Despite lacking any real fireworks, much less a discussion of the important issues facing Virginia, the gubernatorial campaign between Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat Creigh Deeds has been a dirty one.
And mostly, the camp to blame for the grime has been Deeds.
After a come-from-behind victory over frontrunner Terry McAuliffe in the party primary primary in June following his surprise endorsement by The Washington Post, Deeds has run a lackluster campaign devoid of any real discussion of any real issues.
He ignored multiple requests from McDonnell for an expanded series of debates across the commonwealth, and he tried to change the ground rules of the debates he did agree to at the last minute.
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A 20-year-old grad school paper emerged as his main avenue of attack on McDonnell, rather than McDonnell’s own record as a legislator and attorney general. The thesis was an easier weapon to wield than the weighty issues Deeds has consistently ignored in his relatively few broader conversations with the Virginia electorate.
His television ads have been below-the-belt and beyond-the-pale attacks. The most egregious was the spot entitled “$300 Million,” which has been on a constant loop in Central and Southwest Virginia. The ad outright blames McDonnell for the increase in electricity bills that Appalachian Power Co. customers have seen in recent months, a blatant lie and distortion. Equally as disturbing, because it reveals quite a bit about the ethically challenged campaign, was the ad, again based on the infamous 20-year-old thesis, all but painting McDonnell as a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal on women’s and social issues.
Were Deeds TV ads about McDonnell the only source of information about the Republican, you would easily get the impression that McDonnell’s entire public career has been about nothing more than trying to outlaw all contraception, ban all abortions and put women “back in the kitchen.”
On the real issues, the issues that matter to Virginians, Deeds has been irritatingly silent: transportation, economic development, government reform and on and on.
That changed — sort of — this past Wednesday when The Washington Post printed an op/ed column by Deeds, touting his transportation “plan.” In the days since, it’s been hailed by his supporters as monumentally important analysis and fleshing-out of his transportation program.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Even a cursory reading of the commentary reveals it to be little more than a rehashing of his economic and transportation platform, available for download at www.deedsforvirginia.com/issues.
Both the campaign’s 19-page pamphlet and the Post commentary are filled with platitudes and nice-sounding proposals — high-speed rail lines across the state to allow folks in Blacksburg to commute daily to their jobs in Northern Virginia, for example.
But there are no specifics, none at all, regarding the source of the money for his proposals. He mentions forming a bipartisan commission to examine the state’s transportation system and to recommend funding mechanisms, but that’s it.
And this is a break-through moment in the campaign?
Anyone who has followed government at any level knows that a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission is where ideas — good, bad and indifferent — go to die a death of utter neglect.
That’s hardly leadership, Mr. Deeds. It’s copping out.
McDonnell’s transportation funding mechanisms stretch credulity almost to the breaking point, but at least he has put specifics out in the public arena for analysis. That’s more than Deeds has done ... or likely will do before Nov. 3.
Virginia needs a governor who leads from the front, not the rear. And right now, Creigh Deeds is gazing at the backsides of his followers, while Bob McDonnell is staring straight at the critical issues Virginia faces.
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