Creigh Deeds
You may realize that Appomattox News published few political articles and press releases during this 2009 gubernatorial campaign. Frankly, if we had published those press releases, this race would have transformed Appomattox News into a McDonnell newspaper. McDonnell wins, hands down, on publishing the largest number of press releases during this campaign.
For the most part, however, McDonnell focused on endorsements and attacks on Deeds and the Democratic Party, on defense against attacks against him, and on announcements about his marketing skills. He did little to focus on the real issues, including avoiding answers on how he might run Virginia and improve that same state without raising taxes.
The real issues in this campaign include Virginia’s financial state and its transportation, education and unemployment problems. While some readers might agree that Virginia is hurting no more or less than any other state in this country during this economic recession, the real issue is what the future governor and lieutenant governor might do to mitigate any future financial pitfalls.
During his campaign, Creigh Deeds committed to higher ground and, in comparison to McDonnell, has spent more time on the issues rather than on the attack. For instance, Deeds’ visit to the closing Franklin International Paper Mill as an employee advocate, his willingness to aggravate his own party to accomplish a goal for his constituents, and his courage and honesty in admitting that tax hikes may occur to deal with transportation issues marks him as a man who has an ability to defy party logic in efforts to remain true to his constituents.
But, this is not a change in tune for Deeds, as he has spent eighteen years in the General Assembly doing what he has done during his campaign – supporting measures that might seem unpopular but that are the right things to to for both rural Virginia and for the state as a whole. Deeds is a candidate that best fits both worlds in the Warner/Kaine tradition.
Before you scoff at that political tradition, think about where Virginia now stands. Despite financial woes, Virginia – under Kaine – rose to eighth in the nation for domestic visitor spending, retained its Forbes ranking for the fourth year in a row and, most recently, experienced falling unemployment rates and garnered three national IT awards. Additionally, Kaine’s green initiatives and focus on small business have opened doors to federal funds that addressed transportation issues and unemployment problems.
Despite financial woes, Virginia is a well managed state, a tradition that Deeds seems willing to continue.
McDonnell, on the other hand, has shown no interest in alternative energy except to package renewables in a program that also extracts every possible resource in the state from offshore drilling to uranium mining. These issues need more than a slight nod to consider impacts on tourism and future generations. Additionally McDonnell’s strategy to pay for educaton with a “No Car Tax” strategy sounds like a willingness to head this ship back to the past to a Jim Gilmore tradition.
Just to jog your memory, Jim Gilmore proposed the same “No Car Tax” when he ran for gubernatorial office in 1997 and he won the seat. After the General Assembly passed Governor Gilmore’s legislation to cut the car tax, the dot.com bubble burst. By 2002, state tax revenues were not sufficient to pay local governments for missing revenues that would have been generated with a tax, and that financial lack also stalled plans for the state’s transportation projects.
Another vision of backward thinking in the McDonnell campaign came with his thesis, a paper he wrote as a graduate student at Pat Robertson’s Regent University. Although McDonnell has brushed aside his paper’s argument, his voting record echoes his earlier extreme socially conservative attitude. Between a Gilmore promise and an attitude that demeans women, Virginians could easily prove to the rest of the nation that they are willing to live with familiar yet failed strategies rather than meet the future head on.
Deeds has proven time and again that he is a people person who cares about his constituents – men and women – and that he cares about Virginia’s future. A vote for Deeds is a vote to keep the wheels moving into that future – a move that is preferable to making a u-turn into the past with McDonnell.
