds, a senator from Bath
County, as a native who understood the region. The tour did nothing to
help suburban voters think that Deeds understood their concerns. It
also did little to convince rural voters that this was the year to
back a Democrat. Instead of winning Northern Virginia by 56 percent,
he captured only 45 percent of the vote. Instead of approaching a draw
in rural areas, he was trounced by 30 percentage points. He also fell
short of his campaign's goals in the Tidewater and Richmond.
With criticism of the Deeds Country tour in mind, top aides have
tallied figures recently that show the campaign spent less than a
fifth of its media money and quarter of his time there. But it helped
create an impression that Deeds was not the candidate of the growing
suburbs.
"It fed a perception that he would be overwhelmingly concerned with
that part of the state," the strategist said.
First elected to the legislature in 1993 as a conservative Democrat
from a conservative area, Deeds had fallen out of step with a party
based in the state's most populated regions. Asked whether he was an
Obama Democrat during a debate with McDonnell in Fairfax, Deeds
responded, "I'm a Creigh Deeds Democrat."
His problem Tuesday was that not enough other voters saw themselves
that way.
[Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/04/AR2009110404654.html
i spectre
> From out of whose ass did this loser emerge?
>
> I cannot recall a worse candidate for governor in my 32 years in the
> state. Mortimer Snerd would have been a better choice!
>
Wow pity the writers could not bring themselves to tell the truth
about the 2008 Virginia election results. The majority of Obama votes
was due to skin color pure and simple. Deeds was just another white
Democrat. Look at the 2009 voting numbers for the black majority
precincts and you will see a huge decrease over 2008. The 2008
election was race based and we are now suffering for it.
Never forget the USS Liberty! Search jewish federations +abortion.