What Others Say About The Race

The Waynesboro News-Virginian:

Down double digits in the polls, Deeds is launching the campaign equivalent of football's "Hail Mary," attacking Robert F. McDonnell on the subject of abortion after both candidates had vowed to steer wide of social issues . . . .

Deeds' logic, which takes the convoluted form that shapes his strategy, is that McDonnell is "masquerading as a centrist," apparently a reference to the Virginia Beach Republican's focus on the economy. Of course. If the Republican is talking about jobs, it must be diversionary, a puff of smoke to hide the real agenda, to return Virginia to the dark age.

True enough, McDonnell has been a staunch abortion opponent, backing the state ban on partial-birth abortions, parental consent, and 24-hour waiting periods (all stances supported by a fair number of Democrats). Deeds favors parental notification, but otherwise has clung to leftist lines on the subject . . . .

Deeds' attempt to use this as a lever to hoist himself into a campaign in which he is yet to participate significantly evinces a craven political cynicism that we had not foreseen in him.

. . .

Most political candidates spend their time avoiding hot-button social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. That's smart for state candidates, as legislation regarding those topics would fall under the federal government or the U.S. Supreme Court.

Democrat R. Creigh Deeds is proving once again he is no ordinary politician. He is grabbing hold of one of the thorniest issues with the hopes of convincing fence-riding voters that Republican Bob McDonnell is so much an ideologue he would put banning abortion in almost every instance above the vital gubernatorial issues such as jobs, the economy, and transportation.

It's a strategy that is either overwhelmingly risky or decidedly brilliant. We will have to wait until the election to know for sure.

. . .

McDonnell has released a transportation plan heavy with specifics and free of any suggestion that the GOP nominee could be tarred with that most hated of all monikers -- a tax raiser. But you'd be hard-pressed to find many neutral observers who think that a cobbled-together approach like McDonnell's, which includes privatizing ABC stores, is really going to solve the problem . . . .

In the meantime, Deeds is kicking off a campaign to put his opponent on the defensive as a right-winger outside the mainstream on abortion. That's a risky strategy at best for Deeds, and hardly a noble one . . . .