Even before the first tallies were in Tuesday night, the sign outside the Westin Richmond Hotel meeting room where the Virginia Democratic Party convened seemed a plea to forget what was about to happen: “Channel Your Energy, Replenish Your Spirit and Embrace The Endless Possibilities The Day Brings,“ it stated. Yesterday, after Republicans had swept Virginia’s statewide offices and captured the New Jersey governor’s office, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine did not sound like he would be leaving his post as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Double-digit victories by Bob McDonnell, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli, the party’s nominee for attorney general, reversed a recent string of defeats for Republicans.

Republican Bob McDonnell is favored by 53 percent, while Democrat R. Creigh Deeds is preferred by 41 percent—a widened lead from an early October survey for the newspaper. Six percent are undecided in the latest poll.

Early November is a busy time. Last-minute hype from candidates begging for votes fills airways and television screens. Politics reach a frenetic crescendo as Americans exercise their right to vote. It is fitting that on Nov. 11, we will stop for a day to honor our veterans who have fought to protect that precious right. This Veterans Day, President Barack Obama will be headed to Singapore for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. But he did recently speak to about 3,500 sailors, Marines, and other service members at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Fla. He eloquently expressed his appreciation to these military members for their service and their sacrifices.

Last year Barack Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Virginia since Lyndon Johnson won the state in 1964. On Tuesday, he led a Norfolk rally to boost the flagging gubernatorial campaign of Creigh Deeds. Deeds confronts a curse that has seen Virginia elect a governor from the party opposite the president in every election since 1977. It has not elected a Democratic governor when a Democrat occupied the White House since 1965. Yet even at this late hour, fate might side with Deeds. Consider the LBJ precedent. The polls show Deeds losing ground, nevertheless.

Having previously distanced himself from the president as a potential liability, R. Creigh Deeds now is embracing Barack Obama in what may be the Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s last chance to shift momentum.

Republican Bob McDonnell enters the countdown to the gubernatorial election comfortably ahead in the latest poll and flush with cash, while Democrat R. Creigh Deeds is looking to a presidential visit today to boost his lagging campaign. On the eve of President Barack Obama’s appearance with Deeds at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, a poll by The Washington Post yesterday showed McDonnell leading by 11 percentage points—55 percent to 44 percent.

R. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic nominee for governor, is promising fattened jobless pay and health insurance for thousands who will be thrown out of work by the shutdown of a paper plant near Franklin. Deeds, who visited the International Paper Inc. factory Thursday, said on a conference call with reporters yesterday that the closing is “just devastating” and will leave a “gap in the landscape of Isle of Wight County.“

Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, trailing in the polls, is getting a late push from President Barack Obama, with a new TV ad, an email plea and an appearance in Hampton Roads slated for a week before Election Day. Deeds, a state senator from Bath County and the Democratic nominee for governor, hopes the infusion will reignite voters who helped Obama become the first Democratic presidential candidate in 44 years to carry Virginia.

Last November, Bernard Peyton, a retired warehouse worker, was excited to cast his ballot in the presidential election. “Barack Obama being an African-American, that’s a natural thing,“ said Peyton, a black Henrico County resident. On Nov. 3, Peyton, 65, plans to vote for R. Creigh Deeds for governor. But he doesn’t detect the same kind of fervor for the state senator from Bath County.

President Barack Obama will make a late campaign appearance with Democratic gubernatorial nominee R. Creigh Deeds a week before Election Day. The time and site of the Oct. 27 appearance will be announced later, the Deeds campaign said. News of the visit ended speculation among some pundits that the president might not make another foray into the contest for fear of losing political capital, because Deeds trails Republican Bob McDonnell in the polls.

President Barack Obama talked up his stimulus package yesterday in Northern Virginia, but he didn’t say a word about the fellow Democrat who could use a boost from the White House: gubernatorial hopeful R. Creigh Deeds. Obama visited the site of the Fairfax County Parkway extension, the biggest project in Virginia financed under the president’s plan to jump-start the economy through massive federal spending.

Nearly half of Virginia voters oppose President Barack Obama’s health-care initiative, according to a Richmond Times-Dispatch poll, which also shows his popularity here fading. Forty-nine percent are against the Obama program, while 39 percent favor it and 12 percent are undecided. The poll, conducted for The Times-Dispatch last Tuesday to Thursday by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, indicates eight in 10 voters fear that a defining feature of the Obama proposal—a public option for health insurance—will drive up their taxes.

The news that President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize inspired almost universal incredulity. Even his most loyal supporters responded with a “what?“ Nobel Prizes often are seen as capstones to careers, recognition of a singular accomplishment, or encouragement for a transformational cause. Many observers describe Obama’s Nobel as a reward not for achievement but for aspiration. Yesterday Obama agreed with the assessment and said he will take the award as a “call to action.“

With a new poll showing Republican Bob McDonnell extending his lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said yesterday that energizing the Virginia voters who supported Barack Obama is a key to Deeds’ chances in the governor’s race. “A way to win is to energize the huge upsurge in Obama’08 voters,“ Kaine said. “We registered an awful lot of people and got a lot of them to turn out.“