Cut The Negativity and Campaign

McDonnell Widens Lead in Virginia Governor's Race

Republican Robert F. McDonnell has taken a commanding lead over R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor of Virginia, as momentum the Democrat had built with an attack on his opponent's conservative social views has dissipated, according to a new Washington Post poll.

McDonnell leads 53 to 44 percent among likely voters, expanding on the four-point lead he held in mid-September. Deeds's advantage with female voters has all but disappeared and McDonnell has grown his already wide margin among

independents. Deeds, a state senator from western Virginia, is widely seen by voters as running a negative campaign, a finding that might indicate his aggressive efforts to exploit McDonnell's 20-year-old graduate thesis are turning voters away.

Much of the movement since last month, when a Post poll showed Deeds closing in on McDonnell, has come in Northern Virginia. A 17-point Deeds lead there has been whittled significantly, with his support waning substantially in Northern Virginia's left-leaning inner suburbs.

Republicans are also well positioned to sweep the other two statewide races, with Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli each holding identical 49 to 40 percent leads over Democrats Jody Wagner and Steve Shannon for lieutenant governor and attorney general.

The new poll comes at a particularly critical moment for Deeds, whose campaign has stumbled in recent weeks. Deeds has struggled in several appearances in Northern Virginia, including a debate last month in Fairfax County that he followed by bungling questions from reporters about whether he supports a tax increase. That scene has been turned into a campaign commercial by Republicans and is airing across the state.

Prominent party members have also been openly criticizing the focus and tone of Deeds's campaign. He also failed to win the endorsement of fellow Democrat L. Douglas Wilder, likely dampening his support among African Americans, and President Obama has not committed to campaigning for him in the final weeks of the race.

If national Democrats begin to view the race as unwinnable and focus their resources on New Jersey, the nation's only other gubernatorial election this year, Deeds could be further hamstrung. Democrats are not eager to lose both races, which are considered early indicators of Obama's leadership and a harbinger of next year's midterm congressional elections. Polls in New Jersey show an increasingly competitive race between incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine and Republican Chris Christie.

With a little more than three weeks before Election Day, the poll shows McDonnell in a powerful position. By double-digit margins voters believe he would better handle virtually every major issue facing Virginians, including transportation, taxes, education, the state budget and the economy. Only on issues of special concern to women does Deeds hold a tepid 47 to 41 point advantage.

McDonnell's supporters are also more enthusiastic than Deeds's and more voters say they believe he has advanced new ideas for the state. Deeds now trails among independent voters by a striking 21 percentage point margin -- 59 to 38 percent.

Despite a concerted advertising campaign by Deeds about controversial views McDonnell expressed about working women in his thesis -- the one area where the Republican had appeared vulnerable -- the erosion of support among women and Northern Virginians suggests that the line of attack might have run its course.

For the first time, a majority of voters, 51 percent, say McDonnell is "about right" ideologically, despite Democratic efforts to characterize the GOP candidate as out-of-touch with mainstream Virginia voters. More now see Deeds as "too liberal" than see McDonnell as "too conservative" (44 to 37 percent). Moreover, just 15 percent of voters see the thesis as "very important" in deciding how to vote, putting it well behind jobs, health care, education, taxes and transportation as a top concern.

Deeds has also failed to appeal to core Democratic constituencies -- a finding that might provide his effort a measure of hope. Only half of the voters who backed Obama a year ago said they are certain to vote in November, compared with the two-thirds of voters who backed Republican John McCain. That leaves a large pool of voters open to voting for a Democrat, if Deeds can win them over.

Compared with other regions, Northern Virginia's inner suburbs has the highest percentage of voters who are either undecided or open to shifting their support between now and Nov. 3. Overall, Northern Virginia voters break 51 percent for Deeds to 46 percent for McDonnell, well below the 60 percent that Democrats view as necessary to win statewide races.

A major push by Obama, whose approval rating in Virginia remains at a healthy 58 percent among all registered voters, could still provide significant help for Deeds, particularly among blacks and young people. If the election were held today, African-Americans would make up only 12 percent of the electorate, the lowest percentage in available data going back to 1994. Voters under age 30, who made up a fifth of the electorate during last year's presidential election, would make up only 8 percent today. Both groups are enthusiastic supporters of Obama.

But it is not clear how much help will be forthcoming from the White House, where officials have been frustrated by the way Deeds has run his campaign, and are pessimistic about his chances of winning. Obama has not committed to campaigning for Deeds again, although many Democrats expect that he will make a stop before the election. One administration official described the race as "winnable, but challenging." Two officials said they expected Obama to continue to help. But they made no secret of the fact that they view the race as one Deeds must win largely on his own.

Deeds does have a history of thriving when he has been discounted. In 2005, he was far behind McDonnell when the two competed to become attorney general before closing strong to lose by 360 votes, the closest finish in state history. This spring, polls showed him in third place among three Democratic challengers for the gubernatorial nomination for months before he pulled ahead and won resoundingly.

But there is now a widespread perception that Deeds' campaign has taken on a decidedly negative tone -- 56 percent of voters say he has been running a negative campaign. Six in 10 voters say McDonnell's effort has been mainly positive. A new ad released by Deeds's campaign on Thursday begins with an assault on McDonnell's transportation plan before turning to Deeds's vision.

The finding is a reversal from the last two elections, when Democratic candidates Mark R. Warner and Timothy M. Kaine were perceived by voters to be running more positive campaigns than their Republican opponents.

"With Deeds, I don't feel like I know much about him," said Irene Murphy, 28, of Springfield, who voted for Obama last year and Kaine in 2005 but is leaning to McDonnell this year. "I don't feel like he's run a campaign that gives me a good idea of where he stands on certain issues. I feel like he's been so focused on making McDonnell look bad that he's made himself look bad."

Even some Deeds supporters said they are not clear on his positions.

"I don't honestly know that much about him," said Deeds backer Kim Scott, 39, of Vienna. "I would rather hear more about what he's about than hear from him what Bob McDonnell is about." "But," Scott added, "I can't vote for Bob McDonnell. It would be unthinkable given my personal ideology to vote for someone like him, who put out that thesis."

On an issue where Deeds has made his position clear -- his support for providing new money for transportation improvements even if it requires raising taxes -- he appears to have parted ways with Virginia voters. Most voters statewide, 55 percent, say they oppose paying more in taxes for new roads and transit. Among independents, 60 percent are opposed, and even in Northern Virginia a slim majority of voters oppose new taxes for transportation.

"I think McDonnell has some solutions on how to pay for much needed improvements on Northern Virginia's transportation issues like selling liquor stores rather than focusing on raising taxes. This tells me that he has thought through some of the issues without the tax and spend view-point to solve problems," said Manassas voter Jane Kolar, 47, who has been unemployed for most of the past two years and said she would have trouble paying more in taxes.

The poll, conducted by conventional phone and cellphone Sunday through Wednesday, included interviews with 2,091 adult Virginians, 1,001 of whom said they were "absolutely certain" to vote in the upcoming gubernatorial election.

The results for the sample of likely voters have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Error margins for subgroups are larger.

Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta and staff writers Anne Kornblut and Anita Kumar contributed to this report.

No Code of Ethics Says Supervisors

Supervisors Vote NO on Ethics

Dist 1. Donald Kidd
Dist 2. Vernon Wood
Dist 3. Chris Adams
Dist 4. S. Ray Vandall
Dist 5. Leon Parrish (Chairman)

Amherst County Virginia Democratic News

After months of debate, the Amherst County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted against adopting an ethics code at a work session Monday.

Since April the board has reviewed the four-page policy document as a possible guideline of conduct for local government officials.

On Monday, supervisors reiterated their concerns regarding the code’s language and purpose.

“I don’t see this document is going to cause us to adhere to anything we don’t already adhere to,” said Vice Chairman Chris Adams.

Several supervisors took specific issue with a portion of the code that requires board members contact staff only through the county administrator or a department head.

Supervisor Ray Vandall said he thought the focus of the ethics code was too wide and that parts of it centered on operational rather than ethical matters. “It goes a lot farther than I ever anticipated,” he said. “I thought this was a matter for the Board of Supervisors, not every part of the county.”

Also at the work session Monday, the board voted to cease looking into a possible leak of confidential information in the police investigation of a former county employee.

Previously the board asked the Attorney General of Virginia to investigate the matter, but the office declined, stating that it would not “cannot supersede or interfere with investigations into local matters.”

The board had authorized a probe in June, following the resignation of former county administrator Rodney Taylor. Taylor said the board asked him to resign in April after he accused a supervisor of leaking confidential information to a private attorney.

Amherst’s commonwealth attorney Stephanie Maddox, who was present at the workshop session, said that the potential leak had no effect on the prosecution’s case of the former county employee.

Adams said that, in light of the remaining options, he did not see the need to continue with an investigation. “We need to put this behind us. I think that will do us, as well as the county citizens, justice in the end.”

Supervisor Don Kidd agreed, saying he did not want to spend taxpayers’ money on a private investigation.

The board also discussed the potential impact the reduced level of state aid will have on the county’s 2010 budget.

The amount in reductions already totals $405,223, with a large bulk of those reductions affecting the commonwealth attorney’s office, the clerk’s office and the sheriff’s expense fund.

Adams stressed the importance of the county government working together to absorb the deficit in the county’s budget so that one department alone would not have to shoulder the burden. The reductions affect the entire county and should be dealt with “systemically,” he said.

At Monday’s work session, the board scheduled a public hearing for Oct. 20 to discuss whether the county should take on responsibility for the Amherst train station-visitors center project, undertaken for the last 10 years by the Friends of the Historic Train Station.

ACVDN

Deeds Points Finger at Washington

Deeds Blames Washington

Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds said in an interview that he was lagging in the polls entering the final weeks of the campaign in part because of voter concerns over his national party’s agenda.

“Frankly, a lot of what’s going on in Washington has made it very tough,” Deeds said in a “Battleground Virginia” interview sponsored by ABC 7/WJLA-TV, POLITICO, Google and YouTube. “We had a very tough August because people were just uncomfortable with the spending; they were uncomfortable with a lot of what was going on, a lot of the noise that was coming out of Washington, D.C.”

As one of two off-year governor’s races — the other is New Jersey — that are being closely watched for signals about the 2010 midterm election landscape, the factors behind Deeds’s struggles to date are being studied closely in both parties.

If the ambitious agenda being pushed by President Barack Obama is what’s dragging down the Deeds campaign — rather than the candidate’s own deficiencies, as some top Democrats believe — then the Virginia race could be a troubling harbinger for the national party.

In Virginia, this year’s contest will test how deeply a new politics has taken root in the Old Dominion. Democrats have won the governor’s race in this traditionally conservative-tilting state twice in a row, and Obama last year became the first Democrat in 44 years to carry the commonwealth in a presidential election.

But while the race seems to have tightened in recent weeks, Republican Bob McDonnell has never trailed in any poll — despite a drumbeat of hard-hitting Deeds ads portraying him as a conservative extremist hostile to working women.

Both Deeds, a state senator, and McDonnell, a former state attorney general, discussed the race with WJLA anchor Leon Harris and POLITICO Editor-in-Chief John F. Harris in separate interviews that were broadcast Tuesday night on the ABC affiliate in Washington. The candidates also took questions from Virginians ranging from a Leesburg City Council member to a George Mason University student, via Google Moderator and YouTube.

Deeds said he was now “reframing” the race in an effort to shift the focus more toward state issues and away from a broader national debate that is perilous for a Democrat running in a slightly right-of-center state.

But even while confidently laying out a path to victory, Deeds conceded that McDonnell had staked out a lead over the summer, thanks to the absence of a GOP primary and the Republican’s ability to spend much of the year introducing himself to voters in a fashion that downplayed his roots as a social conservative.

“I came out of the primary, and a lot of people didn’t expect me to win,” he said. “I had to spend a couple of months hunkering down, raising money. Bob could build up his fundraising advantage to run soft and fuzzy ads and build up a lead over me.”

Deeds defeated two other Democrats in a costly June primary that depleted his war chest. He has trailed McDonnell in every poll since then, but public and private surveys have indicated the race has tightened.

That’s in part because of the disclosure of a controversial graduate school thesis McDonnell penned in 1989, when the then-34-year-old Republican outlined a series of far-right stances on cultural issues, including a claim that working women were a detriment to society.

The document, Deeds said, puts McDonnell’s record “in context.” The Democrat has saturated the airwaves with ads informing voters about his rival’s writings.

Before he narrowly defeated Deeds in 2005 to become attorney general, McDonnell served for 14 years as a state delegate, carving out a reputation in the General Assembly as a go-to man for cultural conservatives.

The Republican denied, however, that he had been animated by issues such as abortion in his years in the Legislature.

“Two percent of the bills that I patroned in the General Assembly had to do with abortion — eight out of 386. And guess what? Five of them were the same,” McDonnell said, noting that some of the measures included widely supported efforts to outlaw some late-term abortions and require minors to gain parental consent for abortions.

He suggested that voters, in a state that has been rapidly trending toward the Democrats and has a political tradition of rewarding moderation, are aware of his social conservatism.

“People know that I’m pro-life, I’m pro-family, and that shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody,” McDonnell said, while adding that it’s kitchen-table issues such as jobs and roads that he’s been running on in this campaign.

That focus — and his own polished presentation — have played a significant role in the GOP’s advantage to date in the contest, something Deeds himself hinted at.

“If this election is about who’s the smoothest candidate, who can be the slickest communicator, I’m not going to win,” Deeds said.

To this end, the Democrat acknowledged that he had not performed well following a Fairfax, Va., debate last month — when, in a conversation with reporters, he equivocated on whether he’d raise taxes for transportation.

The moment was captured on camera, and now national Republicans are spending millions to air the footage in a commercial pummeling Deeds.

“I’ve been in the Legislature 18 years, and it’s easy for me to lapse into legislative-speak,” he said.

Deeds reiterated that he’d be willing to sign a tax increase for transportation if that is what a bipartisan commission recommended.

Even while McDonnell has benefited from outrage on the right and unease in the middle toward President Barack Obama — and a hunger among many in his party to reclaim the governor’s mansion after successive Democratic chief executives — he expressed a measure of concern about the volume of the political debate.

“There are people on both sides of the political spectrum that feel very deeply about their views and probably routinely cross the line,” McDonnell said, noting that he found some behavior at the town halls and the outburst toward Obama by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) “inappropriate.”

As for his own party, Deeds said he and Obama agreed on a majority of issues and that he expected the president to come into Virginia to campaign with him before next month’s election.

“I don’t think he’s getting enough credit right now for lots of good signs that are emerging in the economy,” Deeds said, while noting that he differs with the president on cap and trade.

And despite his deficit in the polls, Deeds indicated that he wasn’t interested in any further debates.

Asked about a statement he made earlier this year in an interview with WJLA and POLITICO, in which he said he would like to face his Republican rival in a debate, Deeds faulted his campaign.

“I don’t have anything to do with the schedule,” he said. “I would have loved to have done a debate with this format.”

When it was noted that it was his name on the ballot, Deeds said that his campaign had a multitude of requests and pointed out that he and McDonnell had done more forums this year than the two candidates in the 2005 gubernatorial race.