Creigh Deeds victory in the Virginia gubernatorial primary has been described as \u201cstunning.\u201d An afterthought to the battle between better known names in Democratic circles, Deeds is still being dissed by The Washington Post\u2019s Roz Helderman:<\/p>\n
\nDeeds lives in a sparsely populated county on the West Virginia border, a heritage that brings with it a stammering, unpolished earnestness. His adversaries have been poking fun at recent TV commercials featuring him staring silently into the camera — suggesting that Northern Virginians might be turned off merely by his heavy drawl.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
A drawl and roots in rural America didn\u2019t exactly make Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter or LBJ unelectable. And remember that the opposite of unpolished is slick, rarely spoken as an attribute by voters.<\/p>\n
The breath of Deeds victory is astonishing. A quick review of the results show that he won all but five counties and six cities. His margin of victory in northern Virginia must give the Democratic establishment pause. Conventional wisdom is that only hardest core Democrats vote in primaries and vote for the most liberal of candidates.<\/p>\n
Northern Virginia wasn\u2019t \u201cturned off merely by his heavy drawl.\u201d ANd he had an advantage in a three-way race as the two front-runenrs attacked each other, a strategy the country bumpkin had already previewed to Waldo Jaquith<\/a>. Patience, as Bob Holsworth noted<\/a>, worked. Voters didn\u2019t like what they heard about the two other guys. As since when is \u201cearnestness\u201d a character flaw?<\/p>\n
But importantly, even the most liberal Virginia Dems decided, to their credit, to vote with their head, not their heart. In short, they decided that more than anything, they want to win <\/em>the governor\u2019s mansion one more time. Neither McAuliffe, who frequently came off as a used car salesman, or Moran, who mistakenly went even farther left during the campaign, had much chance of winning in November. Deeds does.<\/p>\n
One challenge Deeds will have is to overcome his \u201cconservative\u201d label that the media will inevitably tag him with, as if the man still supports Jim Crow laws. He was fearless in advocating for transportation soplutions, including a gas tax, that probably weren\u2019t paramount in his neck of the owods. People in Bath County don\u2019t have hour long commutes generally. Constantly calling him a conservative might surpress Democratic voter turnout. They need enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
Another challenge will be to redefine Bob McDonnell. It\u2019s not hard to do, but is Deeds up for negative campaigning? CAn he redifine McDonnell as teh right-wing zealot that he is, and will that be enough to energize Democrats and pull in a number of independents and moderate Republicans. If he can, it will be a huge advantage. People who attend Regent University, Pat Robertson\u2019s law school, are surely among the nicest, but you don\u2019t want them running your government. I remain hopeful that Deeds, in his \u201cstammering\u201d style, will be able to cut MCDonnell down to size, with a smile.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s apparent that the gun issue has lost its attraction to liberals. Many may feel as I do. I don\u2019t want guns in bars, or AK-47s sold in bulk to anyone with cash. But the bigger problem is keeping out of the hands of criminals, and I no longer think stricter gun laws can achieve that.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure that after so much of the Democratic Party establishment ignored Deeds, he will do well to ignore them in crafting his general election campaign. All the slick brochures in the world won\u2019t overcome major flaws. And maybe he has a more sophisticated way of getting to voters<\/a> than leaders of the party, who still save all their pennies for direct mail, and can\u2019t think strategically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Creigh Deeds victory in the Virginia gubernatorial primary has been described as \u201cstunning.\u201d An afterthought to the battle between better known names in Democratic circles, Deeds is still being dissed by The Washington Post\u2019s Roz Helderman: Deeds lives in a sparsely populated county on the West Virginia border, a heritage that brings with it a… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37,93,95],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}