Obama Throws Creigh Deeds Under the Bus
[Guest post by DRJ]
The Washington Post reports the Obama Administration wants to make sure no one blames President Obama if Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds loses the Virginia Governor’s race:
“Senior administration officials have expressed frustration with how Democrat R. Creigh Deeds has handled his campaign for governor, refusing early offers of strategic advice and failing to reach out to several key constituencies that helped Obama win Virginia in 2008, they say.
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A senior administration official said Deeds badly erred on several fronts, including not doing a better job of coordinating with the White House. “I understood in the beginning why there was some reluctance to run all around the state with Barack Obama,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly about the race. “You don’t do that in Virginia. But when you consider the African American turnout that they need, and then when you consider as well they’ve got a huge problem with surge voters, younger voters, we were just a natural for them.”
“Deeds said he was puzzled by the comments from unnamed Obama administration officials who said that he had virtually no chance to defeat Republican Robert F. McDonnell and that such a loss would reflect on Deeds’s failings rather than on Obama’s popularity.
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“It is frustrating to read, because that’s not what we’ve been hearing from anybody over there,” Deeds said. “I’m just not sure where the talk is coming from. It just doesn’t make sense. . . . There’s been no disagreements between us of which I’m aware.”
Local Democratic strategists view the White House leaks as counterproductive and clueless:
“When it comes out of the White House, this Monday morning quarterbacking stuff before the election even happens, it’s devastating to the whole ticket,” said David “Mudcat” Saunders, a political strategist who worked to elect now-U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) governor in 2001 and Webb to the U.S. Senate in 2006. “I think Obama ought to find who did this to us, and I think he ought to fire ’em. It’s totally without character.”
Paul Goldman, a Richmond activist and former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, called the tactics “bush league,” an attempt to send a message to Democrats about crossing the White House without regard to the damage it might cause the state party and its candidates.
“It’s take-no-prisoners,” he said. “It’s exactly the kind of thing we voted out of office.”
Actually, Mr. Goldman, this is the untested, undefined candidate Democrats nominated and now everyone is getting a taste of exactly who you voted for.
— DRJ