Down in the polls and short on cash, gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds is now running as an Obama Democrat. Deeds, hoping to energize his campaign in the closing week of the Virginia race, joined President Barack Obama this afternoon at a rally at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.

Whether Bob McDonnell still believes everything he wrote in his 1989 thesis is a fair question. So is this one: Should Creigh Deeds be the one to ask it? As The Washington Post noted in a recent profile, Deeds often calls himself a “work in progress.“ And indeed, he is notorious for switching positions on several hot-button issues, from gay marriage to the gun-show loophole.

Gov. Tim Kaine, Rep. Jim Moran, former DNC head Terry McAuliffe, Doug Wilder—and no doubt many other influential Democrats—have a message for Creigh Deeds: Tell Virginia what you’re for, not just what you’re against. A Washington Post poll shows Deeds trailing badly. If he is to win, something must change. It may be too late. Deeds’ negativism may have been the campaign’s crucial hinge.

The last full week of September ended with the campaigns of both of Virginia’s candidates for governor claiming victory. Both had reasons to be happy. Three polls released during the past week show that Democrat R. Creigh Deeds has closed the gap with Republican Bob McDonnell to within 2 to 5 percentage points. “It’s a reflection of the fact that people are waking up to the race and responding very well to Creigh’s message and show a healthy amount of skepticism of Bob’s message and his record,“ Deeds senior adviser Mo Elleithee said a conference call with reporters.

The two men who want to be Virginia’s next governor pitched their campaigns to the Richmond-area business community this morning, touting their plans to get the state’s sluggish economy moving again. Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat Creigh Deeds spoke of tax incentives for small businesses, energy issues and their version of a fix for the commonwealth’s economically strangling transportation woes.

Is Bob McDonnell’s thesis fair game? As our editorial, “Thesis Ridiculous” intimated on Tuesday, conservatives who pored over Michelle Obama’s thesis at Princeton hardly have standing to say it isn’t. The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus provides a more recent and more trenchant comparison. “Just a few weeks ago,“ she notes, “Republicans were focused on a single sentence from Justice Sonia Sotomayor about the ‘wise Latina.‘ Then, it made sense to focus on Sotomayor’s sentence, not her copious judicial record. Now, it’s unfair to look at McDonnell’s writings when his legislative history is open for all to see.“

Say what you will about GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, one thing is clear: He’s no Michelle Obama. An Internet search about the first lady’s thesis at Princeton—a passionate study of being black at an Ivy League university—turns up 30 times as many results as a search about McDonnell’s thesis at Regent University. Of course, she was the subject of national scrutiny, while McDonnell’s thesis holds little interest outside the commonwealth.

Veteran politicos have seen some very well-run campaigns in the commonwealth over the years, and some very poorly run campaigns. But perhaps not since Ben “Cooter” Jones tried to unseat 7th District Rep. Eric Cantor have they seen a prominent campaign as odd as that of gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds. Deeds won the Democratic nomination through a combination of political aikido—he let his primary opponents throw haymakers while he glided right past them—and a Washington Post endorsement based in large measure on the belief that Deeds “would make transportation his first priority.“

Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds said yesterday that if the General Assembly passes a bipartisan bill that includes a tax increase to fund Virginia’s transportation needs, he will sign it. But the state senator from Bath County said during an online chat at the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he would not sign a transportation bill that took money from education or other “general fund priorities” to finance the fix.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds yesterday unveiled a plan to jump-start Virginia’s stalled economy that includes a payroll tax refund for every additional employee hired by businesses in the state. Speaking in Roanoke and accompanied by Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., Deeds also proposed increased funding for job training and options for unemployed workers to purchase emergency health insurance.

Joe Biden is the Old Faithful of national politics. Every 90 minutes or so, another torrent of nonsense gushes from his mouth. The vice president was in particularly fine form the other day when he swung through Virginia. During an appearance at J. Sargeant Reynolds, he said the country would go bankrupt without massive expenditures. “People, when I say that, look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?‘ The answer is yes.“

The time for pitching—platforms, position papers, jobs and education plans—is over. Now, it’s all about hitting the bases of support each candidate has to get out the vote. The three men seeking the Democratic nomination for governor will spend the next 72 hours swinging across the commonwealth to energize loyal supporters to go to the polls on Tuesday.

The gubernatorial campaign of state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds has hit a few bumps on the road to the Democratic nomination. On Saturday, an SUV driven by the candidate from Bath County rear-ended another vehicle in Louisa County. And yesterday, campaign officials acknowledged that they have had to trim some campaign staff to help finance more TV advertising in the run-up to the June 9 primary.

Less than a week after House Republicans thwarted his attempt to extend unemployment insurance to more Virginians, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is taking his fight for additional stimulus funds directly to the people. And while he’s at it, he’s taking another shot at GOP lawmakers. “These are Virginians who are struggling to make ends meet and to keep a foothold in a very difficult economy,“ Kaine writes in an e-mail to the mailing list of his political-action committee, Moving Virginia Forward.

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe of McLean will be first on the ballot in the June 9 Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia because he was the first to file more than 10,000 signatures yesterday with the State Board of Elections. Former Secretary of Finance Jody Wagner of Virginia Beach will be first among the Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor.