A candidate absent form

A man reared on a hog and cattle farm in Bath County, R. Creigh Deeds, and by implication, those weighing whether to side with him, confront a hound dog’s quandary, this one over what to do if the thing chased is caught. Hounds, fond of bounding after cars, proverbially wouldn’t know what to do if they snared one. The same appears applicable to Deeds, bounding at the moment after the governor’s office with a bluetick’s careless oblivion to questions of consequence.

It has gotten as bad as all this: Even The Washington Post is wondering precisely what the honorable state senator would do in the unlikely event that Virginians elect him to be their next governor. A 3,581-word opus Sunday on the front page of the capital city’s newspaper of record begins with a reference to Deeds “stammering” while trying to explain one of his evolving political views and concludes with this: “… [A]t some point … people …. want to know where you are taking them, want to see your map. For Deeds, the task is to convince voters during the campaign’s final 30 days that he has one.”

Twice as Deeds’ hopes for permission to migrate from the state Senate to the governor’s mansion have waned, The Post has intervened, endorsing him in a Democratic primary in which the carpetbagging Terry McAuliffe once held a double-digit lead and several weeks ago unearthing Robert F. McDonnell’s 1989 Regent University thesis just as the Republican appeared set to turn the race into a rout. That even The Post has taken to open musing about the absence of a rudder in Deeds’ campaign is significant, like an indulgent mother suddenly noticing an overfed child’s expanding waistline.

Indulging Deeds for a moment, accept that McDonnell has a blueprint for Virginia that would remake her in Puritanical hues harsh enough to have made even the gang at Jamestown wince. A question naturally arises: Well, what then might you do, senator? Listen now for the sound of a campaign rasping beneath the crickets’ chirps. Deeds refrains from specifics, he explains to The Post, because “I could be specifically wrong.”

There you have it then, the Deeds formula for governing, to avoid being wrong by being nothing, to draw lines in the air. He is the political equivalent of the Sandman of “Spider-man” movie fame. Attempt to squeeze him for definition on an issue and he seeps through the fingers. He takes form only while swinging away at the opposition, but look upon Deeds himself and one sees only the sand shifting.

This is no foundation upon which to build a bid for the state’s highest office. If Deeds is to present an alternative to Bob McDonnell, then he must take the shape of one. Whether one prefers McDonnell’s blueprint as either he or Deeds describes it, the Republican at least appears to know where he’d go from Nov. 3. An election takes place four weeks from today and yet Virginians still don’t know where their Democratic candidate is. Deeds remains the dog that won’t hunt.