Wow. We wish we had bet the mortgage on Creigh Deeds. The payout from his landslide win in the Democratic gubernatorial primary would have allowed us a sweet week in, say, Bermuda or perhaps even Moose Jaw. Deeds won for two essential reasons: He ran the superior campaign and he offered the most reasonable platform. Deeds finished first just about everywhere. He husbanded his resources until late in the race and did not squander a fortune on early, and futile, television buys. The frugality of his operation, dictated in part by circumstance, says something positive about his approach to government. Of the three candidates, Deeds stood closest to the center in a party that is center-left. His planks likely put him a little to the left in a state that is simply center, but during the contest he appeared less inclined to push the ideological buttons. Brian Moran doomed himself by lurching too far. Terry McAuliffe recalled all the worst aspects of the Clinton era. It may be that he never was the serious contender commentators, ourselves included, considered him to be.

Election results

Terry McAuliffe called Creigh Deeds to concede at 8:06 p.m., little more than an hour after the polls closed. About 150 people gathered at an Arlington County hotel for the McAuliffe event.

State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds of Bath County is the Democratic nominee for governor, winning a runaway victory over former Del. Brian J. Moran of Alexandria and Terry McAuliffe of McLean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Republican Bob McDonnell talked schools. Democrats who want to take him on for governor talked about each other. While McDonnell backed charter schools, the Democratic primary fight took another nasty turn yesterday, with Brian J. Moran sharply attacking Terry McAuliffe and R. Creigh Deeds. In a fresh television commercial just days ahead of Tuesday’s primary, Moran presses questions about the origins of McAuliffe’s personal fortune and demeans Deeds for favoring higher fuel taxes for roads.

While three fellow Democrats slug it out for the gubernatorial nomination, Sen. Mark R. Warner is taking a swing at the newly minted Republican ticket, describing it as the “‘No’ camp that didn’t move Virginia forward.“ Warner, usually circumspect in picking partisan fights, blasted GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and attorney general hopeful Ken Cuccinelli for opposing a $1.4 billion tax increase that Warner, as governor, won in 2004 for schools, police and welfare.

Lifted by a new poll showing him creeping ahead after trailing for months, R. Creigh Deeds is flooding Northern Virginia with mail and phone calls, challenging his rivals for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination on their home turf. Terry McAuliffe of McLean and Brian J. Moran of Alexandria yesterday aimed new television commercials downstate and dashed through Richmond, seeking votes ahead of next Tuesday’s primary.

If money talks in politics, voters will be hearing a lot from the three Democratic candidates for governor during the next week. Perhaps Terry McAuliffe will be the loudest, with $1.2 million to spend in the countdown to next Tuesday’s primary. That trumps Brian J. Moran’s $707,000 cash balance and is about twice the nearly $522,000 held by R. Creigh Deeds.

In the final dash to the primary, one Democratic gubernatorial hopeful shopped for votes in a Richmond retail district. Another flooded mailboxes in Northern Virginia. The third dialed for dollars. Former Del. Brian J. Moran of Alexandria hit Carytown, telling small-business owners around a table in Jean-Jacques Bakery and Café that he, too, ran a small business and “had all the headaches that you do.“

Emphasizing jobs, Terry McAuliffe is extending his TV advertising to pricey Northern Virginia in the run-up to the Democratic gubernatorial primary. R. Creigh Deeds is retooling his advertising, weaving into a fresh spot on less costly downstate stations an editorial endorsement by The Washington Post that says the Bath County senator has the best chance of defeating Republican Bob McDonnell.

In July 2007, when Terry McAuliffe was living and breathing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential candidacy 24/7, he squeezed in time as the headliner at a fundraising reception in Alexandria for an unlikely beneficiary: Brian J. Moran. Moran, then-chairman of the Virginia House Democratic Caucus and readying to run for governor, was harvesting dollars for his personal political-action committee. Little did McAuliffe or Moran know, they would become opponents for their party’s gubernatorial nomination.

Democrat Brian J. Moran keeps saying he’s a fighter, and Richmond-area voters will start seeing that today in his opening television ad—an attack on the perceived front-runner for the party’s gubernatorial nomination, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe. McAuliffe, running on the economy, is firing back with a spot in which he declares “false attacks won’t create jobs.“

Sure he was for Hillary Rodham Clinton, but Terry McAuliffe backed Barack Obama for president—and he has videotape to prove it. McAuliffe, who was chairman of the Clinton campaign, is knocking down a radio commercial on black-oriented stations by Democratic gubernatorial rival Brian J. Moran that questions his support of Obama. The McAuliffe-Moran duel, coming three weeks before the primary, spotlights the significance of the black vote in the June 9 balloting.

Pitching for the youth vote with will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas fame, Democrat Terry McAuliffe is unloading some boom, boom, pow on his would-be Republican opponent for governor. While campaigning yesterday with the hip-hop star whose group’s latest tune, “Boom, Boom, Pow,“ is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, McAuliffe attacked former Attorney General Bob McDonnell for defending House of Delegates Republicans’ vote to block $125 million in federal funds for expanded jobless benefits.

Terry McAuliffe is raising the stakes in his Democratic bid for governor, pledging to drive Republicans from their last stronghold of power in the House of Delegates. “I’ve got to have a House of Delegates that agrees with me on these big issues,“ McAuliffe said at town-hall-type meeting last night in Richmond’s Ginter Park with about 70 supporters.