The Creigh Deeds-for-governor organization is saying Bob McDonnell's graduate school thesis, which criticizes working women and gays and describes religion as guiding principle in public policy, can alter the course of the 2009 campaign.
In a conference call this morning with reporters, Deeds strategist Mo Elleithee said the McDonnell paper should be a wake-up call -- not just to Democrats -- but election-deciding independents. Deeds, trailing in published polls, has been hobbled by voter anxiety over the recession and President Barack Obama's program for turning around the economy.
"We think it's something that really has the potential to change the dynamics of this race," said Elleithee.
The graduate school thesis, written shortly before McDonnell was elected to a House of Delegates from Virginia Beach, touches on many of the issues on which he focused as a legislator and attorney general, among them, restrictions on abortion and opposing gay rights.
Though McDonnell, as the Republican nominee for governor, has de-emphasized his past record to focus on the economy and energy, the thesis -- prepared while McDonnell was at evangelist Pat Robertson's Regent University law school and spotlighted in Sunday's edition of The Washington Post -- is "who Bob McDonnell is," said Elleithee.
Elleithee went on to say that the thesis is a blueprint for how McDonnell would govern should he defeat Deeds, a state senator from Bath County.
"This wasn't just a youthful exercise, an academic exercise," said Elleithee. "It had real-life implications."
A McDonnell spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
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