Deeds colors vote rural blue

From the Bath County backwoods and the malaise of quiet left in the wake of Barack Obama’s clamorous presidential ascension, R. Creigh Deeds emerged Tuesday as the Democratic nominee for governor. His triumph was one for a few famously unsophisticated folk, rural conservatives, who cling still to a party that wants to leave them. Deeds would do this, too, on some points but not all. That differentiated him from his foes and propelled him. And so, perhaps, rises a spirit.

Party watchers thought, or perhaps hoped, that Deeds would finish primary election night staring at the back of the well-heeled and better-connected Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman making a virgin run for public office. McAuliffe, whose career has been that of a national party insider, tapped a Rolodex thicker than century-old timber, raising $7 million, more than twice that raised by either Deeds or also-ran Brian Moran, a former Alexandria delegate.

Fundraising acumen made McAuliffe an ostensibly ideal foe for Republican Bob McDonnell, in whom the party machine can be counted upon to invest heavily. Among the struggles Deeds will face over the summer and into the fall will be building a war chest to match McDonnell’s. A larger challenge for Deeds will be invigorating party faithful whose energy and interest appear to have waned since Obama became the first Democrat in more than 40 years to win Virginia.

It is popular already among some party observers to blame a fatigued base for McAuliffe’s most recent failure to turn campaign cash into election night victory. But another possibility, one that so-called progressives dismiss and disdain, lurks. Deeds’ reputation is one of a conservative, principally because he does not reflexively support restrictions on gun rights.

That appeals to his constituents in his native Bath County and voters throughout the Shenandoah Valley. It also parallels the moderation of popular Democratic senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb, who are adored by leftists but are centrists compared to Obama. It may be that in addition to flagging interest among those lured by Obama to the polls, Virginia voters are tilting back toward the natural conservative bent that prevails outside Northern Virginia and Richmond.

Democrats know the danger of this when the subject is the gubernatorial election. Deeds may run right of McAuliffe and Moran but not so McDonnell. Deeds is pro-abortion and favors raising the state gas tax to help pay for transportation projects in Northern Virginia. He is better suited than McAuliffe would have been to generate backing among Valley legislators for this move because he is one of them. But many of those lawmakers still sting over previous support of increased taxes, and voters might not be so keen on the idea either.

It is to Deeds’ credit that in contrast to McAuliffe he has proposed concrete solutions to easing Northern Virginia’s massive transportation headaches. McDonnell, who promises to be the jobs governor, is murkier on this. To reduce the significant Democratic advantage in that population center, McDonnell will need to explain precisely from where transportation money would come and how much.

But McDonnell’s conservatism has been tested. If part of the exhaustion voters have felt in the months following Obama’s victory is tied to the massive expansion of government that has followed, Deeds will face a task more difficult than toppling McAuliffe, that of proving he is the one to stand athwart the times and shout, “Stop!” After eight years of blue rule in Richmond and unprecedented government growth in Washington, gubernatorial voters might well be more prepared to say the same to Democrats.