Further, McDonnell is statistically tied with Deeds among women, a traditional bulwark for Democrats. Deeds has tried to invigorate female voters by spotlighting portions of the thesis in which McDonnell, among other things, criticized working women as a threat to families. McDonnell now disavows such views.

Deeds’ attacks on McDonnell apparently have backfired, with the Democrat’s unfavorable rating, at 42 percent, exceeding his favorable score. McDonnell has a 51 percent favorable rating.

The Times-Dispatch Poll suggests that Deeds might not have been helped by President Barack Obama’s visit to Norfolk a week before the election.

The appearance, which roughly coincided with the poll, was intended to drive up support for Deeds among Obama’s key constituents, including African-Americans. However, the poll shows that black support for Deeds, at 82 percent, is virtually unchanged from early October. Deeds also is slipping in Hampton Roads, site of the Obama visit and McDonnell’s home base.

A bad omen for Creigh is that High Chancellor Barry O himself couldn’t boost the floundering campaign’s numbers. If the numbers ring true at the polls, this is going to be a blowout election.

Gosport Conersative, a contributor to Bearing Drift, recently made a post saying that the Deeds event with Czar Obama is a flop. He posted a picture (below) of how 50-100 McDonnell-ites have outnumbered Deeds’ people with signs 3 to 1 along Hampton Blvd.  Check here for more picture updates later tonight.

Governor: Bob McDonnell (+7)
Lt. Governor: Bill Bolling (+5)
Attorney General: Ken Cuccinelli (+8)

House of Delegates:

The two main issues over the next term will undoubtedly be jump starting the economy and fixing transportation:

With McDonnell in the Governor’s mansion, the emphasis will (obviously and as his campaign has repeatedly stated) be on limiting rates of business and individual taxation in order to stimulate the economy, get people spending again, and creating new industry and jobs in the Commonwealth.  While most confidence needs to be regained at the national level, I think that McDonnell (being a businessman, among many other things) can instill the confidence in business to bring many a company to Virginia over the next four years…at least, much moreso than Deeds could.  This recession won’t last forever and as long as McDonnell keeps Virginia on the leading edge of industry, cuts the budget, doesn’t drive us deeper into debt like the two previous Democratic Governor’s have, then voter will most definitely have more confidence to vote R in 2011 and on.

The other key to Republican victory is fixing transportation.  Since Kaine gutted HB3202 way back when and then SCOVA ruled it partly unconstitutional, no one has delved to create a driving coalition that fixes the state’s transportation needs.  I don’t see a re-hash of 3202 coming around any time soon, since that would merely create more government to get in the way and only add to the problem.  The solution is obviously going to be a stable, equal basis of revenue with proportional allotments and perhaps locally based revenue sources (like ports and airports) going to fund the excess and much-needed projects in Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads area.  But the key won’t really be in what we do to fix it, but how we do it.

The main thing, at least for a continued Republican victory, will be in the strategy they encompass to solve the problem.  McDonnell has experience with bipartisan support (again…much more so than Deeds has) and will be able to potentially garner a few votes for a plan to pass in the Senate. Bolling could help the Republicans out there as well if a tie vote should happen.  However, mere compromise won’t regain a GOP Senate majority. The House GOP and Governor McDonnell will need to propose a plan to solve transportation right off the bat that is very Republican-principled in nature…in other words, one that will be tough for a D to sign their name to and then go back home after the legislative session.  After that, either Democrats will get on board for fear of voter backlash in 2011 or not sign on and, quite frankly, be doomed in their next race.

With that said, hopes are high that:
1) government will spend far, far less
2) transportation will become a top priority
3) redistricting will sway some seats towards the R persuasion
and 4) the Virginia GOP will grab a few more seats the next go ’round.

Bob McDonnell

Washington Times
Sun Gazette Arlington
Sun Gazette (McLean, Vienna, Oakton and Great Falls)
News & Messenger (Prince William County)
Daily Press (Newport News)
The Winchester Star (no longer a working link)
Loudoun Times-Mirror
Harrisonburg Daily News-Record
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star

Creigh Deeds

Washington Post
The Roanoke Times
Virginian Pilot

As a young Army lieutenant stationed in Germany, Bob McDonnell made the Guinness Book of World Records.

He organized his hospital unit to carry a 120-pound woman on a stretcher on a record-breaking trek — 93.4 miles in 32 hours.

Thirty-two years later, McDonnell is doing a different kind of heavy lifting, as he seeks to break Democrats’ eight-year hold on Virginia’s governorship.

Since word surfaced seven weeks ago of his controversial graduate-school thesis, McDonnell has sought to focus the campaign on jobs creation in an economy battered by a deep recession.

That strategy appears to be working. Recent polls show McDonnell with enough of a lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, a state senator from Bath County, that he is cautioning supporters against overconfidence.

“I’ve told my staff to forget the polls,” McDonnell said in a recent interview in Verona, at a picnic sponsored by U.S. Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, R-6th.

“We’ve got a hard-working opponent. We are opposed by President Obama and Tim Kaine,” the governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, “who have considerable resources. The only way we are going to win is to stay focused on our message and do an absolutely A-plus get-out-the-vote effort.”

. . .

On the campaign trail, the former attorney general is cool and unflappable, traveling the state in a Ford Expedition with a McD4VA license plate.

In his trademark button-down shirt and khakis, he moves slowly through a crowd, pausing to shake hands and make conversation with each prospective voter. He also exhibits a keen sense of humor.

In February, during a dinner with reporters who cover state politics, McDonnell poked fun at one of his formative political alliances. He said he was so worried about the Democrats’ media coverage and fundraising that he “called Pat Robertson and asked if he could direct a hurricane” to their Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner.

McDonnell, 55, caught a break in his quest for governor when Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling decided not to challenge him for the Republican nomination, but instead run for re-election.

It wasn’t the first time good fortune blessed McDonnell’s family. In 1912, according to family lore, one of McDonnell’s grandfathers got sick and missed a voyage — on the Titanic.

McDonnell was born in Philadelphia but grew up in the Mount Vernon area of Fairfax County. A Roman Catholic, he attended Bishop Ireton High School, where he played wide receiver and defensive back for the football team.

In November 1971, McDonnell’s Bishop Ireton squad faced off against the undefeated T.C. Williams High School powerhouse team memorialized in the film “Remember the Titans.”

Ireton lost 26-8, but McDonnell scored his team’s only points, on a 63-yard touchdown reception and a two-point conversion.

Scott O’Brien, quarterback on the Bishop Ireton team, says McDonnell was a “tough and feisty” football player. When he scored the two-point conversion against T.C. Williams, McDonnell “was hit so hard that he vomited on the sidelines, but he was back in the game on the next play,” O’Brien said. “He probably didn’t weigh 150 pounds dripping wet.”

Now a high school administrator in Myrtle Beach, S.C., O’Brien also remembers McDonnell’s sense of humor.

“He had a nickname for everyone,” O’Brien said. McDonnell called O’Brien “Sonny” after Washington Redskins quarterback Sonny Jurgensen.

“He had great people skills,” O’Brien said of McDonnell. “Everybody congregated around him.”

. . .

McDonnell received an ROTC scholarship to the University of Notre Dame, where he earned a degree in management.

He spent 21 years in the Army, 4½ years on active duty and the rest in the Army Reserve. He retired as a lieutenant colonel.

While in the Army, he attended night school at Boston University and received a master’s degree in business administration.

Out of the Army, he went to work for American Hospital Supply. He managed operations in Atlanta, Chicago and Kansas City. By 1985, the hospital-supply industry was hit by turmoil and McDonnell’s GI Bill benefits were about to expire.

McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, a former Washington Redskins cheerleader, decided to return to Virginia and make their home in Virginia Beach.

They had come to like the area while he was stationed at Fort Eustis in Newport News. McDonnell also was attracted by Regent University, then called CBN University after founder Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network.

“I had gone to a Catholic school as a kid and to Notre Dame as an undergraduate,” McDonnell said. “I liked the fact that Regent was focused on values and ethics, also that the public-policy area was focused on looking at the traditions and history that our Founders brought to the nation. I was particularly interested in the Judeo-Christian traditions of America.”

McDonnell studied public policy and communications and then added a major in law the next year when the university opened a law school.

In 1988, McDonnell got a summer internship on Capitol Hill working with the Republican Policy Committee led by Rep. Jerry Lewis of California.

Although the GI Bill paid for McDonnell’s graduate-school tuition, he held several jobs to help support his family, which had grown to include three daughters. Among the jobs, he worked in sales for The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk.

In 1989, McDonnell submitted his 93-page master’s thesis, titled “The Republican Party’s Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade.”

Deeds has seized upon the document, terming it demeaning to working women. In campaign stops and television ads, the Democrat has hammered McDonnell, saying the thesis crystallized a brand of social conservatism that is out of touch with Virginia values.

In much of the thesis, McDonnell explored the tension between what he saw as a governmental interest in preserving the traditional family and the Republican tenet of limited government.

Forty pages in, McDonnell criticized the notion of additional tax credits for child care.

“Further expenditures would be used to subsidize a dynamic new trend of working women and feminists that is ultimately detrimental to the family by entrenching a status-quo of non-parental primary nurture of children.”

McDonnell says he has discarded the view, arguing now that the contributions of women are important to the workplace and politics. He cites, among other things, his eldest daughter’s career in the Army. She is a combat veteran of Iraq who now works for a high-tech defense contractor.

He says that as governor he would hire on merit and that he did so as attorney general, pointing out that half of the deputy attorneys general he appointed were women.

. . .

Out of law school in 1989, McDonnell was hired as an assistant prosecutor in Virginia Beach. There, he became interested in politics.

“I thought victims weren’t treated very well and criminals were let off too easily,” he said.

In 1991, Kenneth W. Stolle, then the Republican Party chairman in Virginia Beach, was seeking Republicans to run for General Assembly seats.

He recruited McDonnell, who knocked off Democrat Glenn B. McClanan, who had held the House of Delegates seat since 1972. Stolle also ran for office and won a state Senate seat.

“We won the seats going door-to-door,” McDonnell said. “We had very little money. We outworked them. I only raised about $23,000.”

Because of his prosecutorial experience, McDonnell spent his first few years in the House of Delegates introducing law-and-order bills.

He also sponsored social legislation, including several anti-abortion bills. Rising swiftly through the ranks, he became chairman of the House Courts of Justice Committee and became a co-sponsor of then-Gov. George Allen’s welfare-reform bill and a bill to abolish parole.

Running the courts panel “takes a lot of patience and a lot of attention to detail,” said Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, who succeeded McDonnell as committee chairman.

“I’ve never seen him lose his temper,” he said. “I think it’s his military background.”

. . .

By 2005, McDonnell was running for attorney general. He defeated Deeds by 360 votes in the closest statewide election in Virginia’s history.

It was not until a recount was finished on Christmas Eve 2005 that he was declared the winner.

“It was a tough time,” McDonnell said. “My daughter [Jeanine] had just left for Iraq five weeks before Election Day. On Election Night I was ahead by 3,200 votes, but by the next day it was down to 1,500 votes.”

Marla Graff Decker, who served as deputy attorney general for public safety under McDonnell and holds the same job under his successor, Bill Mims, said she was impressed by the way McDonnell “went native” when he became attorney general.

“They took the time to learn about the office and the agencies that we serve,” she said. “They spent a lot of time walking the floors getting to know people, the ins and outs of this office.”

As attorney general, McDonnell cracked down on drunken drivers, drug dealers, identity theft and child sexual predators. McDonnell said the General Assembly passed 83 of the 94 legislative proposals made by his office.

He resigned in February to run for governor.

Whoever is elected governor will take office at a time when state revenue is likely to continue to fall. Kaine, as governor, has had to cut $7 billion in state spending since April 2007 because of declining tax revenue.

“I am hopeful that within a year this economy turns around and we will be back at a reasonable budget,” McDonnell said. “I don’t want to have to face four years when I only have to think about what I am going to cut.”

The governor, who under Virginia law cannot serve consecutive terms, should function as the chief executive officer of a major corporation, with a $75 billion biennial budget and 105,000 employees, he continued.

“You’ve got to have vision, you’ve got to be a leader, you’ve got to be decisive, and you have to make sure that the people that drive state government are taken care of.

“I realize that you’ve got a very short time to make a difference.”

Alienating his base. He’s already begun to do it with his comments about Virginia maybe opting out of the ‘public option’ in the health care bill attempting to move through Congress.  He will continue to do so with idiotic comments like that which will fail to turnout his base on Election Day.

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Deeds has failed to do any rural stumping anywhere other than his district (Bath/Alleghany/Rockbridge).  Instead, he’s gravitating towards the swing suburbs of northern Virginia and attempting to grab those votes from McDonnell.  He’s banking that, in addition to the votes he can garner in the NoVA suburbs and just the Ds in general across the Commonwealth, rural Virginia will support him in droves.  Well, rural Virginia doesn’t support someone they never see.  I doubt he’ll see the turnout for him in rural areas either on ED.

Being lame. Watching Deeds during a debate is like watching a train wreck in slow motion…a stuttering, stammering train wreck that reference FactCheck.org every 7 seconds.  Generally, Deeds just isn’t a candidate that everyone (socialites, laymen, intellectuals, youth) can get behind. McDonnell is.  Southern comfort only gets you so far.  Deeds has no substantive policy stances except for exponential increases in spending and taxes and is finding that most of his party is hesitant to support him and most that did are now dropping like flies.

So, in conclusion, Deeds’ campaign is doomed and there’s really nothing he can do about it.  I only see it getting worse over the next week and a half.

PPP’s Oct. 16-19 survey gives him a 12 point advantage over Dirty Deeds. PPP’s survey three weeks ago had McDonnell up by just five points.  SurveyUSA also has McDonnell up by an overwhelming number of 19 points…the highest so far if I’m not mistaken.

Deeds continues to be hampered by a high unfavorable rating at 48 percent in the SurveyUSA poll and his only leg to stand on at this point is the Washington Post.  He’s losing supporters daily with his comments that alienate the only votes he probably had. I guess the best ally is a dumb opponent.

The fact that endorsements are flipping and poll numbers are surging for McDonnell lends well to the fact that Deeds’ campaign is the textbook definition of what one would call a “lame duck” candidate. Heck, Barry O won’t even touch come off his ivory tower in Washington to lend a hand.  What an epic fail.

But keep your eyes peeled over the next 11 days because “with desperate times come desperate Deeds.”

This is just another vile attempt by Deeds’ struggling campaign to sling some mud and attempt to label McDonnell more of than he actually is and pick off some of the swing voters.

The truth is that it’s not working how they expected it in the least bit. While his paper at a right-wing religious university may have contained some items stemming from the tumultuous times, with divorce rising and welfare beginning to burden the economy, and from the pressure of mixing faith with education, most of it is no more than that…mere words.

McDonnell has refuted most of the items on that thesis and has (rightly) stated that his tangible political record has more than made up for simple words in a paper written 20 years ago. McDonnell held a conference call earlier today and Riley at Virtucon has a great outline of the call posted.

The Democrats are quick to tell you otherwise though. Tim Kaine stated earlier today that the thesis was an “accurate reflection” of McDonnell’s views.  He also said it “raises serious questions about his plan for Virginia if elected.”  Additionally, both Deeds and Kaine have called into question McDonnell’s 20-year old views on contraception, women in the workplace, and gays and furthermore the Democrats would have you believe that McDonnell is “backpeddling”.

However, what they both fail to point out that Kaine shares those same views on life, death and marriage and Deeds voted the same as McDonnell 98% of the time while they both served in the legislature.  Sounds like they’re both grasping at straws at this point in their failing political careers.  The only good thing is that both wont be in public office a year from now.

Unlike me, Not Larry Sabato has been relentlessly posting in an attempt to sling mud at the McDonnell camp and make it stick.  His beef is with a Confederate flag at a gun show in Richmond that happened to be next to the McDonnell table.

It’s sad how low NLS will stoop to make up, spin, and inflate stories just to gain readers. I, for one, read his blog for amusement and a good laugh at how idiotic and so inherently wrong one individual can actually be.

To rebut this story, I’d like to point out the number one fact that people should realize…we live in Virginia. Less than 150 years ago, that flag was flying from the capital building and the capital of the entire Southern world was right here in our current state capital.

Second, the flag was NEXT to the McDonnell table and not associated with the McDonnell table or even brought by or put up by the McDonnell volunteers.

Third, you were at a gun show…what do you expect, Nigel Pennington III flying the Union Jack?

In case there are some unedumacated people reading this, its common fact the Civil War started out over states’ rights…in general, as did the revolutionary nearly a century before.  Slavery was placed at the forefront of the war by Lincoln to rally Union troops behind one, clear, cultural cause to fight for.

Ever since, it seems as if a stigmata has been placed on the ‘ole Stars & Bars to the point where anybody flying it these days is a racist.  Well I, for one, cannot stand idiots who think this way.  As one of NLS’ commentators noted, a person at the table where the flag was being flown was wearing a shirt that said “Heritage, Not Hate.”  People fail to understand that flag represents a long line of family history, cultural heritage, and governmental ideologies for many people across the southern United States.

While I understand the flag may be a sore subject for most people of color in today’s society, does the fact that some call the people flying it “rednecks” not make those people, in turn, just as racist as the supposed “racists” flying the flag?

I can almost guarantee you that if you were to ask “Why do you fly the Rebel flag?”, then 9 out of 10 people would respond, “I’m from the South.” and not “I hate everyone that’s not like me.”  My belief that the flag is a sign of heritage and has been mistakenly labeled as a symbol of oppression and I think that most people that fly it would agree.

I hope people that read this will actually thoughtfully think this issue through and clearly analyze the facts before coming to a decision unlike NLS who beats it down until people just get annoyed with the story and jumps to conjecture and operates on assumptions. What a joke.

MCDONNELL LEADING BY 14
BOLLING LEADING BY 14
CUCCINELLI LEADING BY 13

This is a sure fire shot in the heart for an already struggling Creigh Deeds, a defensive Jody Wagner, and a foresight-lacking Steve Shannon.

Consider the race lost, Creightard.

It seems to me that day after day, hour after hour, Creigh Deeds keep digging himself into a deeper hole that there’s no way to crawl back out of.  Whether it’s his fault or just bad political timing, chances of him winning November’s election are gloomy at best.

However, the most interesting thing is that Dems everywhere seems to be jumping ship or, at the very least, distancing themselves from Creigh “Me Too” Deeds.  Last week, former Governor Doug Wilder called McDonnell a candidate with actual plans and strategy and, subsequently, called Deeds a “Me Too” candidate, following McDonnell’s lead on every non-partisan issue.  Over at NLS, four out of the last six of Ben Tribbett‘s  posts have acknowledged that the Deeds campaign is on all fours crawling though the mud or mildly suggested Bob McDonnell as the definite winner 91 days from now.

I can’t wait to see how many more loyalists, those who think Virginia is turning blue, jump from the good ol’ boy’s shipwreck. Play ‘em off keyboard cat…

Also, can’t wait for the PPP poll coming out at 11AM tomorrow that puts McDonnell up by double digits. More soon…

Economy – Kip attempts to say that both candidates are all about creating jobs, but that is just insane.  While Creigh is all about getting rid of the sham called global warming, investing in “green” jobs, and allowing unions to thrive, none of those actually create net jobs.  In order to create jobs in the green sector, there has to be a loss in other energy sectors which results in people losing their jobs.  Now I don’t know how many people it takes to watch a wind turbine blow or watch solar panels soak up sun rays, but I’m fairly sure it isn’t that many to “create jobs” in mass to make up for the severe loss of jobs this course of action would cause.  In fact, Deeds is just sitting around right now in full support of a federal cap & trade bill that will effectively kill the one huge business in his Senate district, MeadWestvaco.

McDonnell’s plan will actually create jobs.  Passing the employee free choice act would wreak havoc on private business in Virginia and McDonnell understand that.  When unions organize, it costs companies far more money and that cuts into the investments they will make to the state economy, the local communities, and to hiring on more workers.  Additionally, McDonnell wants to make Virginia a “green jobs zone” as well that incentive business related to green energy to come to Virginia and, if they do, receive tax credits per every employee they hire.  Any specifics like this in Deeds’ plan? I don’t think so.

Environment - While Deeds may have be a big fan of and have a plan for high speed rail, that’s about the only plan that he has. His support of drilling for natural gas and NOT for oil just shows how dumb he actually is as both are just as safe and neither pose and real risk to the environment if done correctly. Actually, it’s been shown that oil rigs can be developed to create an artificial habitat for aquatic life and, in turn, benefit that much more in addition to the million of dollars of oil the rig would bring in revenue to the state.

McDonnell on the other hand supports drilling for oil on Virginia’s shore and sees the potential sustainable revenue that could result from this action.  Additionally, during his time in the majority part in the legislature and his stint as AG, more environmental protections have been passed than in the two centuries prior to his career.  And the high speed rail issue? McDonnell sees that it shouldn’t be given priority.  While it may be nice to take after France and Italy and buy a VAPass to jaunt around the Commonwealth, it’s not economical to invest in the infrastructure and its debatable if people would even use the system. Case-in-point…Amtrak: a company run into the ground by non-use.

Education – Kip mentions that Deeds believes in universal pre-k, raising teachers salaries to the national average, and making college affordable.  What he means to say is that Deeds wants to impose HEFTY taxes to fund an absolutely unnecessary program (I didn’t go to Pre-K and I turned out fine), and supplementing money to higher ed so they would drop their tuition rates. As for the teacher raise issue, they may need raises but the bulk of the money needs to stay in the classroom.  Our school money needs to go to our kids, not teacher’s pockets.  After all, if Deeds gets his raise to the national average, that would (in-turn) heighten the national average and all the teachers would be back again next year asking for a raise again.

McDonnell sees that funds need to stay in the classroom and has saw to it while in the legislature to double the amount of direct aid that goes to schools. Additionally, he supports charter schools. Kip would have you to believe that charter schools under perform public schools throughout the nation, but the emphasis lies on WHERE the charter school is.  In urban cities, charter schools offer opportunities for children who, in public schools, had none before to excel.   Instead of concentrating on joining a gang or wondering where he’s going to get beat up in the hall today because he could actually answer a question in class, the child can actually concentrate on his studies and hopefully attend college.

Transportation - Once again: high speed rail is a horrible waste of money.  Once again, TAXES TAXES TAXES will fund Deeds plan, which is why he played possum at the debate last week. THAT’S THE ONLY PLAN DEEDS HAS COME UP WITH! We will have 4 more years of an inability to fund transportation or reign in restless department heads who have no idea how to run VDOT. Do you really want 4 more years of Kaine? I don’t.

McDonnell? Kip would have you to believe that education would be murdered by Profession Transportation in garage with the VDOT truck. But I don’t have a CLUE as to where he gets this idea.  McDonnell’s “muddle” is actually a comprehensive network of public/private partnerships that keep rest stops open, allows for the maintenance of current infrastructure, development of future infrastructure and, ABOVE ALL, re-frekain-structures VDOT and it’s scary bureaucracy in Richmond.

Health Care – Kip says “Deeds has a plan for expanding health insurance to the unemployed and assisting families with elderly loved-ones living with them.” However, this plan will also extend these same benefits to part-time workers and those that can go get a job but are just to lazy. While assistance may be necessary for a select few, stop wasting the money of those of us who actually work on those who DON’T need it and are just gouging the system.

McDonnell? The issue isn’t listed. Because it’s really not an issue so much as it is government providing a highly unnecessary service.  If you’re reading this part and are upset at that last sentence…eat right, don’t smoke, return the laptop you’re reading this on, and go sign up for a $65/month HSA.

Equality and Civil Rights -The Marriage Amendment passed overwhelmingly (and not in a California sort of “we didn’t know what we were voting on” sort of way).  Kip just can’t wrap his mind around the fact that Virginia isn’t full of “pragmatic progressives” who think taxing and spending should be what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Private business are just that…private and they should be able to hire and fire at will, which is why we are and will forever be a “right to work” state despite Deeds’ best efforts.  And the pot-shot at McDonnell for being pro-life? I’m pretty sure something somewhere says that says we have an inherent right to life. But of course, liberals only use those pieces of paper to wipe with.

Veterans -This is where progressive just irk me.  While Deeds may focus on health and education benefits to veterans, there is only so much we can do at the state level to assist veterans….and we’ve tried to go above and beyond that limit every year.  And yeah, McDonnell may just honor the flag and have a memorial wall put up, but he also has a daughter that served in Iraq and (I’m just guessing) doesn’t want her coming home to half her paycheck missing due to a progressive agenda.

This adds up to more than enough for me to go happily door-to-door for BOB, as I know it’s what’s right for Virginia. I hope a few of you will read this, see the right side (pun intended) of the issue and join his campaign.

Here’s a video recap from McDonnell’s YouTube Channel, along with my comments on the debate below:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czm1YHFmDrU

McDonnell had a sound and strategic plan to get money back into Virginia’s transportation system and add jobs to the Commonwealth’s economy.  Deeds really had…well, NO plan to put it simply.

When asked how to fund transportation, Deeds’ answer was saying, albeit in a round about fashion, that new taxes would be proposed to bankroll the state’s ballooning cost of transportation.  He tried to refute the fact that he would raise taxes under the guise of “not knowing what the General Assembly would past next year.” McDonnell on the other hand touted a hefty plan of privatization and reorganization that spoke volumes on Bob’s preparedness to lead Virginia into the 2010′s.

Deeds was also mute on the issue of the cap-and-trade that he, and our state Senators Webb & Warner, have vocally supported and the subsequent fact that it would eliminate one of the largest and economically viable business in his district, MeadWestvaco. He elaborated that global warming was a top priority.  Ironically and as the debate was happening, I read about five new news articles on how scientists are now refuting the claims that global warming is actually happening.  Even more ironically, he’s saying this after one of the coolest weeks in Virginia in umpteen years.

Last, Deeds attempted to reem McDonnell on the fact that he didn’t “understand” rural Virginia.  I don’t think any thing could probably be further from the truth.  Rural Virginia is not an issue or partisan game, it’s simply a game of name/face recognition.  If you’ve lowered taxes (even if its every once in a while), and if you’ve voted for gun rights (the last two being the only reasons Deeds has gotten re-elected as many times as he has) and shake a man’s hand then you can be pretty sure you have his vote.  However, McDonnell’s pinky finger, it’s safe to say, has probably done more to help the “regular Joes” than Deeds has in his time in the state Senate.  On top of a hefty pile of accomplishments as Attorney General of upping security for children and helping put more violent offenders behind bars, he’s also supported commonsense conservative policies and laws as a member of the House of Delegates that speak volumes to the family-based communities in rural VA.

If you attempt to read any Democratic leaning blogs, you’ll find a lack of anything relating to Deeds’ progress but a pot-shot at McDonnell for saying that he agrees with some of Bush 43′s policy decisions. As far as I’m concerned, W. kept the country safe, taxes low, and the economy thriving…all points McDonnell was trying to make and all things that Obama has dropped the ball on  in the past six months.

I’m not going to elaborate much more on the specifics.  If you want more coverage, head over to Virginia Virtucon, Red NoVA, Too Conservative, or SWAC Girl, as they all had excellent coverage of the debate.