Deeds: Man without plan

On a hazy day in Vancouver, six weeks after having broken the mythic four-minute barrier in the mile, Roger Bannister clung desperately to the frantic pace set by an Australian rival. Less than 100 yards from the white-chalk finish line, Bannister propelled himself in a wild dash for victory, and John Landy withered. The man who briefly held the record for the mile watched his fame vanish into forgotten history.

In distance racing, a sport mastered by Britain, the strategy is known as surging, allowing others to set the pace, as Bannister did, then zipping for the tape. R. Creigh Deeds has tested the technique in politics, achieving success so far. The state senator from Bath County won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in June by lagging through much of the primary season then sprinting past candidates nobody liked much: Terry McAuliffe, the carpetbagger from that detached country known as Northern Virginia, and another NoVa pretender, Del. Brian Moran, who has yet to begin a race he lost two months ago.

Now Deeds appears to suffer from Moran’s affliction, deafness to the sound of the starter pistol, or something equally debilitating, the delusion that what happened in June can happen again, that he can plod along, wait for an endorsement from The Washington Post then kick past Republican Robert F. McDonnell. The trouble for Deeds is that his opponent seems to have heeded the admonition once given to fictive boxing champ Apollo Creed: “He doesn’t know it’s a damn show. He thinks it’s a damn fight.”

Cases in point: Both candidates recently rolled out new television spots. McDonnell’s showcase his plan to generate jobs, in part, by expanding energy sources, including offshore oil and gas drilling as well as nuclear and wind. McDonnell apparently has noticed that jobs are a concern among voters. The senator’s TV pitches feature President Barack Obama touting Deeds as part of the seamless thread that weaves through previous Democratic governors, Mark Warner and Timothy M. Kaine. Deeds apparently hasn’t noticed Obama’s sagging approval ratings and the rapid splintering of Kaine’s legacy.

More to the point, Deeds apparently hasn’t noticed the yawning void in the middle of his campaign where vision and ideas ought to be. First, he stammers about abortion, an issue that surely will not win him an election. Then he rolls out a presidential testimonial. What of how the commonwealth might be run? What of transportation? What of job creation? So far, he’s hinted at a gas tax and pledged tax credits for every job created in the commonwealth. We oppose the former but concur on the latter.

This is not enough. One might disagree with McDonnell on how he expects to go about governing, but he has provided detailed plans, which is ordinarily just the sort of thing Democrats do, ad infinitum. There are murmurs that the Deeds campaign staff has stumbled into chaos. The evidence backs this.

What’s plain is that Deeds has fallen far to the back in a two-man race: He’s behind in the polls by seven to 15 percentage points. Labor Day, the unofficial start of the campaign season, looms. We know the president likes Deeds. Surprise. But we don’t know what Deeds might do if he catches the office he seeks. Hearing nothing from him gives the impression that Deeds is a man without a plan. It is not an image that appeals. It looks like John Landy, after his prime.