Do you want as the next governor of Virginia a Pat Robertson ideologue who opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest? Democratic Party nominee Creigh Deeds seems to be staking his candidacy on the notion that most of you don’t.
“My opponent’s rhetoric can be confusing. One day, he says his campaign is about jobs, jobs, jobs. The next, he says elections are litmus tests on abortion. But throughout his career, his record and his priorities have been clear. He’s focused on a narrow ideological agenda rather than one that would move Virginia forward,” Deeds said today at the kickoff of the Women for Deeds tour in Annandale, which begins what insiders are saying will be a weeklong push to bring to light distinctions in the approaches of Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell on abortion rights.
Conservative blogs and Republican Party leaders have been buzzing about the shift in approach from the Deeds camp since it became public over the weekend. The Robertson ties – the controversial televangelist has been a major campaign-funding source for McDonnell, a graduate of the law school at Regent University, a school founded by Robertson – were bound to come up at some point in the ’09 election cycle. That the Deeds campaign waited until mid-August to roll out the Robertson-as-running-mate strategy can’t have come as a surprise to the McDonnell folks, though I have to say that it seems to me to have caught them off-guard only by judging from their initial response from over the weekend.
“Most people understand that Bob’s views on life are consistent with his faith and his belief that innocent life should be protected,” campaign chairman Ed Gillespie said in an e-mail to supporters, sliding past McDonnell’s controversial views on abortion rights for victims of rape and incest and his preternatural fixation with the abortion issue in his years in public office in Virginia, during which time he has introduced more than 30 pieces of anti-choice legislation.
Of interest is that the Gillespie e-mail tried to turn the Deeds frontal assault on reproductive freedoms into a discussion of economics policies, in a bit of a reversal from debates in Virginia in years past where it was Republicans trying to make the fall elections into referendums on social issues and Democrats trying to turn the discussions to ones involving dollars and sense.
“I can see the strategy that they’re pursuing. If Deeds is going to win, they’re going to have to capture that middle, moderate, suburban voter,” said Christopher Newport University political-science professor Quentin Kidd, a frequent contributor to The Augusta Free Press.
Recent survey data seems to indicate that McDonnell’s current lead in the polls is almost entirely based on his strong showing right now with independent voters, where he has anywhere from a low-double-digits lead to a 20-point lead over Deeds, based largely on his advantage over Deeds in perceived favorability.
McDonnell was able to build leads in those areas because he had a clear path to the GOP nomination while Deeds had to tough out a win in a contested and contentious three-way Democratic Party primary that virtually exhausted his resources heading into the summer. In the meantime, McDonnell was able to prep the political battlefield with a barrage of positive, glowing family-themed biopics and ads highlighting him as a jobs governor without having to defend an inch of turf on the social-issues front where he can be seen as being quite vulnerable.
“If you really don’t know a lot about Bob McDonnell, and I imagine 90 percent of Virginians don’t, and if all you know is what you’ve seen in the last year, then he’s never said a word about social issues. He’s talked about the economy, and he’s talked about government efficiency and about waste. And so your impression is he’s a guy who’s interested in efficiency, and he’s an economic Republican,” Kidd said.
What we’re seeing right now from Deeds is “the Deeds campaign getting its footing,” Kidd said, predicting repeated blows from the Deeds camp at McDonnell on abortion for the next week or two before a shift to a broader assault on McDonnell’s associations with Robertson, “all designed to cause that moderate voter, that independent, to pause in their embrace of Bob McDonnell, and cause them to wonder if he’s really the Rockefeller Republican that he’s trying to portray himself as being the past nine months,” Kidd said.
We should know in relatively short order, in the next couple of weeks, whether the polls register success for the new Deeds strategy, Kidd said. “Basically what the Deeds campaign is saying is, Both candidates can govern effectively on the economy and jobs, so the real question is, Do you want a governor who takes the social-conservative position on abortion as your next governor?” Kidd said.
– Story by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
