Deeds’ goal: Defining McDonnell

Comment: Get Busy Deed!


JEFF E. SCHAPIRO TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Published: August 23, 2009

Creigh Deeds makes George W. Bush sound like Barack Obama.

In a speech Friday streamed on his Web site, Deeds, the Democratic nominee for governor, sought to reboot his struggling candidacy and recast Republican Bob McDonnell as he really is: a very conservative guy on taxes, social issues and equal rights, who -- because of his Ron Burgundy-TV anchorman style -- doesn't come across that way.

Deeds, who -- had he a cowlick, might pass for Alfalfa of "Our Gang" -- occasionally sputtered and stumbled. Deeds is uncomfortable with a canned speech because in his world of rural crossroads, ancient courthouses and kitchen-table conversation, communication is personal, punctuated by the occasional sputter or stumble.

Coupled with a new television ad -- a commercial for a clunker? -- the Deeds speech was one part manifesto, two parts admonition. Its purpose was to wake up Democrats, alert election-deciding independents and diminish the drag on his candidacy attributed to Obama backlash.

Deeds offered centrist government, complete with possible tax increases for highways, that would protect public education, promote job creation through tax cuts and insist on a lean bureaucracy -- perhaps one less dependent on Northrop Grumman for computer services, under the badly dinged legacy initiative of the fellow Democrat he often mentions: Mark Warner.

Deeds also tried to peel some bark off McDonnell, reminding voters of his hostility to abortion, stem-cell research and homosexual rights -- well-documented stances McDonnell seems not to recall, but that have little to do with the issues driving the election: the recession and too much change in Washington.

Was the speech a game-changer? It's too early to say.

Maybe it was more of a mulligan, another chance for Deeds to tee off before an audience -- one considerably smaller than last year's and, as a result, likely more conservative -- that's just starting to focus on electing a governor.

As a defining moment -- it was billed as such by Deeds campaign manager Joe Abbey -- it was less definitive than those of yore.

In the 1949 Democratic primary, John Battle locked down the gubernatorial nomination by linking foe Francis Pickens Miller to labor with a hyperbolic appeal to union fears that Battle -- after winning -- admitted was bogus.

In the 1981 governor's race, Democrat Chuck Robb crisped up his image with an appearance before business leaders that dashed his sometimes-deserved reputation for mushiness on hot-button issues.

However, the staged splash can help the other guy.

Ask Don Beyer, the new ambassador to Switzerland. As the Democratic nominee for governor in 1997, he adopted a me-too stance on the car-tax rollback, Jim Gilmore's theme. All that did was validate Gilmore's anti-tax credentials.

In doing the deed Friday, Creigh demonstrated he is fighting back.

His campaign is more engaged, tracking McDonnell from town to town, laying down region-specific barrages. So when McDonnell rolled into Lynchburg the other day to talk jobs, Democrats reminded locals that he favored cutting economic-development programs.

But doing a job on McDonnell is no guarantee that Deeds gets the one he wants.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/columnists_news/article/JEFF23_20090822-215404/287808/