Familiar opponents fight to be governor

RICHMOND — They battled for attorney general in 2005. Now they’re facing off for governor. But Democrat R. Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell meet on a decidedly different political landscape than they did four years ago.

Deeds, a state senator from rural Bath County who was defeated by McDonnell for attorney general by 360 votes, heads into this year’s rematch buoyed by a surprisingly strong primary victory. An early public poll by Rasmussen Reports suggests that victory has bumped Deeds slightly ahead of his old foe, 47 percent to 41 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Democrats, who staged a unity rally yesterday in Williamsburg for Deeds and his running mates, contend that the campaign terrain favors them, particularly coming off the 2008 triumph in Virginia of President Barack Obama.

Obama was the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state in 44 years, helped by what party operatives calculate is a 500,000-vote increase in Democratic preference from the 2005 statewide elections.

Further, Obama’s selection of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine as chairman of the Democratic National Committee assures Deeds a plentiful supply of cash for an election that, along with New Jersey’s campaign for governor, might be viewed as a referendum on the president.

Republicans counter that their edge is McDonnell himself. In 2005, he won in vote-rich localities including the outer Washington suburbs of Loudoun and Prince William counties and his former hometown of Virginia Beach.

But an independent analyst says the early advantage belongs to Deeds.

“Virginia is considerably more moderate and Democratic in 2009 than the Virginia of 2005,” said the University of Virginia’s Larry J. Sabato, who has been tracking state politics for four decades. “And Obama’s popularity just may be one of the tie-breakers in this election.”

The president could have special appeal among voters with whom Deeds was somewhat weak in 2005: blacks.

Sabato estimates Deeds’ performance among blacks lagged that of his 2005 running mates by 3 percent to 4 percent. A robust showing this year could be decisive, particularly in Hampton Roads, where McDonnell broke into politics as a member of the House of Delegates, Sabato says.

Former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, a Republican who lost the race for governor in 2005, cautions that Obama could quickly become a problem for Democrats, should the electorate decide to reject Deeds to punish the president for the economy.

“Virginia is famous, as we all know, for blaming Washington for everything,” Kilgore said. In 2005, he was linked by Kaine, his Democratic opponent, with an unpopular President George W. Bush — a tactic that drove up Kaine’s numbers in the Washington suburbs.

The economy, however, is an issue over which Deeds and McDonnell have little or no control. That, Democrats and Republicans agree, will force the candidates to concentrate on issues unique to Virginia, including transportation and education - and how to pay for them.

“Running a governor’s race is far more different than running an attorney general’s race,” Kilgore said. “The issues are different. The voter focus is going to be different.”

McDonnell, an anti-tax conservative trying to tack to the center, is attempting a balancing act that satisfies the right and the middle.

McDonnell is promising improvements in roads and rail and in education from kindergarten through college, financed with royalties from offshore oil and gas wells that may not be built for years, if ever.

Deeds, hoping to extend the Democratic gubernatorial win streak to three, has yet to fully lay out plans to pay for his platform, which includes an emphasis on transportation. Deeds previously backed higher fuel taxes for highways. That perhaps provides an opening for McDonnell.

Another possible wedge issue — firearms rights — may be less potent.

Deeds ran against McDonnell in 2005 with the endorsement of the National Rifle Association. Deeds’ pro-gun stance barely registered with suburban primary voters, deemed among the Democratic Party’s most liberal.

To the ire of the NRA, McDonnell, as a legislator, supported Democratic Gov. L. Douglas Wilder’s one-pistol-a-month law in 1993. McDonnell attempted to woo back gun-rights voters as attorney general by supporting a successful challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court to Washington’s prohibition on handguns.

Candidate style is likely to carry greater weight with voters in this campaign. It meant little when choosing between Deeds and McDonnell for attorney general, but it may be significant in deciding who is best-suited for governor.

McDonnell has a crisp television presence, with communications skills sharpened during four years in the attorney general’s office. Deeds can come across as somewhat excitable and speaks with a mountain lilt, though it’s mild compared with Kilgore’s.

“Will suburbanites have the same reaction to the Democrat’s twang as they did to Jerry Kilgore’s twang?” asks Sabato.

Kilgore’s lilt rarely was heard in his Republican TV commercials targeting the suburbs. Former Del. Barnie K. Day, D-Patrick, among the state’s wittier political handicappers, says the Deeds-McDonnell grudge match ultimately will be driven by Virginians’ view of themselves.

“The AG’s race is basically a law-and-order thing; it’s a glorified sheriff’s race,” Day said. “The governor’s race is entirely different. It’s more a statement of who we are as Virginians. Who do we want to see when we look in the mirror?”

That, Day says, speaks to the role of surrogates for the two candidates.

Deeds can stand with Obama, Sens. Jim Webb and Mark R. Warner, and the departing governor, Kaine - all relatively popular here.

Kilgore, telegraphing Republican hopes of a backlash against Democrats, born of anger over the economy, counters that McDonnell “should want to point out that these people are a big part of the problem in Washington. ... A lot of time there’s guilt by association.”

McDonnell has few in-state headliners to enlist, though the GOP nominating convention in Richmond was a showcase for conservative broadcaster Sean Hannity and the No. 2 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Eric I. Cantor of Henrico County.

But McDonnell already has appeared with several Republican presidential prospects: former Govs. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.

Jeff E. Schapiro is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.