Thank goodness:
Running with the least money and fewest ties to vote-rich Northern Virginia, State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds has won the three-way Democratic primary for governor, paving the way for a rematch with Republican Bob McDonnell in the fall.
Deeds, 51, a country lawyer from Bath County in the western part of the state, was viewed as an unlikely winner against two Northern Virginians with entrenched political ties.
Known for his moderate views on such issues as gun rights, but also appreciated for his folksy style and attention to the Washington suburbs’ cry for road improvements, Deeds was leading in Fairfax, Arlington, Loudoun and Prince William counties.
Deeds had almost doubled the vote totals of each of his opponents, Democratic activist Terry McAuliffe and former Del. Brian Moran.
“Three weeks ago, this was a two-man race between McAuliffe and Moran,” said Quentin Kidd, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University. “Deeds was going to win the rural vote and that’s it. People are going to be talking about how he pulled this off for weeks and months.”
There were two scenarios should McAuliffe win. First, he could lose the general quite easily to McDonnell. Second, he could win, and then be a national embarrassment for four years. I have no idea how Virginians as a whole think about this, since so few of them showed up to the polls, but I am relieved as hell that McAuliffe was sent packing. I can’t find the link right now (it was at the Great Orange Satan), but I remember all the candidates at a charity fund-raiser, and McAuliffe made a bunch of inappropriate comments, and all I could think was that if he wins, it would be a disaster.
Tom65
No real surprise here; Deeds just waited for Terry to be Terry.
Marc
Suck it, McAuliffe. Go away now, and take Mark Penn with you.
Linus
At least there would have been a one-term limit. But yeah, this seems like a good thing to me. Plus, it’s additional proof (like Romney’s 2008 primary run) that money can’t buy elections. Or at least, not as well as it used to.
Gus
McAuliffe leaves a slime trail wherever he goes. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Woodrowfan
Deeds won my precinct (which is a deep blue) getting more than 50% of the vote. McAuliffe got about 15% of the vote. Turnout was about 14-15%, more than expected but still low. if you judged by robocalls and signs on the road you’d have thought McAuliffe was well in the lead… oops.
Napoleon
I was hoping Moran would win, but at least it was not Terry.
Regardless this is why I hate polling being run as stories for the 2010 election already. I have really thought about writing TPM about how they are polluting their site with that stuff when it could change 1-2 weeks out.
Mark
I voted for Moran, but I’ll enthusiastically support Deeds. Terry McAuliffe represents everything bad about the Clinton administration. Let’s hope that his loss is a permanent setback to that wing of the Democratic party.
TenguPhule
Must you make it such a difficult choice?
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
I am from Va, but have been out of state for 9 years so I have not been keeping up. I spoke to my buddy in Charlottesville and he went for Deeds (ho-hum choice for him) and was vitriolic in his comments about Terry A (“race-baiting f*ck” was the exact formulation).
Jean
I was hoping, like Napoleon, that Moran would win because he is the progressive candidate; however, for Virginia as a whole (it’s still purple), he ran a poor campaign and too left of the other candidates. I’m good with Deeds because I think he can beat McDonnell. McDonnell is posing as a moderate, but he’s rightwing. He would be a giant step backward at the worst possible time.
This is my first post here, but I’ve been reading every day for months and I’m rooting for Lily and Tunch’s eventual harmony in the Cole household.
Rosali
McAuliffe has probably burned his bridges to the DNC and can’t go back there.
Bootlegger
I paid no attention to this until today, but anytime someone comes from behind to win and prove the pundits, the party machine, and the money wrong, ya gotta love it. Deeds has some serious mo right now and bodes well for the general.
burnspbesq
@Rosali:
Re McAuliffe:
Que lastima —–> K Street.
It has ever been thus.
Sigh.
geg6
Hopefully, this is the death rattle of the DLCers and the Clintonites. Ol’ Bubba was a beacon of hope in the dark tunnel of the past 35 years, but enough of their Pub Lite shit. And McAuliffe is the most slimy and disgusting of the bunch. Would have preferred that my VA friends would have gone for Moran, but this is infinitely better than the only other alternative.
demkat620
Former Destroyer of the DNC Terry McAssHat.
Don’t let the door hitcha where the dog shoulda bit ya!
Linkmeister
Hey, TenguPhule, did I correctly infer from a previous thread that you’re in Hawai’i?
Me too, bruddah.
planetjanet
I am actually impressed that turnout was 6% statewide. As sad a statement as that is, it is nearly twice the turnout in 2006. There was much higher turnout in the more rural districts than I expected. That certainly helped Deeds. If it really comes down to the ground game, looks like Deeds was building it for the past four years. McAuliffe couldn’t buy a ground game fast enough. Creigh clearly has statewide appeal. But now its time to take on McDonnell.
TenguPhule
Yes.
Aloha.
Linkmeister
Howzit.
Ella in NM
I have no idea how Virginians as a whole think about this, since so few of them showed up to the polls, but I am relieved as hell that McAuliffe was sent packing.
As a former resident of Virginia with many relatives still living there, AMEN.
I currently live in a place where our governor-Bill Richardson-is often assailed as a “carpetbagger”–especially after he decided to run as the Democratic nominee for President. In actuality, he committed himself to doing some really important things to enhance the overall livability and future economic success of our state. He mostly acted as if he was a native, in the interests of making this a much better place to live for all of our citizens, and I really regard him highly for that. Regardless of what mistakes he may have made, I always felt like he gave as much (if not more, in some circumstances) of a shit about our state as he did his own career.
Terry McAssHat, on the other hand, is a narcissist without a soul, who only cares about what he can get out of something for himself. He had no sense of the incredible history and traditions of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He had no connection to the mountains, the lowlands, the countryside. He merely saw Virginia as a convenient location from which he could feather his nest and advance his own interests.
Coming from over 200 years of Virginia “Scots-Irish” stock, I’m pretty sure they figured his slimy con job out in about 15 seconds, and the vote was their verdict.
Good thing this wasn’t the 1700’s, or he’d of been run out of the state tarred and feathered, on a rail, the freaky little twit.
Rosali
Hilarious. Terry’s not hurting for money but I don’t know how much of his personal fortune he pumped into the failed campaign. He’ll land on his feet but I’m not sure how much influence he can peddle when his two biggest endeavors for the past 2+ years ended in spectacular flame outs.
Ron
@Marc:
Unfortunately Mark Penn might not be going away. Rep. Maloney (D-NY) appears to have hired his firm in an attempt to primary Gillibrand.
Ellie
I’m generally a lurker here, but sitting here in fake Virginia, I thought I’d weigh in. I think that Tom65 has it right. Terry couldn’t help being Terry. Thank FSM for caller ID. I got about a billion calls from “Friends of Terry.”
Also, Deeds’ WaPo endorsement seems to have really helped him while dealing Moran a serious blow in NoVa. It seemed to help solidify the “anybody but Terry” vote for Deeds.
Brian
@ Ellie
Greetings Comrade! I, too, reside in the communist portion of Virginia.
I think you’re right about the WaPo endorsement. Newspaper endorsements rarely seem to make a difference. This time, however, I believe the WaPo endorsement gave Deeds his victory.
Mister Papercut
This Virginian is happy. We get probably the most competitive Dem opponent to go up against that dickshine McDonnell, and Terry McAuliffe gets beaten about the head and neck in the process? That’s never a bad day, friend.
jlp
As a resident of Real Virginia (well, just outside Richmond, anyway), I voted for Deeds. Moran’s politics probably comport better with my own, but Deeds was clearly consolidating the anti-Terry vote (my primary – no pun intended – concern), and I didn’t want to contribute to a split. Deeds strikes me as a somewhat better statewide candidate than Moran, as well.
Whispers
I suspect the discrepancy between the polls and the actual vote results from a lot of Moran voters deciding that they didn’t want to risk a McAuliffe victory.
And no, he would not have had a chance in hell of winning in November.
Jeff Fecke
@Ella in NM –
Terry McAssHat, on the other hand, is a narcissist without a soul, who only cares about what he can get out of something for himself.
That’s a huge insult to soulless narcissists.
@Ron –
Rep. Maloney (D-NY) appears to have hired his firm in an attempt to primary Gillibrand.
That should be reason alone to vote against Maloney, regardless of any other factors. Hiring Mark Penn after his spectacular flameout in 2008 proves you don’t have the faintest clue about a goddamn thing.
cmorenc
For someone who had enough friends to make a billion calls prior to the election, Terry’s friends turned out to be rather scarce today at the polls. Not one of them seems to hang out here at BJuice.
It struck me as an example of astonishingly bizzare lack of insight and honest self-reflection that Terry McCauliffe could ever think he was a suitably compatible fit for the general electorate of Virginia, at least not outside the immediate suburbs of D.C. I’m not making this judgment on the basis that McCauliffe is a douche bag – Virginia voters have unfortunately demonstrated in the past that being an immense douche bag is hardly a disqualification to winning statewide elections there (George Allen is a bigger douche bag on his best day than even Terry McaAliffe is on his worst day, not saying this thereby makes McAuliffe a swell guy…). It’s more accurate to say that McAuliffe is the kind of carpetbag-seeming douche bag that is a poor cultural fit for too much of Virginia.
JoyceH
Another Deeds voter here. And I forgot until actually at the polling place about that Virginia thing of voting separately for lt. gov. For the other Virginians here – did anyone recognize ANY of the names in the lt. gov. race? I just picked a name at random. My choice won and sounds like an okay person, so yay, I guess.
Zuzu's Petals
@demkat620:
I can’t point to anything specific, but could never shake the feeling that McAulliffe sabotaged the Kerry campaign in some passive-aggressive way in ’04. He sure wasn’t any help.
BarbF
My first post here, altho I’ve lurked for years. I did a happy dance last night that slimeball Terry was handed an embarrassing loss.
I was for Moran, but I agree that Deeds will be a much better candidate and I’m glad he won.
neddie jingo
Funny, Joyce; I had exactly the same thought. Comparing notes outside the polling place after we’d both voted for Moran, Wonder Woman said she’d voted for Jody Wagner because she’d seen her bumper sticker on a car in the parking lot — a car that also sported Obama, Judy Feder, “Catoctin County Now!” and various Wiccan bumperstickers. Good a reason as any, I suppose. I didn’t vote for any Lt. Gov. candidates because…well, I didn’t recognize any of the names.
(Lt. Gov. of Virginia, for you purists, is about as door-stop a position as you can imagine. County School Board? I’ll look at you. Lt. Gov.? Whatevs.)
Mike
Many on the Left will try and spin it, but the simple fact of the matter is that the most Conservative guy running for the Dems won, and he won in all parts of the Commonwealth.
Skepticat
Having read Will Bunch’s rundown on Deeds’ record (www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood), I’m not exactly thrilled, much as I dislike Terror. I guess everything is relative.
neddie jingo
Oh, yeah, Mike… The Democratic gubernatorial primary was a Lib/Con referendum. You keep telling yourself that.
McAuliffe, carpetbagging Clintonite, splits the Lib vote just about exactly 50/50 with Moran, and this is a victory for conservatives. You’re dreaming. Pinch yourself. Hard.
Harder!
Didn’t help, did it… You’re still living in a purple state.
Woodrowfan
I did, but only because I read the mailings for that race and did a few quick online searches.
I am pissed off that my State Rep, Bob Hull, lost a close race. I didn’t like his opponent (Kory) trying to paint him as a right-winger (he’s not) and friends in the Fairfax County Democratic Party told me that Kory hired most of her door-to-door canvassers while Hull relied on volunteers. That REALLY pissed me off.
For those outside the area, the margin was 60-some votes, or about 2%.
Cheryl from Maryland
As an ex-pat Virginian, I’m delighted Deeds won. He’s a typical moderate Virginia candidate. He also has the best chance of beating McDonnell, protege of Pat Robertson and graduate of Regent University Law School. Anyone with Regent (Robertson) or Liberty U (Falwell) or Patrick Henry College (Mike Farris, home-school loon who picked the school motto “For Christ and Liberty”) on their resumes should not be allowed to be in charge of anything.
Joe Buck
McAuliffe’s only talent is that he’s very good at schmoozing with rich people. It’s made him personally wealthy, but I’m not surprised to see him get spanked when he himself is the candidate.
Will
Watching Terry go down in defeat today, I am reminded of an incident from the 2002 McCall campaign for NY State Governor. Al Sharption held a press conference trashing Terry for withholding national party funding from McCall’s losing campaign. He said if Terry had any ambition to one day run for Governor of New York State himself, he better cough up some money.
Terry did end up throwing a couple million at McCall’s lost cause. When I saw that he was running for governor of Virginia, I was like “wrong state, dude”. Maybe he can crawl back up north and campaign with Al Sharpton for the NY State job. I mean, no one wants that one right now.
Sabrina
Another Virginian here. I voted for Moran, but I’m just pretty happy that McDouche didn’t win. And I agree that Deeds has the best chance in a state wide election. Considering that Virginia only grows crazy, right wing Christianist Repubs, a moderate Democrat seems as liberal as Bernie Sanders.
Mike
No.
It was not a victory for conservatives, but rather a victory for moderates vice left-loonies.
Use your brain.
Will
This video is too much…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKdyEPGiM7o&feature=player_embedded
Socraticsilence
No.
It was not a victory for conservatives, but rather a victory for moderates vice left-loonies.
Use your brain.
So a victory for the Obama wing then.
oh really
We can only hope that we won’t have Terry McAuliffe to kick around anymore — ever again. What a relief.
Dayv
Chalk me up for another “I wanted Moran, but totally prefer Deeds over McAuliffe” voter here.
Not that I actually voted. I work nights, and barely made it home without falling asleep on Tuesday. Fell straight into bed and somehow slept until the polls were closed.
I wouldn’t entirely mind seeing McAuliffe standing by the side of the road, begging for change to pay back his campaign loans.