Posted by The Green Miles
Creigh Deeds is being hammered for not having a transportation plan. He's lost one prominent African-American supporter of Tim Kaine & Mark Warner and hasn't been able to lock up Doug Wilder's support, leaving questions about his ability to reach out to diverse communities. Deeds is also doing little to speak to the concerns of progressive voters in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, with a poll last week showing he's losing 14% Obama supporters to Bob McDonnell.
So the Deeds campaign response is ... this?
Look, if Deeds spends the fall riding Metro and talking about his plan for real change, we may well be raving about how Deeds locked up his base, then made the bridge to progressives. I don't have any inside info on the strategy here.
But as July turns to August, how many Obama voters are going to be fired up (ready to go) when they see Deeds driving a gas-guzzler down dusty rural roads aw-shucksing it up with a decidedly non-diverse crowd? As NotLarrySabato commented on Twitter, "Can someone please tell @CreighDeeds he is running for Governor of an urban/suburban state- not Sheriff of Mayberry."
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
9 comments:
I appreciate this entry. I wrote sonething about my concerns recently on Blue Commonwealth. I don't know exactly what Joe Abbey and Creigh are thinking, but they won't get the votes to win this election in sountwest Virginia.
Shelia Johnson wants to run in Middleburg so she sucks up to the Republicans because that's who lives in Middleburg. No surprise there. The thing about the "Deeds Country" ad is that McDonnell has no response. He's from Fairfax County but has spent his adult life kissing Pat Robertson's butt. McDonnell does NOT want to talk about THAT, so he's left with no way to say where he IS from. McDonnell comes across as scripted, fake, suspect...the Deeds campaign is capitalizing on that.
ohnoes!^&%?@ And how is Obama gonna win when he's losing 25% of Hillary Clinton voters?!
Sheila Johnson? Really? She is evidence he can't win African-American voters? Every campaign has turncoats: Joe Lieberman, Benny Lambert. The only thing this is "evidence of" is Sheila Johnson's ambition.
And when did Wilder endorse Kaine & Webb? October? Kaine was Mayor of Richmond for petes sake!
Brian Moran, Terry McAuliffe, Charnielle Herring, Sharon Bulova, and Iiryong Moon can't turn out NOVA voters...but NOW their lack of enthusiasm is all Creigh Deeds' fault.
Miles - yu really stirred the pot wiht this one, but I think you are off-base (haha - no pun intended).
I think you conflate three separate issues. One is whether Creigh is effectively turning out the base in the Urban Crescent. I think the jury is still out on that, but it is clear he will need some help. The President is coming, so lets see how that turns out.
The other issue is the manner of his campaign to appeal to rural voters. Certainly, he needs to do this as well if he is to win. I'm sure you would agree with that.
The third issue is Creigh's relationship with Progressives. It is not acceptable for Creigh to simply say he feels differently and leave it at that. I think he needs a new approach in that department.
That said, I'm not sure this kind of sniping will not get us there, but to be fair, I have heard that the campaign has not been responsive and nothing else has worked, so I'm not sure what else you could do. Maybe, between you and Ben, you have their attention now.
Here's the thing. Everyone has different backgrounds and strengths. Creigh's greatest asset is himself. The man almost became our attorney general in 2005 - must have been doing something right. He lost by 323 votes. And why? Because some of our Democratic brothers and sisters, especially in NoVA didn't think he passed some sort of purity test.
As an elected official in Northern Virginia, who was born in Tidewater, has worked and has connections in SW and Southside, I can tell you I prefer to have our state leaders have a state perspective, not just that of a given area.
What Creigh is doing is laying the groundwork for the fall when you will see him, hear him and be able to read his tweets as he's in NoVA and HR.
So, let's stop complaining and making the guy try and pass some sort of purity test. We need to support Creigh and not have a repeat of 2005.
sorry, miles, gotta disagree. this is an opening bio ad -- late due to the contested primary. he's saluting his home and telling the rest of us about it. it's the bridge, not the burn.
I continue to be amazed at how many people think that Creigh Deeds will win by reconstructing the Kaine campaign. He won't. His path to 50.1% will be different from Tim Kaine's, or Mark Warner's, or Jim Webb's.
August is not the time to be campaigning in the cities. Half of the people are on vacation, and the other half aren't paying attention. My sense of Urban Crescent voters is that they are tired of politics right now. Besides, it's county fair time. It's time to nail down your base, and time to see just how many inroads you'll be able to make in rural Virginia. And it's also time to hone your stump speech, away from the critics in NoVa who hear a twang and think they see a bumpkin. Sort of like opening your show in Connecticut before you take it to Broadway.
Chill, folks. There are many paths to 50.1%.
Memories. Democrats have very short ones. Seems to me I recall a candidate closing fast to win a race the polls and the pundits said he had no shot at. Seems like that happened fairly recently too. I'd guess that guy's campaign staff knows something about how to run a statewide race. Can't seem to recall that candidate's name...Leeds..Cray Meads.....something like that.
Deeds can not win an election by visiting southside, but he can certainly lose one by NOT coming here. NoVA is important, but it isn't alll of Virginia. Get over yourselves.
Post a Comment