I don't know about you but I was bothered by the thumping the democrats took in the recent election and wondered how we ended up with our losing candidate so lets look at the primary in Amherst County to see how it began. Primary turnout of voters for the entirety of Amherst County was 727 people or just 3.76% of total voters. Of those 727 who voted 427 went for Deeds, 221 for McAuliffe and 79 for Moran.
Voters of any affiliation may vote in the primary as long as they only cast votes in one primary. Republicans had no primary so Amherst Counties 727 votes could have been cast by democrats, republicans, independents or other.
Lets look at the seperate precincts in Amherst County to get an idea of how important your one vote is. We'll start with WRIGHT SHOP where Terry R. McAuliffe got 18 votes (33.96%), Brian J. Moran got 2 votes (3.77%) and R. Creigh Deeds received 33 votes (62.26%) of the total of 53 votes cast.
As you can see a dozen people working together can do great things in a precinct to sway the outcome. Here's the raw data on the remaining precincts:
102 - NEW GLASGOW
Terry R. McAuliffe - 16 - 25.39%
Brian J. Moran - - - - 7 - 11.11%
R. Creigh Deeds - - 40 - 63.49%
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103 - COOLWELL
Terry R. McAuliffe - - 5 - - - 31.25%
Brian J. Moran - - - - 1 - - - - 6.25%
R. Creigh Deeds - - -10 - - - 62.5%
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201 - COURT HOUSE
Terry R. McAuliffe - - 43 - - 29.05%
Brian J. Moran - - - - - 22 - -14.86%
R. Creigh Deeds - - - - 83 - - 56.08%
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202 - TEMPERANCE
Terry R. McAuliffe - - - - 8 - - 18.18%
Brian J. Moran - - - - - - 7 - - 15.90%
R. Creigh Deeds - - - - 29 - - 65.90%
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301 - MONROE
Terry R. McAuliffe - -17 - -32.69%
Brian J. Moran - - - - -7 - -13.46%
R. Creigh Deeds - - -28 - - 53.84%
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302 - ELON
Terry R. McAuliffe - - 32 - -32.32%
Brian J. Moran - - - - -10 - - 10.10%
R. Creigh Deeds - - - - 57 - -57.57%
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303 - PLEASANT VIEW
Terry R. McAuliffe - -8 - - 42.10%
Brian J. Moran - - - - -3 - -15.78%
R. Creigh Deeds - - - -8 - - 42.10%
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401 - AMELON
Terry R. McAuliffe - - 22 - -24.44%
Brian J. Moran - - - - - 7 - -7.77%
R. Creigh Deeds n- - -61 - -67.77%
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402 - LONCO
Terry R. McAuliffe - - 5 - - 35.71%
Brian J. Moran - - - - 3 - - 21.42%
R. Creigh Deeds - - - 6 - - - 42.85%
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501 - MADISON
Terry R. McAuliffe - - 42 - - 37.16%
Brian J. Moran - - - - - 8 - - 7.07%
R. Creigh Deeds - - - - 63 - - 55.75%
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AB - Central Absentee Precinct
Terry R. McAuliffe - - - 5 - - 31.25%
Brian J. Moran - - - - - -2 - - 12.5%
R. Creigh Deeds- - - - - 9 - - 56.25%
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These results are typical for the entire state which means complete lack of interest decided our fate in the election.
319,168 voters of 5,071,226 total voters state wide (6.293%) participated in the primary as compared to the Primary turnout of voters for the entirety of Amherst County was 727 people or just 3.76% of total voters. Amherst county voters demonstrated a little less than 60% of the dismal interest the voters state wide showed. There are 19,333 total voters in Amherst County and 6.293% of that number would be 1216 voters. That would be 489 more voters if Amherst County demonstrated the same interest as the State of Virginia as a whole.
Complete figures on all elections and primaries are available at:
http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Election_Information/Election_Results/Index.html
Here's a comment on the election itself and what those numbers mean. These figures are also available from the State Board of Elections for all the cities and the 95 counties in Virginia.
If Creigh Deeds had managed to motivate Obama/Biden voters at the same rate as Bob McDonnell managed to motivate McCain/Palin voters, he would have won. Easily. Even if he had only managed to motivate them at half the rate McDonnell did, he would have won. If Deeds had been half as good a candidate as his republican opponent he would have won. Instead, the geniuses - David Petts, Joe Abbey, Monica and David Dixon, Susan Swecker - at the Deeds campaign decided it was smarter to run away from the very things that got those "Obama voters" out to the polls last year. As if that's not bad enough, the Deeds' geniuses decided to spend way too much time tooling around the mirage known as "Deeds Country" (I say "mirage" because Deeds got absolutely wiped out there on Tuesday) instead of focusing on African American voters and the "urban crescent" more broadly. This is almost criminal negligence, utterly mind boggling in its stupidity. And yes, I'm real sorry Deeds diehards got their feelings hurt, but as Jim Webb says, "the fish rots from the head down," so Creigh Deeds is ultimately responsible for this. He hired those folks, let them "plan their work and work their plan." And boy, did they ever. Deeds is the one who said he's not an "Obama Democrat." Deeds and his campaign dragged others down with them.
Last November, Barack Obama received 2.0 million votes and John McCain received 1.7 million votes in the State of Virginia. This November, Creigh Deeds received 0.8 million votes and Bob McDonnell received 1.2 million votes. Deeds "underperformed" Obama by 1.2 million votes, while McDonnell "underperformed" McCain by only 0.5 million votes. The difference between those two "underperformances": 700,000 votes, or more than twice the total that Deeds lost by.
Back to the local level and Amherst County. After the primary there was nothing you could do to change the outcome of the Deeds/Mcdonnell race. From the very moment he won the primary Deeds did everything dead wrong and took the party down with him. Even had 500 more local voters showed up and changed the counties totals to another candidate Deeds would still have won the primary and gone on to lose the race.
If there's a bright spot it is that Deeds can't keep his promise to opt out of any health care reform that President Obama signs.
If you are searching for the legendary city of Atlantis it is located just beyond Deeds Country, turn left on Fantasy Lane. Best of Luck on your journey.
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