June 11, 2009

GOP’s Prospects in Virginia Governor’s Race? Could Be Déjà Doo-Doo

What’s that you say, Yogi? Déjà vu all over again? How else to describe the now-set gubernatorial election in Virginia this year?

In this corner, in the red trunks, bounces Bob McDonnell, the latest lightweight, semi-somnolent sitting attorney general to step up to the top of the ticket for the Old Dominion’s GOP. For his over-the-top coronation as nominee at his party’s state convention, McDonnell’s speech was preceded by 40-plus minutes of stultifying testimonials from, and I kid you not, a black female associate attorney general, the disabled mother of a crime victim, the weeping father of a slain soldier, another grateful father of special needs children whose school the nominee helped, and, of course, his own daughter, an Iraq veteran.

Then, before nearly 10,000 delegates desperately pleading for a reason to explode, the candidate unveiled his campaign’s brainchild: To present the GOP as the “Party of Yes.” Accompanied by volunteers, replete with signs, echoing his hokey chorus to “just say yes” to oil drilling, school choice, right-to-work laws and the like.

Just say “Gag.”

As a speechwriter, I recognize those phrasings that sound like master strokes when you try them out before a roomful of fawning staff – then expose you as a laughing stock when you trot them out at your crowning event. (“The Emperor has no close!”)

Face it: You know you’re in trouble when the biggest applause line before the friendliest of friendly throngs is your pledge to widen a heavily traveled commuter artery.

Meanwhile, in the other corner, wearing deep purple trunks, we have Creigh Deeds, yet another pro-gun (once endorsed by the NRA) Democratic moderate in the mold of Mark Warner, Jim Webb and Tim Kaine, who have made life so miserable for Republicans in a string of statewide elections running back to 2001.

That ashen look you see on the faces at party headquarters in Richmond is the shock of realization that McDonnell will face off against unheralded, underfunded underdog Deeds and not Terry McAuliffe, the slick, carpetbagging Clintonista money man who toured the state with a GPS and the ex-prez in tow and was the GOP’s dream punching bag.

Ruh-roh.

In contrast to McDonnell, who stumbled out of the blocks with his soporific acceptance and a stale, ‘50s-era-invoking statewide ad buy introducing him as the paterfamilias of five attractive children with a loyal wife, Deeds is roaring into the fall race with the aura of the David who slew not only the Clintons’ champion but also another well-known candidate from the Democratic protectorate of Alexandria. Though primary turnout was tiny on a thunderstormy pre-summer day, the fact that Deeds scored surprisingly huge in Fairfax County – the 800-pound gorilla of Virginia politics, and the home turf of both McAuliffe and McDonnell – could not have been comforting for GOP bigwigs.

The Dems must smell blood. The Virginia race has taken on near-mythic ramifications, with the majority party determined to run up a winning streak that has extended through the last two gubernatorial elections, victories in two formerly Republican Senate seats, the turnover of the state senate and most recently their first statewide presidential win since Johnson/Goldwater.

Governor Kaine, currently moonlighting as President Obama’s chosen Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, will surely pour copious amounts of cash into Deeds’ campaign, rightly recognizing that the Virginia contest will be seen as a referendum on the first year of his boss’s rule.

And therein lies McDonnell’s main hope: To make the campaign neither about Deeds nor about colorless and confusing references to the “Party of Yes” but rather, to coin a phrase, “All About the O.” The GOP needs to lash Deeds inescapably to the Obama/Reid/Pelosi ruling triumvirate and pray that disaffection with stimuli, bailouts, pending tax hikes and foreign policy embarrassments runs as deeply as polls indicate.

Otherwise, we’re not talking déjà vu for Virginia Republicans. More like déjà doo-doo.