The White House says Creigh Deeds lost because he didn’t adhere to the Obama agenda. Democratic leaders opine that Deeds’ “I’m a Creigh Deeds Democrat” and his comments to “opt out” of national health care did him in. Democrat voters stayed home, they said.
Lefty bloggers are saying this is what happens when Democrats run candidates that are “Republican-lite.” Moderates have no home with Democrats, I guess. (Why does every majority do this?..that’s a whole other story!)
“I always thought the path to victory was to embrace the president and thereby energize the tremendous amount of supporters of the president in Virginia, particularly because it was going to be a low-turnout race,” Kaine said in an interview. (Virginian-Pilot)
Well, if adhering to the Obama agenda is the ticket to winning in Virginia, and opposing it leads to electoral losses, what will they do with Glenn Nye?
The Virginian-Pilot reported that Nye opposed Obama’s agenda about 25% of the time, opposed his budget, opposed cap and trade, and is very likely to oppose Obama’s health care bill, saying in today’s Virginian-Pilot that he’s “on the fence”.
Meanwhile, some Republicans think the best answer to that is to nominate an Obama supporter themselves. Imagine a debate between Scott Rigell and Glenn Nye over who supported Obama more?
The status quo seems like a Deeds rerun is in Nye’s future. Will Democrats take the chance of having Obama voters stay home next November too? Or will they ditch Nye, and tap someone like Joe Bouchard to step up.
Or, as one blogger wrote, is the GOP hoping for Nye to switch parties.
Of course, the GOP has blown golden opportunities before. It would require the GOP nominating someone who would turn off its own base as well and have the 2nd district do what it did in 1994 – lose while everyone else in the nation was winning. The anti-Clinton vote then was even stronger than the anti-Obama vote (Clinton never won Virginia) but we still managed to botch 1994.
One thing is sure. Democrats felt unloved by their recent slate of candidates, and felt unmotivated to help Creigh Deeds. Will Virginia Beach Democrats go through another year of that campaigning for Nye, who opposes most of what energizes Democratic activists even more than Deeds did?
