The Virginia governor's election is in ten days, on November 3. At this point, all signs indicate that Bob McDonnell will defeat Creigh Deeds.Yesterday, anonymous Obama advisers criticized the Deeds campaign for (1) failing to coordinate with the White House and (2) not reaching out to key constituencies that helped Obama win Virginia last year. According to Rosalind Helderman in this morning's Post (here), the Deeds campaign is ticked at the White House's pre-election criticism (and the pronouncement that Deeds has "virtually no chance" to win).
331. I couldn't agree more with the Deeds campaign's anger and frustration. What are the Obama people thinking? I assume they are trying to make sure (pre-emptively) that Obama does not suffer too much collateral damage from a Deeds' loss. But by doing so, they are further hurting Deeds' chances -- just to slightly sway the eventual post-election analysis so that it's a bit less "Obama-negative." This is really bad form.
332. Stepping back a bit: how did Deeds defeat Terry McAuliffe so soundly in the primary in June? What were the key issues that caused Democratic activists to swing to him? Was it mainly the McAuliffe-is-not-a-real-Virginian meme?
333. Who will win the Corzine / Christie race in New Jersey? I assume that race is closer than Virginia's, but does Christie have a legitimate chance?
334. An article in this morning's New York Times says that Michael Bloomberg is spending enormous sums of his own money in his campaign to be re-elected for a third time as New York City's mayor. Why? Isn't he popular enough that he'd win without running a massive campaign?
335. Whatever happened to the argument that Bloomberg couldn't / shouldn't run for a third term? Was this just a propriety issue, or was there actually an ordinance against a third term that was amended during the past year?
---------
The Post article notes that Deeds was in Franklin County yesterday, responding to an announcement that an International Paper plant there will be shut down, leading to the loss of more than 1,000 jobs. Deeds has advocated for Virginia to accept federal stimulus money for the expansion of unemployment benefits, but McDonnell argues that the stimulus funds come with too many strings-attached.
