Tuesday, November 03, 2009

HORSERACE

Why Did Deeds Run Such a Terrible, Relentlessly Negative Campaign?

Last night I went to the final campaign rally of the Creigh Deeds campaign. There I enjoyed a rare combination of special election-season joys: crisp fall night air, a warm drink, 200 to 250 Democrats milling around to the opening band while a giant stack of DEEDS FOR VIRGINIA yard signs stood by unused.

Yes, dozens and dozens of local Democrats turned out for a 7 p.m. Monday gathering that featured Deeds and lieutenant governor candidate Jody Wagner and attorney general candidate Steve Shannon and former local delegate Brian Moran and local congressman Jim Moran AND both U.S. senators, Jim Webb and Mark Warner, AND the current governor, Tim Kaine. This was Virginia Democrats pulling out all the stops . . . and while the crowd wasn’t embarrassingly small, it was roughly the same turnout that Brian Moran got for his final primary-campaign event, held midday on a Monday.

I was surprised to learn that the inarticulate, unclear, clumsily evasive guy whom I have covered and occasionally mocked this year didn’t show up. No, if you had seen nothing else in this campaign, you would have thought the man who stood before the crowd last night had a decent shot at winning.

I know Deeds has mentioned this anecdote once or twice on the trail, but it was new to me last night, and was far and away the most gripping and compelling thing he’s said all campaign. He mentioned that when he was growing up in rural Bath County, he didn’t have much “stuff,” but that they always had enough to eat, because they lived on a farm. He said that as a teenager, he worked as a counselor at a summer camp run by his uncle, and on one of the first days, he encountered a young boy bewildered when everyone sat down for lunch.

"This little boy looked me in the eye and said, 'You mean we eat more than once a day here?'" Deeds recalled. The crowd was silent.

Deeds said that the moment punctured the bubble of his bucolic existence, as he recognized that there were children who went to bed hungry, not living too far from him; Deeds said that was what motivated him to go into public life.

Now, when I looked at Deeds’s legislative career, a tireless effort to feed the hungry wasn’t what jumped out at me; mostly the candidate’s appetite for making deals and raw ambition. But let’s give Deeds the benefit of the doubt and say that yes, the hunger of a small boy was what drove him to try to make a difference in this world.

Then where was this in Deeds’s campaign? Where was that in any of his ads? Why did the Deeds campaign seem to have an obsessive-compulsive disorder about McDonnell’s thesis from 20 years ago?

Picture Creigh Deeds saying, “I first ran for office because there are people out there who are dirt poor, who are vulnerable, who have caught some bad breaks and they don’t have much power, or influence, or any clear way to improve their lives. There are a bunch of Virginians from one year to one hundred years who are too weak, too vulnerable, too easily overlooked, and not enough folks are speaking up for them. I know it’s an uphill battle, but I’m running for governor because I want to be the voice for all of those folks out there who can’t speak for themselves.” (Put aside, for a moment, Deeds’s sad flip-flop on abortion.)

Would that win Deeds this race? Maybe, maybe not, but I think he would at least be likeable; right now, Deeds is at 34 percent favorable, 42 percent unfavorable. Never mind voting for him; he can’t get Virginans to think well of him; he’s just the jerk who keeps clogging up prime-time television and drive-time radio with over-the-top negative ads.

Sometime soon, I hope we get the story on how the Deeds campaign shaped its strategy, and who insisted that tying Bob McDonnell to the Spanish Inquisition was the right approach. It turned a challenging race into, most likely, the worst political disaster for Virginia Democrats in 16 years.

Beyond that, the night offered a cavalcade of unintentionally funny moments: Maybe 200 overwhelmingly white Alexandria Democrats kinda-sorta half-heartedly grooving to the Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started."

Democratic AG candidate Steve Shannon cited a horrific child-abduction case as moment when he learned "results really matter."

Governor Kaine shouted, "They can have the polls, we have the people!" (Who, pray tell, are the polls measuring?)

Jim Webb began by declaring, "This is a time of crisis in Virginia . . . We're seeing a lot of good jobs go away." Moments later, he introduced the man who ran the state during this continuing crisis as jobs departed, current governor Kaine.

Finally, Deeds's rally ended to Sheryl Crow's "Soak Up the Sun." At night.

11/03 11:24 AMShare