Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and 2008 presidential candidate John McCain are coming to Virginia to help their parties’ candidates for governor. The Democratic vice president will help R. Creigh Deeds at a private fundraiser in Alexandria tomorrow. McCain, a Republican U.S. senator from Arizona, will help rally veterans to support Bob McDonnell at an Oct. 17 rally in Hampton Roads, which has a large population of veterans.

Registrars reported scant activity on the last day to register to vote yesterday. By mid-day, Richmond’s registrar Kirk Showalter was not aware of anyone coming into her office at City Hall to sign up to vote. Her explanation was simple: “Everybody in the world seemed to register last year,“ before the presidential election.

State-tax delinquents can pay up without a fine from Oct. 7 to Dec. 5, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced yesterday. In the two-month period, they will not be penalized and will be charged half the interest rate. If delinquent taxpayers do not pay by Dec. 5, they will be charged full interest and an additional 20 percent penalty. The Virginia Department of Taxation is sending 550,000 notices to businesses and individuals. The average delinquent tax bill is $2,315, said Joel Davidson, a spokesman for the tax department.

For R. Creigh Deeds, the latest setback in his campaign for governor wasn’t so much a plot twist as a rerun. Four years ago in his bid for attorney general, Deeds failed to receive an endorsement from fellow Democrat L. Douglas Wilder. He eventually lost to Republican Bob McDonnell by a mere 360 votes. Now comes Act II of Deeds-McDonnell, and you’d think Deeds would have spent the past four years rehabbing his relationship with Wilder. But Thursday, Wilder again declined to back him.

We’d hoped that this year’s campaign for governor would maintain the reasonably lofty standards Virginia has come to expect from those seeking the commonwealth’s highest office. Politics is a rough business and we understand tough charges from both sides. But the 2009 election is beginning to slide into the sewers—and Creigh Deeds’ campaign is responsible for most of the slippage. The Democratic nominee appears to believe his only hope for victory lies in sliming Republican Bob McDonnell.

The state is giving tax delayers and tax avoiders a chance to pay up without penalty. The state is even putting a smiley face—literally—on a tax amnesty program that it hopes will add $41 million to its cash-strapped coffers. Previous amnesty programs in 1991 and 2003 were threatening, state Tax Commissioner Janie E. Bowen told members of the House Appropriations Committee yesterday.

Democrat R. Creigh Deeds has drawn within 4 percentage points of Republican Bob McDonnell among likely voters, according to a Washington Post poll released yesterday. Deeds, a state senator from Bath County, has gained among women voters and in Northern Virginia as McDonnell’s 1989 graduate school thesis has become an issue in the past three weeks.

The second debate between Democrat R. Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell featured the most pointed and prickly exchanges between the candidates to date. The debate came as a new poll showed the race about even.

Debbie Smith, forced from her Williamsburg home in 1989 and raped in nearby woods, is not an anonymous victim. Her attacker, Norman D. Jimmerson, was caught in 1995 by Virginia’s fourth DNA “cold hit.“ Smith began speaking out publicly for victims and helped lead to congressional passage of the Debbie Smith Act of 2004. In 2006, she decided she needed to meet with Jimmerson, now serving life in prison, and he was willing.

About 200 temporary and wage workers are being let go to save $2.3 million. The Virginia State Police will absorb the brunt of the part-time cuts with a reduction of 104 non-sworn employees.

Another poll shows Bob McDonnell ahead of R. Creigh Deeds for governor—this one, however, by 5 percentage points—with Deeds getting a boost among fellow Democrats from the fallout over McDonnell’s controversial law-school thesis. The Republican apparently leads Deeds, 42 percent to 37 percent, and 20 percent are undecided, according to Clarus Research Group, a nonpartisan polling firm in Washington led by Ronald A. Faucheux, former publisher and editor of Campaigns & Elections magazine.

Both candidates for Virginia governor pledged yesterday that they would not reduce the state’s current level of contribution to the retirement benefits of state employees. Last week, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said the state would defer its quarterly employer contribution to workers’ pensions in the Virginia Retirement System for the last quarter of fiscal 2010. The move is part of a wide-ranging effort to close an anticipated $1.35 billion revenue shortfall in the state budget.

The National Rifle Association yesterday reversed its stance of four years ago and endorsed Republican Bob McDonnell over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor. Chris Cox, chairman of the NRA’s Political Victory Fund, said the organization plans to mobilize its 120,000 Virginia members to vote for McDonnell. Both candidates had sought the endorsement.

A federal judge has overturned the rape and murder convictions of Derek Elliott Tice, one of the “Norfolk Four,“ ruling that his lawyers should have challenged the use of his confession at his trial. Last month, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine granted conditional pardons to Tice and two other former sailors convicted of the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko, 18, in 1997. The fourth was freed from prison in 2005.